There are different types of orphaned objects. Removing and reattaching a
content database fixes one type of orphaned object. Did you run STSADM
-databaserepair against all of your content DBs? Even after we did that we
still have a couple that won't clear out. I assume we'll have to purge the
Content DB and move all of the legitmate sites to a new Content DB.

I followed the KB article 918744 with STSADM and SPSADM to run
through the server. STSADM returned 0 orphans which was different
from the Prescan report.

I removed all components from the portal server, stopped search
services, even stopped the portal site in IIS but still see the
content database up there. Really have no clue what's wrong.

What is your plan to purge data from one to anohter? Modify the
database directly?

I imagine we'll end up using STSADM -o backup and -o restore to move site
collections from the database with the orphaned objects  to a new one. It's not
pretty, but it's the only way I know of to do it if the STSADM databaserepair
option doesn't work.

We may have to do it since I found out it's not really orphan  objects.
It's some sites and lists been left out when previous admin change the
portal name. No tools could remove them without dealing with database
directly.

Based on the GUID from the report, I could identify them and removed
those rows from tables.

Now I have two upgraded MOSS 2007 server under testing and they are all
running as expected. Hopefully others would have better luck when
dealing with orphan objects.

I had to work on the database side since none of the MS tools worked
on this case. Those "orphan" records were left over while back. The
administrator before me changed the URL of portal but only one site
and objects  associated with this site created errors.

I really don't know why and better answers. But I did fix the problems
and upgraded successfully. So, just let anyone who might have similar
situation know.

Actually, one thing that did work for me was to use the SPS backup/restore
utility. Evidently, this tool  performs some sort of brute-force attack on
orphaned objects. After performing the backup and subsequent restore of this
data into my dev environment, I was able to run prescan  successfully.

If this would work, definitely stay away from the database.

However, when I restore portal to viutual server and still find those
objects, I knew I had no choice. Hopefully this is not the case to
everyone else.