After a bare metal image is restored, when the virtual machine is booted for the first time, it is a member of an Active Directory forest and must be started in Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM). You then must complete a restore of the last master and incremental file backups of the server (if they are available).
If a file backup from the virtual machine is not available, the VM must be started in Directory Services Restore Mode and the database restored from backup registry value must be set to 1. For instructions on how to edit this registry value, please review the Microsoft TechNet article, Backup and Restore Considerations for Virtualized Domain Controllers.
Note: To eliminate the possibility of starting in normal mode, when booting an Active Directory server the first time after a bare metal recovery, do so with the server disconnected from the network.
Once the file backups have been restored or the database restored from backup registry value has been set to 1, restart the domain controller in normal mode.