Cannot locate domain controller

[Geoc]

OK. this one is weird.
I have an air-gapped Win 2k/Win 2k3 AD Network with less than 100 total nodes.
As Clients on the child domain, I've 20 identical Dell PE's.

All but four of these client machines have joined the domain successfully. These four "cannot locate the domain controller"
With the standard error dialog saing that a DC can't be located. Which is not true, as 16 identical boxes had no problem.

I can ping the AD-integrated DNS servers by name. Even from the four problem boxes.

All these clients (except one) are running Win 2K3 Web, and were members of a similarly-named workgroup before I started joining these boxes to the domain.

To summarize: ???????????

 

[Code666]

Have you tried manually entering in the DNS server addresses into the clients? This has worked for me several times. Also, I think there is a way to enable logging (I know you can do it for the DCPROMO process) and maybe this would tell us what is happening. But usually this is a DNS issue.

 

[Geoc]

If you mean entering DNS server addresses during the IP configuration process (all non-virtual clients have a static IP, BTW -- I didn't mention that in my first post)
then, yes.

 

[Code666]

Have you resolved the four pc's not joing the domain? try this link and let me know how it goes:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...irectory/maintain/opsguide/part1/adogd10.mspx

Scroll to the bottom -
"Procedures for Troubleshooting Failure to Locate Domain Controller when Attempting to Join a Domain

 

[ITPangaeaArchitect]

make sure the dhcp client service is started on teh 2k3 boxes


as odd as it is, that service is responsible for all dynamic registrations...both IP and DNS records

im hoping your DC isn't multihomed

-Brandon Wilson
MCSE00/03, MCSA:Messaging, MCSA03, A+
almost got a paragraph there

 

[Geoc]

I finally got those last four boxes to join the domain.

yay.

It appears to have been bad SRV records on the DC -- removed and "reinstalled" forward zones, and the SRV records came back as they should have.

BTW, the DC is multihomed, the 2nd NIC is "disabled", though . . .

But, it begs the next question (moreso as a semi-rhetorical item of intellectual curiosity -- at this point, anyway):
With bad SRV records, how could I have been able to join those other sixteen boxes to the domain successfully?

 

[ITPangaeaArchitect]

might be islanding DNS
who's the DC pointing to for DNS?

netdiag /fix may have fixed...same with net stop netlogon & net start netlogon

were all of your folders inside of the forward lookup zone? _msdcs, etc.


-Brandon Wilson
MCSE00/03, MCSA:Messaging, MCSA03, A+
almost got a paragraph there

 

[ITPangaeaArchitect]

scratch the islanding statement though since you only have one DC

-Brandon Wilson
MCSE00/03, MCSA:Messaging, MCSA03, A+
almost got a paragraph there