Hyper-V Server Cannot be Removed from a Non-Existent Domain:
- “The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.”
- “The machine is already joined to the domain”
[floated align=”left”]Hyper-V Server 2012 R2[/floated] is normally used as a member of a domain. It is not uncommon to get in a situation where you need to unjoin/remove the Hyper-V server from the domain it is a member of. If the domain is available and there is normal connectivity, the whole process should be pretty simple. Surprisingly, if the original domain does not exist anymore, you get yourself into a Catch-22 situation – when you try to join the server to a different domain or a workgroup, you get one of the following error messages:
- “The machine is already joined to the domain.”
- “The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.”
As you will see in the following video, the solution to this issue is pretty straightforward – you need to unjoin the server from command line using the FORCE parameter. One small detail, which is often forgotten, is to check whether you have access to the local admin account, and more importantly, whether this account is enabled. Again, this should be performed from command line.
How to Remove a Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 from an Orphaned/Non-Existent Domain
===========================================================================
#Check the list of local user accounts:
NET USER
#Reset the local admin password:
NET USER administrator “THE_NEW_PASSWORD”
#Get the details for a specific account
NET USER administrator
#Enable a disabled user account:
NET USER administrator /active:yes
#Create a new user account:
NET USER HV-Admin “THE_PASS” /add
#Remove a Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 from an orphaned domain
NETDOM REMOVE /d:nonexistentdomain.com HyperV-ServerName /FORCE
You can download the [tip label=”Text File with Commands” style=”1″ href=”https://www.netometer.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/HyperV-12R2-Commands.txt”]Hyper-V-Commands.txt 
[/tip] that we are using in the demo.
- “Discovery Search Mailbox has been corrupted” error when upgrading from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013
- Exchange 2013 – Custom Receive HubTransport Connector Problem
- How to Bulk Create Mailboxes in Exchange 2013
- How to Install Exchange 2013