PCTech Forums

I have a small network at home with 2 win2k3 servers (One is a domain controller, the other a member server), and 2-3 XP Pro workstations.
Last night we had a power cut. So this morning when the power came back on I boot up my server (Win2k3), and nothing. One of the windows files is corrupt. So I restore an Image of the OS using Acronis, and after booting up once, successfully, it then told me that there was a corrupt file in that installation too!!! So I reckon the power cut must have buggered my HDD, and is making all these files corrupt.

So I now have 2 questions, the first of which is rather more urgent than the second.

Q1. As the network is no longer available, I cannot log onto my workstation using my domain account (Which has local admin rights). How do I regain access to my workstation???

Q2. The server is running win2k3 Enterprise, which is a bit resource hungry, and I was thinking of changing it to standard edition. So my question is this.
Is there any way for me to install win2k3 as a domain controller, with 4 other pcs on the network, without having to add them to the domain again??? Can I use the same domain as all these pcs are allready a member of (Just that their Domain Controller is dead)???
Will I just have to start again, and set everything up as before???
Any suggestions what to do???

For the workstations, reboot them and press F8 on boot. Choose Safemode. You can then log in as Administrator and add a local user to the machine with Admin rights and do what you need to do.

For the server, you will have to readd those machines to the domain. Each PC gained a unique PID. That PID wil not be on the new server since you have just reformated. It should be a painless thing though to readd them. Less then 3 minutes a PC.l

Just log into the workstation locally rather than through the domain..

at the login screen.. if you don't have 3 boxes.. click the Options button.. this will bring up a 3rd box with the domain name in it.. change this to the local computer.. and then log in as administrator..

you can now do whatever you want to..

and Dave is correct.. if you create a new domain.. even one with the same name.. you still need to add each workstation to it correctly before it will work..