Monday 18 May 2009

SBS 2003 to 2008 Migration – DCPromo Fails – The wait operation timed out

The following error can be expected during the final steps of the migration process where we are removing the source SBS 2003 box from Active Directory:

image

Active Directory Installation Wizard

The operation failed because:

Failed to configure the service NETLOGON as requested

“The wait operation timed out.”

If this error happens, click OK, then click back to the Welcome in the Active Directory Installation Wizard. Click Next back through the Wizard to restart the process.

The DCPromo demote should run successfully from there. It did for us.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

12 comments:

Mickelsons said...

Amazing! I think this should make it into the migration document to prevent IT folks from disconnecting the Server before it has been fully removed from AD. Completely ridiculous! We saw this error as well and re-ran the process successfully. Thanks for the help.
-Scott

Tim Barthelman said...

We also had first round error and had to run dcpromo a second time to have it complete the demotion successfully. Thanks for the tip! (again)

Anonymous said...

Im sitting here after 2 days and I am tired. You helped me from having my first heart attack :)
God Bless and thank you

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info, I also had a cold moment when the error first appeared. On the second run all seems to be runnig ok now.

Nice One! :o)

Michael Green said...

Just had the same problem - and same fix. Thanks.

It would be nice if Microsoft could tell us what could cause this .......

Anonymous said...

Great find!. Thanks helped me too.

Anonymous said...

thanks heaps - also had a "oh cr@#" moment... ! Thanks MS

Anonymous said...

This is a catch 22 scenario. Point the DNS of this server to another AD server before demoting this one. The server timed out because it couldn't locate another AD server to complete the demotion.

Anonymous said...

Amazing, life saver

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for sharing this tip with everybody! I saved me from wasting hours of troubleshooting!

Anonymous said...

Another vote for changing the DNS on the network adapter to point to the new DC before demotion

Anonymous said...

Wicked guys - thanks so much - you rock and you saved us a huge headache!