Cannot connect Windows 7 machine to windows 2003 domain

Hi All,

I have an issue with one of my machines. I have a windows 2003 server machine that is the DHCP, DNS, and AD DC. We have about 20 machines connected to this domain successfully but are having issues with one machine.

The machine was once on the domain and up until Friday it had no problems, but yesterday it lost access to all share drives. I have removed it from the domain with plans to add it back on but am unable. If I try to join the domain using "abc" I get:

An Active Directory Domain Controller for the domain "abc" could not be contacted

If I try and add it via "abc.local" I get a username and password prompt and then the following error when I click Ok:

The network location cannot be reached..

I am trying to join the domain using my admin account. I have browsed google looking for answers but haven't really found anything useful.

EDIT: For more info, I can ping my server using it's computer name and IP address. I can ping my broken computer from the server using the IP address but not the computer name.

Does anyone have any ideas?

From serverfault webnoob

• That sounds like a network issue.

  Try the following:

  Open a command line as administrator and type:

  ipconfig
  

  Under "Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection" you should have an IPv4 address listed (and not an auto-discovered one like 169.254.xxx.xxx)

  If that works, the start nslookup (still from the command line and type

  set type=srv
  abc.local
  

  That should return the name an address of your DC machine.

  Try it and report back. Also important. check your event log and report any error you see there.

  webnoob : Ok done that, my IP was 192.168.50.58 (as it should be). After nslookup I got: Default Server: compname.abc.local Address: 192.168.50.3. These are both correct for my server. The only thing I see the in event viewer is: The client was unable to validate the following as active DNS server(s) that can service this client. The server(s) may be temporarily unavailable, or may be incorectly configured. 192.168.50.3. I can't see it being a config issue on teh server as we have other machines connected (a few of which are windows 7 as well).

  Stephane : Try to issue an ipconfig /flushdns and redo the nsllokup diag, please

  webnoob : Ok, I have done that and got the same results.

  webnoob : I have just noticed the Netlogin service is not running for some reason. Would this cause issues?

  webnoob : Ok just looked into this and it seems that only gets started when the computer is part of the domain network.

  Stephane : Anytghing in the event log, then ? SChannel errors, for instance ?

  webnoob : Ther are no errors at all in the event log. This really doesn't make sense. If it was a DNS issue, I wouldn't be able to ping my server (via name) either. Sigh ..
  From Stephane

• I have given up and told the user to re-install windows. The issue makes no sense what so ever and I am presuming a file has been corrupted somewhere along the line.

  Hopefully this will sort the issue.

  EDIT: This has resolved this issue and he is now able to connect to the domain ... How odd.

  From webnoob

• I'd check the network location/type - I've seen Windows 7 decide that a corporate network is actually an "unknown" network and refuse to talk to servers before.

  webnoob : The network type seemed be be correct. So it was showing like COnnected to abc(unauthenticated). I just couldn't get it authenticated because of not being able to get on the domain.
  From Robert Moir