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Cannot find Domain Controller

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ukjane

IS-IT--Management
Joined
Jun 7, 2001
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101
Location
GB
We have a problem with a handful of Windows NT4.0 Server and 1 Windows 2000 Prof client, we cannot logon to the Domain, the message we receive is "Domain Controller could not be contact". Can ping the servers\2000 machine OK, they can browse the network. These servers we're running fine, until one day, don't understand what could have triggered this.

We have created a new domain, with a new PDC and BDC and jioned the problem machines to this new domain, works fine, we have then trusted to two domains and we can logon to the original domain from the problem machines. Don't understand why it will logon to the original domain, when previously it couldn't contact the domain controller.

We have tried removing the computer accounts, updating service packs (service packs are the same across all servers), deleting network set-up, different NIC's but short of re-installing the server (which is not an option) we had no choice but to put these problem machines on another domain and trust the domains to get them working. One was an Exchange Server and the others were running Oracle and the Windows 2000 machine was running IIS. These are the only things different from any other NT Servers or Windows 2000 clients on our network.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get these machines back onto our original domain. If not we might have to move all the other machines to the new domain (or leave it as it is).

Any help much appreciated. My thoughts were that it has something to do with the compiter accounts in the domain, possibly licencing or the SAM database? We have not changed anything on this domain that coincides with this problem, but it did happen around the same time our company was flooded with Code Red I and II, but I don't think this could have caused the problem??

Jane
 
hmmm are you using WINS ?
if not, I would set up WINS , let your servers and client register with WINS, and you will see that
- a lot of broadcast traffic will be gone
- you will be able to log on to all domains with all clients...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be
*:->* Did this post help? Click below to let me know !
 
Hi Peter,

We are already using WINS.

Jane
 
are all of your clients and servers using the same WINS server ?

is your PDC multi-homed ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be
*:->* Did this post help? Click below to let me know !
 
Yes all our clients are using the same WINS server. What is multi-homed??, I never covered this on the course!

Jane
 
I've looked multi-homed up. We have two networks here Token Ring and Ethernet, the PDC resides on the Token Ring side and has one NIC. The are obviously two subnets and we have a BDC on the Ethernet Subnet.

This never caused us a problem before and all the other machines on the Ethernet Side are OK.

Jane
 
can you place the client in a workgroup (so remove it from the domain),
rename the client,
name it back to the original name
and then add it back to the domain ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be
*:->* Did this post help? Click below to let me know !
 
Already tried that, we've put them in their own domain for the time being and if we try and add them to our original domain it cannot find the domain controller. Yet, it will log on to the original domain, if we put the machines into another domain. Very Strange!!

Do you think that multi-homing the PDC might help (although we never needed to before) or rebuilding the WINS database?

Jane
 
no, multihoming will make it worse...
maybe rebuilding another WINS server can help... ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be
*:->* Did this post help? Click below to let me know !
 
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