JSI Tip 3765. DCPromo fails with 'Overlapped I/O Operation Is in Progress'?

When you attempt to promote a member server to a domain controller, you receive:

Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.

If you have a 3rd party real-time backup product installed on the member server, it can interfere with with the Active Directory Installation Wizard during the creation of the SYSVOL folder.

To resolve the problem, remove the 3rd party software, restart the server, and run DCPromo.

If you look at the Dcpromo.log, it would have entries similar to:

06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Promotion request for replica domain controller 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] DnsDomainName corp.company.net 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] ReplicaPartner (NULL) 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] SiteName (NULL) 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] DsDatabasePath C:\WINNT\NTDS, DsLogPath C:\WINNT\NTDS 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] SystemVolumeRootPath C:\WINNT\SYSVOL 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Account corp.company.net\Administrator 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Options 196 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Validate supplied paths 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Validating path C:\WINNT\NTDS. 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Path is a directory 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Path is on a fixed disk drive. 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Validating path C:\WINNT\NTDS. 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Path is a directory 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Path is on a fixed disk drive. 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Validating path C:\WINNT\SYSVOL. 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Path is on a fixed disk drive. 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Path is on an NTFS volume 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Start the worker task 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Request for promotion returning 0 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Searching for a domain controller for the domain corp.company.net that contains the account DC2$ 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Located domain controller dc1.corp.company.net for domain corp.company.net 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Using site Default-First-Site-Name for server \\dc1.corp.company.net 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Forcing time sync 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Forcing a time synch with \\dc1.corp.company.net 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Setting machine account to be DC 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Configuring the server account 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Searching for the machine account for DC2$ on \\dc1.corp.company.net... 
06/04 18:15:00 \[INFO\] Configuring the server account 
06/04 18:15:01 \[INFO\] NtdsSetReplicaMachineAccount returned 0 
06/04 18:15:01 \[INFO\] Previous location of account DC2$ to CN=DC2,CN=Computers,DC=corp,DC=company,DC=net 
06/04 18:15:01 \[INFO\] Stopping service NETLOGON 
06/04 18:15:01 \[INFO\] Stopping service NETLOGON 
04/05 21:14:17 \[INFO\] Configuring service NETLOGON to 1 returned 0 
04/05 21:14:17 \[INFO\] Deleting current sysvol path C:\WINNT\SYSVOL 
04/05 21:14:17 \[ERROR\] Failed to create system volume path (997)

NOTE: If you type net helpmsg 997, you receive Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.

NOTE: See tip 3323.