Question on Migration from NT 4.0 to W2K

[Katyan]

Hi everyone, I'm just looking for a few pointer about upgrading/moving from a Windows NT domain environment to a Windows 2000 Active Directory environment. Are there any issues I should be particually concerned with? I do plan to keep 1 server running NT, for I need to maintain connectivity with an AS400. And although I've read that it's best to upgrade your existing PDC to Windows 2000, we are planning to replace that machine, so how would I move the SAM to the new Window 2000 server's active Directory?

Thanks in advance.

[gunderstone]

Off the top of my head, the best way to do this is to promote the PDC to a Windows 2000 AD server and then to also install the replacement system into the new 2000 domain as well.

When you do this all of the information that is available in the Active Directory is replcated to that new domain controller as well.

You would then need to transfer all of the FSMO (operations master) roles to the new DC and then you could take the old DC (that was the original PDC) offline.

Its more involved than that but in a nut shell that it what needs to be done.

Additional information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/deploy/cookbook/default.mspx - the Windows 2000 Server Domain Migration Cookbook is a must read for what yuo're attempting to do there

[Katyan]

Sorry for the late response, but thanks so much for the feedback

[minhphuoc275]

hi all,
Is there anyway to copy data from old AD to new AD (don't use replicate and FMSO)?

[gunderstone]

Hi minhphuoc275,

I am not 100% sure what it is you're trying to do specifically but I don't believe it is possible (at least I am not aware of a way).

[minhphuoc275]

hi gunderstone,
I mean "backup data from media", do you know that? the old windows backup system state or somethings store AD to device (tape, HDD or CD), then we setup new computer with new OS and can we restore data AD from backup device. And if we can, how to do that? i know the way we use transfer master roles but in case your old server had crashed, you have only backup data, how to do that?

[gunderstone]

If you need to do that I believe that you can by way of an authoritative restore but I don't think that it is supported.

What you'd probably need to do in that type of scenario is repair the downed DC and then restore it.

Are you running with at least two DCs? (That is a recommended best practice). If so all of your data would be current on the second DC - all you would need to do is repair the hardware damaged DC and then replicate or promote a new system to a DC. (If the forest root / domain root DC was the one that went offline you'd need to sieze the FSMO roles and then rebuild, not repair, the other DC and then promote it to the DC role)