How do i restore Windows Server 2003 R2 Active directory - Getting error 0xc00006a

Question

I have a customer that has experienced a catastrophic failure of their Windows Server 2003 R2 active directory server. This was the sole AD controller on the network. The hard drive died completely.

I have a backup made using MozyPro that contains all the AD and registry files/Sysvol etc.

I have set up a new virtual machine in Hyper-V to use as new domain controller. I have installed Windows Server 2003 R2 on the machine and installed all required updates to bring the machine up to date.

I then installed Active Directory Role on the machine, reboot into active directory repair mode, replace files including NTDS.dit with the versions in the backup downloaded from MozyPro.

Upon rebooting the machine I get the following error message: "Directory services could not start because of the following error: The specified network password is not correct. Error Status: 0xc00006a." etc. The machine then reboots. I can still get into Active Directory Repair Mode.

Anybody out there know how to fix this?

Answer 1

Oh wow. You can't just restore a failed Active a directory domain with a file-level backup. If this was your only Domain Controller, you really need a bare metal restore or to jump through a lot of unsupported hoops.

If you had a system state backup and recreated the disk/OS layout of the old server and did an authoritative restore of AD after doing a system state recovery and file level recovery, then this would probably work as well.

It's not enough to just copy ntds.dit back to the old location.