Replacing a Win2K BDC.

Hi all, this is my first time here posting a question, and I hope any of you can help me in it.

I have an AD running on a Win2K domain. 1 PDC and 1 BDC. Both running Win2K.

My boss has just assigned me the task to replace the hardware for the BDC.

Given this scenario, is it alright if I....

Connect the new BDC to the domain and promote it to BDC (which means at this point, I will have 1 PDC and 2 BDCs). Then transfer all the files from old BDC to this new BDC. Set all the file and printer sharings and permissions exactly the same as the old BDC.

Afterwhich, confirm everything works fine, remove the old BDC (do I need to demote it before taking it offline?) and that's all.

Do you think this is the best and safest way to replace a server with new hardware?

Any comments?

 

They're not called PDCs and BDCs in Windows 2000; they're just Domain Controllers (DCs) although one will be a "PDC Emulator ". Your plan to bring the new DC online will work fine.

Install Windows on the server.
Run DCPromo to promote the server to a DC.
Copy across any data as necessary (you can copy the data and preserve file permissions using a program like XCopy - this will save manually configuring permissions).
Configure Shares.
Configure Printers.
Run DCPromo on old server to demote it.
Take old server offline.