I was tasked with migrating from 2008 to 2012 R2 DCs. The new DC had been promoted. FSMO had been transferred. Dcdiag and repadmin looked good…no signs of issues.
However, when I went to demote the old DC, I received the following error:
The operation failed because:
Active Directory Domain Services could not transfer the remaining data in directory partition DC=ForestDNSZones,DC=DOMAIN,DC=LOCAL to Active Directory Domain Controller {New DC}.
“The directory service is missing mandatory configuration information, and is unable to determine the ownership of floating single-master operation roles.
My Google-fu was strong that day and I came across this:
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2011/03/ad-ds-operation-failed-directory.html
Sure enough, correcting the FSMO owner references from a long gone DC to the current FSMO role holder resolved the issue.
JUSTIN | BLOG 