What to do when the Domain Controller Can’t find its domain!
PROBLEM:
Users unable to login to the domain – DCs not replicating
RESOLUTION:
=> Set the RPC Locator service to Automatic and started on the PDC.
=> Still DCdiag gave errors of 1355.
=> Ran dcdiag on both PDC and BDC – both showed problems with sysvol and netlogon shares
=> Checked and found that both servers did not have sysvol and netlogon shared
=> Found that the SYSVOL was shared as SYSVOLa – unshared it as it looked like manually shared.
=> Checked the PDC server and found that the Policies and Scripts were under the NTFRS-PRE-Existing folder
=> Stopped FRS Service on the BDC and PDC servers
=> Backed the policies and scripts from ntfrs-pre-existing folders to a folder on the desktop on PDC
=> Copied it on to the SYSVOL\sysvol folder
=> Started the FRS Service only on PDC
=> The sysvol and netlogon shares did not get created.
=> Stopped FRS Service again on PDC
=> On registry modified the following :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters\Backup/Restore\Process at Startup
Burflags value to d4
=> Started the FRS service on PDC
=> Got Event id : 13516 NTFRS on the PDC File replication service event log
=> On the BDC modified the registry :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters\Backup/Restore\Process at Startup
Burflags value to d2
=> Started FRS Service on BDC
=> Got Event id : 13516 NTFRS on the BDC File Replication service event log
=> Checked replication using repadmin /syncall – looks fine on both servers
=> Ran dcdiag /q on BDC and got no errors
=> Ran dcdiag /q on PDC and got one warning of 13508 and 13509 being reported on the eventlogs
=> Restarted FRS service on the PDC and reran dcdiag /q – got no errors now
=> All looks fine
I researched the Event ID received from the following portion of a dcdiag on PDC:
Starting test: FsmoCheck
Warning: DcGetDcName(GC_SERVER_REQUIRED) call failed, error 1355
A Global Catalog Server could not be located – All GC’s are down.
Warning: DcGetDcName(TIME_SERVER) call failed, error 1355
A Time Server could not be located.
The server holding the PDC role is down.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/ce8890cf-ef46-4931-8e4a-2fc5b4ddb0471033.mspx?mfr=true
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/b43a025f-cce2-4c82-b3ea-3b95d482db3a1033.mspx?mfr=true
At first I believed the problem to be related to users being unable to access the PDC’s time server service. It appears that all systems were referring to the BDC for time server requests in the domain. RJ initiated a call to Microsoft (case#SRX080624601401), and I discussed some of the symptoms we were seeing to an AD technician. Here are some of the things we discovered upon closer review of the PDC:
*Sysvol’s share name was Sysvola
*Netlogon share does not exist
*RPC Locator service was set to manual startup type and was stopped
