Post date: Apr 01, 2014 9:8:26 AM
The Problem
"The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed."
Most of the information online regarding this article gives you the simple fix, which we all know and dread to hear. Remove the computer from the domain, reboot, remove the machine account from AD, then re-join the domain. (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162797) It's quick and simple enough, and works... most of the time, but what if you're not talking about a workstation. What if this is your Exchange server, as it is in my case, or SQL, or pretty much any Microsoft server product, which depends on a domain & can not be removed without having to uninstall the server software?
The Solution
The solution is actually pretty easy, assuming you are able to login to the server with a local Administrator account.
1.Log in to the impacted server with a local administrator account. (You do have your local admin account password right?)
2.Launch a command window using the Run As Administrator option.
3.From the command prompt, run:
>netdom resetpwd /s:DC.domain.com /ud:domain\Administrator /pd:"password"
•/s = FQDN of the domain controller running the PDC Emulator Service.
•/ud = Domain Administrator Account
•/pd = Passord for the Domain Administrator Account
Restart your server, and log in using your domain account to verify all the services started properly.
This solution will work with many Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 servers. For Windows 2003 servers, you may need to install the Support Tools from your installation media.