Can't delete non-child domain

Question

I have a domain that I can't remove. It's not a child-domain of our primary domain, it's separate... possibly a trusted domain which no longer exists. Under AD domains and trusts, it is listed as:

• domainA.local
• > child.domainA.local
• domainB.local

domainB is no longer needed, and its domain controllers are no longer on the network.

I can't find a way to remove it from our system. It doesn't show under incoming or outgoing trusts.

The DCs in domainA log events about not being able to find writeable sources for this domain/partition.

Answer 1

Hello @Mark-1873 ,

Thank you so much for posting here.

Agree with Dave, we could follow the below article to remove orphaned domains from Active Directory. When following the steps, it could list all the domains including the parent domain, child domain and domain tree. For example:

There could be problems in step 13 with this kind of error:

“DsRemoveDsDomainW error 0x2015(The directory service can perform the requested operation only on a leaf object.)”

If you were to get this error it means that there are still objects in this domain (naming context) and to remove them you can always do it by ntdsutil commands.

For more information, we could refer to:
https://www.itxperience.net/en/come-rimuovere-un-sottodominio-morto-senza-domain-controller-da-active-directory/

Hope the information is helpful. We could kindly have a check whether it could solve the issue. If we still have any concerns or questions, or this issue is a little urgent, as suggested, we could contact Microsoft Customer Services and Support to get an efficient solution.

Thank you so much for your understanding and support.

Please note: Information posted in the given link is hosted by a third party. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of information.

Best regards,
Hannah Xiong

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