I have a Domain Controller with a Tombstone Lifetime that has exceeded. How do I bring it back online?

Hello,

The safest way to deal with a DC that has exceeded its tombstone lifetime is to demote it and promote a new DC.

If you demote a DC, perform metadata cleanup to ensure that all references to the old DC are removed from Active Directory.

Clean up AD DS server metadata | Microsoft Learn

Then once the cleanup has replicated you can join the DC back to the domain and promote it again.

I hope the information above is helpful.

Best Regards,

Yanhong Liu

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Restore it to an isolated network - and don't connect it to you production network

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hth

Marcin