How to do a metadata cleanup for the removal of a failed domain controller from your AD

By Mariette Knap metadata, ntdsutil

There is an easy way to do a metadata cleanup of a failed DC. Last week I had a customer who tried to introduce a new replica DC that should be used in a migration project from an old SBS to something new. Previously he had the SBS as his PDC and another DC as a backup DC. That backup DC died so he turned it off and did not bather anymore about that. As soon as he tried to introduce a new replica DC trouble began because he could not promote that new DC to become a Domain Controller, it was looking for that failed DC.

We need to remove the failed DC first from the Active Directory. In our case it was DC02 that was no longer around but listed as a DC and GC. Here is how we remove that failed DC.

For a quick overview let’s have a look at Active Directory Sites and Services what DC’s we have and what the name of the containers are.
Open an elevated Command Prompt
Type ‘ntdsutil’.
```
ntdsutil
```
Type ‘metadata cleanup’.
```
metadata cleanup
```
Type ‘remove selected server CN=DC02,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=numinous,DC=local’. You need to change the server name and domain name to your own situation. If you have changed the 'Default-First-Site-Name' to something else you need to change that also. Read the popup carefully and if you agree that you are removing the correct server click Yes.
```
remove selected server CN=DC02,CN=Servers,CN=Default-First-SiteName,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=numinous,DC=local
```
You can ignore the ‘Element not found message’.
Type 'quit'.
```
quit
```
And type ‘quit’ again.
```
quit
```
Type ‘shutdown /r /t 0’ to reboot the server immediately.
```
shutdown /r /t 0
```