I am currently building a new domain for our company site, using 2008 R2 (old 2003 SBS dying). Less than 25 users at this location. 1. I have DHCP set up using split scope config for load balancing purposes 80/20 (mainly testing at this point). All scope data has properly been copied to secondary DCHP via gui configuration (exclusions, etc). Testing dhcp with Hyper-v vm's. However, when I stop dhcp service on primary server, then secondary will not pick up new requests. I get a message on client machine that it cannot locate dhcp server. All other services run well, such as DNS, DFS file replication and AD user authentication. 2. Kind of weird issue (not too familiar with this one, lol) Roaming profiles not loading if primary server is down either. I have copied to profile folder to the secondary server via dfs, but not sure how to get clients to point here if primary goes down. Thanks in advance.

Hi dariog, Thanks for posting here. So you were manually configure the DHCP split scope before? Try to clean the current DHCP configurations on your secondary DHCP and reconfigure it by using the build-in wizard if the secondary DHCP server is also running Windows server 2008 R2 and see how is going: How to configure split-scope using wizard http://blogs.technet.com/b/teamdhcp/archive/2009/01/22/how-to-configure-split-scope-using-wizard.aspx For roaming profile issue, have you enabled the offline feature on client yet ? Folder Redirection Overview http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732275.aspx Roaming profiles and Folder Redirection with Offline Files on the same DFS Domain Namespace http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverDS/thread/acea79eb-41e5-4503-9670-87f3351d223c Thanks. Tiger Li Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Tiger, This is a brand new build we are playing with, and eventually going to use once we get rid of 2k3 SBS. Both servers are running 2k8 R2. I am setting up split scope for the first time. Although it is not a required option for us since we are such a small office, but we would like to use as much load balance and redundancy as possible due to the nature of the business. Figured we would give it a try. The initial setup was via the split scope wizard and it seemed to get setup properly. Secondary dhcp server got auto-configured with the exceptions needed for the scope, but during testing server 2 did not hand out ip's once I disabled the service on server 1. I am using Hyper-V virtual machines as clients to test the usual scenarios but get "unable to contact/locate dhcp server" messages from the clients when trying to release/renew ip addresses. Once I restore the service on server 1, it works without error. Yesterday, the boss upgraded the hard drives on the servers in question, so a complete rebuild will be in the works starting today (as I said we are testing and prepping for eventual cut-over). I would like to try to get this going as soon as possible, if possible. I don't think DNS is the issue as that data has passed over through replication. If I physically shut down server 1, I can still browse the web and search my internal network from server 2. Thanks again.Dario Garcia

Hi Dario, Do you also get the same result after rebuild the DHCP fail-over with split scope designing by the wizard on these two Windows server 2008 R2 hosts ? If any update please feel free and let us know. Thanks. Tiger Li Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

These all were set up using the wizard. I did not manually set up anything.Dario Garcia