Q. How can I use the command line to delete a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster?

A. A. Use the cluster.exe command to delete a Server 2008 failover cluster, and the /cleanup switch to delete any Active Directory (AD) information. In the following example, I obtained a list of existing clusters and deleted one of the listed clusters. Then, I reopened the list to confirm that the deletion was successful.

To obtain a list of existing clusters, I used the command

cluster /list

The output was:

Cluster Name
---------------
SAVTSTCLUS01
SAVTSTFCLUS

Then, I destroyed the savtstfclus cluster by using the command

cluster savtstfclus /destroy /cleanup

The output was

Are you sure you want to destroy this cluster? (Y/N):

I typed Y and pressed Enter. The output was

Destroying cluster savtstfclus...
11% Moving resource group 'Cluster Group'.
22% Deleting resource group 'Available Storage'.
33% Cleaning up computer objects for cluster 'savtstfclus'.
44% Evicting node savtstfc02 from cluster.
55% Attempting to restore node savtstfc02 to its non-clustered state.
66% Taking resource group 'Cluster Group' offline.
77% Cleaning up resources in core Cluster groups.
88% Evicting node savtstfc01 from cluster.
100% Attempting to restore node savtstfc01 to its non-clustered state.

To reopen the cluster list, I used the command

cluster /list

The output was

Cluster Name
---------------
SAVTSTCLUS01

A cluster should be in a state in which it can be started to clean up AD information. If your cluster nodes are in a state in which the cluster you want to delete can't be started, use the /forcecleanup switch to force a cluster-information cleanup, as in the following sample code:

"cluster node (node) /forcecleanup"