To safely remove a node from a Windows 2003 Fail-Over Cluster, follow these steps:
First, using Cluster Administrator, move all roles to the other nodes in the cluster. There should be no more roles, including the quorum running on the node.
In Cluster Administrator, right-click the node and click Stop Cluster Service. (Skip this step if it is the last node of the cluster.)
Still in Cluster Administrator, right-click the node and click Evict node. This will remove the node from the cluster.
Optionally, you can now remove the Fail-Over cluster components from the server.
