W2K DC not found after client reboot

[xFieldTech]

I maintain a network of two W2K Advanced Server DCs, one W2K Server as a member server (specifically a print and secondary DNS server) and about a dozen W2K Pro clients. All of the clients fail to find a DC following a reboot of the client (ID 1000, doesn't load profile, W32Time fails, unable to read script commands from an AD startup script). After the first login using a cached profile, all subsequent logins succeed and the client services that rely on AD seem to run without any errors to the event log. The member server doesn't have this problem. I'm guessing this is some type of DNS lookup issue...does anyone have any ideas or have experienced something similar?

 

[mskap999]

Well, DNS and WINS can easily go awry. Are you using a WINS server? Or are all hostname-ip queries answered by a DNS server?

If it's a dns server, I recommend that you try a DNS lookup for your DC from one of the clients. Do a nslookup DC_NAME from the command prompt. If that fails, then you have a DNS issue. Assuming that's the problem do one of the following:

1) Correct this on your DNS server by adding a static entry for the DC
or
2) Make your clients look up DNS using local lmhosts

 

[xFieldTech]

I've tried several hostname resolution configurations while trying to find the cause of the problem, including configuring a WINS server and adding static entries to both the host and lmhosts files. In all cases, NSlookups to the DC worked after the initial login following a reboot. I was able to connect to a newly rebooted client from another machine using mmc, then return to the client and get a successful login. The clients seem unable to find the DC at startup but are able to after any connection is made with another machine on the network.