Hello,
I was in the middle of doing a lifecycle replacement swapping out 2003 servers for 2008 R2 servers. I promoted my 2 Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controllers. I tried to demote my Windows 2003 SP1 server and kept getting lsass errors and crashing my domain controller. After the lsass errors I simply turned off the domain controller and did a ntdsutil meta data cleanup on that domain controller. Unfortunately we installed the McAfee managed client on the new domain controllers and broke the secure link so I had to demote them. After fixing the problem, I tried to promote them again and I keep getting lsass errors and the Windows Server 2003 SP1 domain controller blue screens so I need to bring the other 2003 server back online.
My question is, when I turn on the 2003 domain controller, will it continue as a domain controller even after metadata cleanup? The only reason I ask is because when I did metadata clean up it prompted with a message that if I turn the domain controller back on it will be revived.