Small Business Server 2k - Advice please

[goal]

Any advice appreciated,

I've not really had much to do with SBS up until now, however the needs has arisen to move a system running SBS 2000 to completely new hardware.

After researching this somewhat, I've come up again the following un-answerable question, if anyone can help me resolve these, it would be very much appreciated:

- How to retain the Domain information (users etc) when moving hardware (as this obviously requires a complete re-install of the OS).

This would normally not be an issue, however SBS seems to have many restrictions...(please correct if wrong)...

- You cannot have more than one machine running SBS on the same network.
- You cannot make a SBS a BDC on a network with a plain NT/2k box as a PDC
- You can, however, make a plain NT box become BDC on a network where SBS is a PDC.

I am therefore unable to see a solution where all security information of files etc. and just as importantly the domain information (users etc) can be kept. Copying to an intermediate NT box is not possible because you cannot re-introduce the new SBS box into an environment where the intermediate NT box is a PDC.

Ok, so 'make the NT box a BDC' I hear you say, well, how do we then make the domain information replicate from the temporary NT BDC to the new SBS PDC (surely thats reverse?).

So, as you can see, this is proving a little complicated. Can anyone help by shedding some light on how this might be solved.

Thanks in advance,
Andy Fletcher.

 

[JamesBoag]

Andy, it's well over 12 mths now since you posted your query about moving your 2K SBS to new hardware and I was wondering if you ever had any success. I have found myself in the same boat.

Cheers

 

[SerialCoder]

I have the same Dilema at the moment. Only I have complicated things by adding other DC's to the domain. I was doing an upgrade from SBS 4.5 to 2K and the install failed horribly. After I installed clean, The machine crashed again. So I abandoned that Box and installed on a Dell P4 (Workstation) beacuse I had less that 18 hours to have my network back up. I have since joined my File server and Database server to the domain and everything is running well.

No I have my original Box that I need to re-attach to the domain as the SBS server and kick off the other sbs server.

Through all of this, I think I might have figured out how... When you run the SBS install it first installs a straight win2k (non AD) install. Then you can cancel the rest of the SBS install. I think at this point you can join manually introduce AD and make the box join the an existing domain and you would have all of the users replicated. Then if you finish the SBS install, it should complete with all of the users intact.

I am goint to attempt this on a junk box this week to see if it works.

Regards,
Dave

 

[GlenJohnson]

Why not start with upgrading nt to w2k, make it a dc, then bring the new box on board. When you upgrade nt, it will take users and groups and create ad users and computers, etc. All nt stuff will convert to ad. Once your done with the upgrade, making sure all is well with the world, then bring the new box up, make it a ad dc also, and then sync the two. You can then run dcpromo on the old box, make it a plain server, and take it off the network. Good luck all.

Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting

http://www.johnsoncomputers.us

"The best fire does not flare up the soonest."
George Eliot (1819-1880); Englist novelist.

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