Garbage Collection in Active Directory
This article gives users a short explanation on Garbage Collection Process used by Windows Active Directory.
This article explains about the garbage collection process used by Active Directory to clear out orphaned objects from Active Directory Database file (ntds.dit).
You can search Tombstone objects using LDP found in Windows 2000 and Windows 2003.
Please note, a 2003 Forest created with SP1 will have 180 days as a tombstone life time.