Restore SYSVOL from an Alternate Location
Perform the following procedure to restore SYSVOL authoritatively.
Requirements
- Credentials: local Administrator or Domain Admins
- Tool: N/A
To restore SYSVOL from an alternate location
1. If still in Directory Services Restore Mode, restart in normal mode.
2. Once the system has been rebooted and after the SYSVOL share is published (it may take a few minutes before the SYSVOL share and its sub-folders appear on the domain controller), copy the required files and folders from the SYSVOL directory that was copied to the alternate location to the original location. By doing this, the files that were overwritten are replicated out to the other domain controllers, so that the SYSVOL is the same as that which was present at the time of backup.
Example: restoring SYSVOL from alternate location
The following example shows how to copy the SYSVOL from the alternate location to the original location. Depending on your system, your drive and folder information may vary.
Copy the contents of the scripts directory from:
c:\\sysvol\c_\winnt\Sysvol\Domain\scripts\
And add it to:
c:\Winnt\SYSVOL\Sysvol\domain\scripts\
Copy the contents of the policies directory from:
c:\\sysvol\c_\winnt\Sysvol\Domain\policies\
And add it to:
c:\Winnt\SYSVOL\Sysvol\domain\policies\
By restoring the SYSVOL authoritatively, the files on the restored domain controller will be authoritative for the domain and will replicate to other domain controllers. Changes made to any policy after the backup will be lost.
For example, a Group Policy object by the name of Finance Policy existed at the time of the last backup, and was referenced by a folder in the SYSVOL directory as:
C:\WINNT\SYSVOL\Sysvol\Domain.com\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}
However, shortly after the last backup, an administrator edited the Finance Policy, and although the properties of the GPO changed, the GUID of the GPO remained the same. As a result, the GPO was still referenced by the same directory name {31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}.
When the directory is authoritatively restored, the folder {31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9} from the alternate SYSVOL location was copied to the original SYSVOL location. This replaced the old folder and thus the changes the administrator had made after the backup were lost. This step is necessary, however, to maintain the synchronization between Active Directory and SYSVOL.
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