Fatal Error (dcpromo) when trying to migrate SBS 2003 to SBS 2008

[Olsson@discussions.microsoft.com Eric Olsson]

I am trying to do a test migration of our company server to 2008 so that we
can get familiar with the process. The SBS 2003 box has SP2, and I have run
the SourceTool setup on the server. When I do the migration with the answer
file, it gets towards the end of the installation and then comes up with a
message saying a fatal error has occured. I can click to view the error, and
it reports:

FATAL: DcPromo_JoinDomain: The server was not promoted to a domain controller.

I saved the other error logs that were created and also found an error that
is probably related:

[3352] 080702.164651.1868: Task: dcpromo returned ExitPromoDemotFailed (54)
[3352] 080702.164651.2025: Task: Error: DCPromo failed. You can find the
output of dcpromo at "C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business
Server\Logs\DCPromo_080702.164522.log"
[3352] 080702.164651.2025: Task: Deleted the secure registry key.
[3352] 080702.164651.2181: Task: In Task DcPromo_JoinDomain: The server was
not promoted to a domain controller.

I do not know what is going on and would like to get this to work. After
the error I click Finish and it logs me into Server 2008, but I have a
feeling I am missing some important setup steps. The only other thing that
stood out in the log files was that the gateway that I specified in the
answer file could not be pinged. This is because the router is not set up
yet, as we are using a dual NIC configuration on the SBS 2003 SP2 box.

Any help is appreciated.

- Eric Olsson

[Jasper]

I ran in the same problem setting up a testserver. It looks like SBS 2008
looks at the network and wants to be the DC if it finds another server. I
disconnected my test server from the network all the time during
installation. Since the installation expects the network card to be connected
to a network I connected it to an empty switch. Setup worked fine after that.

[Martin]

iis there any further update on this? currently getting the same problem
migrating from sbs2003 to sbs2008 which I'm installing on hyper-v. host is
running in domain and guest (sbs2008) is using legacy network adaptor with
answerfile on vfd. all runs faultless but then fails at dcpromo join domain
point.
clearly disconnecting sbs2003 is self defeating or is there a suggestion i
change to an empty switch after early part of install?

any thoughts appreciated

martin

[Joshua]

I ran into this issue after the first attempt failed. The help file said to
fix the issue and re-start the installation/migration. So I fixed the issue
and moved onto a second attempt. On the second attempt I ran into this
dcpromo error. I checked on the old server to only find that it had record
of the new server as a DC. So I went through a process to rid the old server
of this data. I tried the installation/migration again to only received a
similar dcpromo error but differed from the one before. It stated that the
old server wasn't setup right for the process it was trying to run (dcpromo)
and that there were some permission issues. From there I'm assuming that I
have to re-run the prep tool to get it to go. I haven't had a chance to test
it yet; but will post the result here if it worked for me.

Not sure if this what you guys are running into or not. But hopefully it
may trigger and idea or two.

Joshua

[Martin]

Further update

Went back to first principles - Hyper V installed on standard server
attached to Workgroup - though also into the same LAN and picking up from the
same IP range as SBS2003

Install of SBS2008 as first virtual machine with answer file on a vfd.

Hit the dcpromo error every time (may be a 1250 error accessing SBS2003) ...
but if I press finish can then run dcpromo which is fine EXCEPT it reports
problem with the DNS Parent.

Confirm the SBS2003 is running on single NIC and addressing router at
192.168.16.1 - DNS configured on SBS2003 (running through ISA 2004 with
updated RPC filter to allow DCOM)

Running two NICs on new server - second NIC configured as to deal with
virtual lan - and setting up virtual machine with both legacy network adaptor
and network adaptor set to virtual lan.

What else - on running DCPROMO and selecting join Domain says that DNS is
already installed but queries using a dynamic ip address (i.e. one of DHCP
server on 2003 ... though I have done a nomination of this to 192.168.16.200)

Also have checked that SBS2003 is FSMO owner and confirm that adprep
/rodcprep successfully runs on SBS2003

SBS2008 lacks the migration wizard and reports DHCP not started ... so am
not really thinking its a good idea to try and complete manually as I suspect
that I'll just head into further errors. So what else do I need to check on
the SBS2003 - is it user account delegation or what.

Finally - the wizard is using the sbs2003 administrator account and I have
checked the permissions as per the MS Migration guide documentation

[Jombi]

I finally figured out a solution to this - hopefully it will work for you
guys too.

For whatever reason, the Administrator built-in account in my domain wasn't
a member of the Schema Admins. But the SBS 2008 migration wizard doesn't
prompt you for a new password if you define the Administrator as the user to
join the SBS to the domain. But if you put in another Domain admin account,
you get a prompt saying "The user account does not have the permissions that
it needs to join the domain: Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, Schema Admins."

After I added my Domain Admin account to the Schem Admins group, the
migration continued.

Hope this helps,

[ForeverNoub]

No good... My admin account is already a member of those groups.

[pong@discussions.microsoft.com dan pong]

try looking at this I just run into that problem yesterday and I run the
process about 6 times which it took me couple hours before I found out the
problem. The ISAM service is not started properly. As soon as I make sure
that the ISAM started, Everything went ok.

Dan

[cal]

hi
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