Convert Windows 2000 BDC to PDC After PDC Failure

Despite the fact that most of the administration and setup used to setup the domain was all pretty much GUI based, it takes an unintuitive command line utility to change managing domain controllers after a PDC failure.

If you want to change the PDC and the PDC is still alive, you can change 3 of the roles from the Active Directory Users and Computers management console. Simply right click on the domain and select operations masters. You can change the roles to another server there.

This KBA explains the steps required to seize or transfer control from one domain controller to another. This is the only way I know to transfer roles when the PDC is gone.

As a warning, if you seize control from the PDC, that PDC will need to be completely reformated. Pretty cool huh?