I have configured the Replication in SQL Server 2008 R2 among 3 instances. Let's say INSTANCE1 as Publisher, INSTANCE2 as Distributor and INSTANCE3 as Subscriber. All the three instances are in separate VM's. Unfortunately the Hard Disk got corrupted which caused the INSTANCE2 to be down. Later it was decommissioned.
We had lost the Distributor Database. So we tried the delete the Publication and Subscription and to reconfigure it. And while deleting, the distributor information's which are available in the INSTANCE1 are not deleted. It throws the following error while disabling the publication and distribution wizard:
An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)
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Named Pipes Provider: Could not open a connection to SQL Server [53].
Changed database context to 'MyDatabase '.
OLE DB provider "SQLNCLI10" for linked server "repl_distributor" returned message "Login timeout expired".
OLE DB provider "SQLNCLI10" for linked server "repl_distributor" returned message "A network-related or instance-specific error has occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. Server is not found or not accessible. Check if instance name is correct and if SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. For more information see SQL Server Books Online.". (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 53)
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Is there is any way to delete all and to reconfigure it again from the start?