Our Moss 2007 server was promoted to a domain controller and then demoted. I was asked to fix SharePoint. I was able to get the web server up and running again by a combination of adding the IIS_WPG and WSS_ADMIN_WPG groups, adding the service account to them, and then restoring permissions to to these local groups on certain directories on the web server.
But the Search is really messed up. There was no clear path to repairing this part so I thought I should start over by removing the Search Shared Service Provider but I am unable create a new one because there are No indexers. I am unable to resolve this because I can't start the Office SharePoint Server Search Service started. The error reported is:
An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: Some or all identity references could not be translated.
The Central Admin doesn't seem to be useful here. I am wondering if anyone knows the administrative commands that I can use with stsadmin that might give me a back door. Or perhaps a combination of stopping services and stsadm will work to get the slate wiped clean so I can start over.