Reggie Nolan wrote:
> I have a new client who had his Dell SBS 2003 R1 server go down due to a bad hard drive. His Network is comprised of 1 Server, 5 XP Workstations. His previous IT either did not document his system or took it with him when he disappeared. Also there are no backups.
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> He initially brought me his server to repair, because it wouldn't boot. After verifying that the hard drive was bad, I reinstalled SBS based on info I gathered from the client. By doing this I didn?t account for 2 things.
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> One was I didn't take into account the 5 workstations already in place as well as the current users for those workstations, things like profiles, applications, printers, etc. When I tried to add the computers to the network (http://ServerName/ConnectComputer) it didn?t work.
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> I'm trying to add these workstations and users to the new server without the users having issues. My question is, is there a way that I can pull information from the workstations to figure out how to properly the server. DNS, Computer name.. etc. So that they can rejoin the network as though the server never left? No. You have been told that can't be done. The old network information,
in particular the security IDs, is gone forever. You *must* remove the
PCs individually from the old domain to workgroup mode, then you can
join them to the new domain. It's not as if there are dozens. I can't
remember if it's actually necessary to remove the computer accounts from
the server, and replace them, but I'd do it as a matter of course.
Always try to minimise any foreseeable trouble...
The move to workgroup should leave the profiles in place, and you should
be offered an option by connectcomputer to import a local profile. If
this doesn't happen, there is a utility for importing a local profile
into the domain afterwards. With XP you might get away with a certain
amount of manual copying, but I'd try to do it Microsoft's way first.
You should be able to retain the computer name at both mode changes, and
you never put any TCP/IP information into an Active Directory client
computer. Leave it to get all TCP/IP configuration automatically,
including DNS.
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> Secondly I built the server at home using a private address in the 192 range. His workstations were of course in a different range (10.36...) I think I made more problems for myself while trying to change the server DCHP and scope range on the server. You do that with the Change IP address wizard, which sorts out all of that.
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> Also, I noticed that the Server has 2 nics (1 onboard and pci). The PCI nic is listed as the Local Server. Does it matter which nic is used? The PCI nic is listed as "Local Server". His setup is as follows. Cable Modem, Linksys standard router, switch, Server. You can run the CEICW wizard after disabling one of the NICs in the
BIOS, which tells you for sure which NIC is still in use. Or you can
just run the CEICW and tell it there is one NIC, and find which one is
used by experiment.
What you are trying to do is not well documented, as it's exactly what
IT administrators try desperately to avoid. It's enough of a pain when
you do have a backup, and I'm sure your client will now see that a few
safety precautions are indicated.
Possibly you would see replies rather more easily if you use news
reading software to read newsgroups. I'm not aware of any web-based news
gateways which work well. Yours and the Indian one seem particularly flaky.
--
Joe