Restoring a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller

Chris -- The BESR restoration process essentially recovers a DC to the state it existed in at the time the image was captured.  There shouldn't be any need to go through the non-authoritative restore process.

Since you are replacing a drive in an existing computer, the process should be straightforward.  The instructions for the older versions of BESR and LiveState Recovery are still valid.  Since you do not have a Win2000 DC, you can skip the ntbackup routine, but it won't harm anything to run it anyway.  Version 8.52 can handle imaging of Win2003 DC's just fine.  Since you are recovering to the same hardware, but with a new disk (bare metal)  you don't need to use Restore Anyware.

If you have another domain controller in your domain, you may want to transfer any FSMO roles to it temporarily before imaging and replacing the drive in failing DC.  My comments here would probably apply:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/recovery-domain-controller

If this is the only domain controller you have,  then you'll at least have the failing drive on hand in case the restoration goes sour.  You may also want to select the advanced option to ignore bad sectors while copying when imaging the failing drive.  It would also be a good idea to run CHKDSK /r on the recovered drive afterward.  This will take some time because the /r option also checks the data an free space portions of the drive in addtion to the structures that the /f option checks.  The /r option implies /f.

There really isn't much available for step by step guides for restoring DC's since each domain is different.  There are general guidelines, but the best thing you can do is replicate your DC's in a lab (which BESR makes easy to do) and develop your own step by step procedures.  I've commented frequently on DC recovery, so you can track my posts for some links and guidelines that will help with the process.

Besy of luck

Marco