What would be the roll back plan after DC demotion?

Question

Hi All,

I would like to understand the actions to be taken as a Rollback Plan for AD Demotion.

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi Garima Das

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

1. If the DC is not the last one in your domain, and you demoted it without doing metadata cleanup:

Please promote the server again to roll back.
Or add a new server to the domain and promote it as DC.

2. If the DC is not the last one in your domain, and you demoted it with metadata cleanup:

You can choose restoring a DC through reinstallation or nonauthoritative restore of a DC, then promote the server to roll back.

Performing a Nonauthoritative Restore of a Domain Controller: Active Directory | Microsoft Learn

Restoring a Domain Controller Through Reinstallation: Active Directory | Microsoft Learn

3. If the DC is the last one in your domain：

You need to backup before demotion and do the AD restore to roll back.

Managing Active Directory Backup and Restore: Active Directory | Microsoft Learn

Restore Active Directory from backup: Active Directory | Microsoft Learn

Hope the information above is helpful.

If you have any question or concern, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Daisy Zhou

Answer 2

For a single domain controller? You'll need a full backup to restore from.

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Answer 3

Hi @Garima Das

If you have many domain controllers in your forest and you want just demote one domain controllers there two way for the rollback :

1. If you will perform a AD demotion using GUI or powershell or dcpromo command (in windows 2008 R2), You can promote again if you want perform a rollback.
2. When you perform a demotion using metadata cleanup method, in this case you have to rebuild the server from scratch (reinstall OS) then promote it again.

In the case when you want demote the last domain controller in your forest, you have to restore it from a backup for the rollback.

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