Ok, first a brief synopsis of this network.
1. We have the Enterprise DC in the U.S. and it is the Schema master and the Domain Naming Master. We can never seize the Schema from it.
2. I work in the Middle East and we have one root DC here and 3 other Domain Controllers. We have 2 DC's in remote sites.
3. We had to remove a DC the other day and when we ran dcpromo we got the following error.
The Operation failed because:
Active Directory Domain Service could not transfer the remaining data in directory partition DC=DomainDnsZones,DC=example, to Active Directory Domain Controller \\exampleDC1\...............
"The directory service is missing mandatory configuration information, and is unable to determine the ownership of floating single-master operation roles.
So because of that we had to run dcpromo /forceremove
Afterwards I followed the article here http://support.microsoft.com/?id=216498 to remove the metadata.
Now when I go to the Schema into DC2 it shows the current Schema master. When I right click and change to another server I get this.
"The schema FSMO holder could not be found. Schema modifications can only be made on the schema FSMO holder"
I try to change to any of our other 4 DC's and I get the same error.
When I open Schema on those DC's I get this.
Current Schema Master (Offline)
Error
That is not true because that resides in the states as I mentioned above and it never goes offline.
What is possibly related is when I try to do a replicate with our root DC that fails with the error below.
"The following error occurred during the attempt to synchronize naming context conus.cano.com to from Domain Controller RDC3 to Domain Controller DC1: The naming context is in the process of being removed or is not replicated from the specified server." This operation will not continue.
I think somehow this might be pointing at the Root DC. Our DC3 has all of the other 3 roles and is our primary DNS server.
So to sum it up
DC1 - Current Schema Master (Offline): Error
DC2 - Can see the Schema Master fine
DC3 - Current Schema Master (Offline): Error
DC4 - Current Schema Master (Offline): Error
DC5 - Current Schema Master (Offline): Error
Also when I go to AD and search for one of our larger Groups, all of the members in that group show as SIDs only.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks