Brain twisting problem with XP and domain DFS...

[Dan B]

Hi,

Here is my setup...
W2K Active Directory domain with 2 domain controllers. One hosts the DFS
root and the other is a dfs root replica. I have W2K and XP clients with
mapped drives to the domain DFS instead of directly to a domain controller,
for redundancy....i.e mapped drive to \\DomainName\data. Everything has
worked fine since day one.

I just bought 8 new desktops with XP, and are now fully patched. Three of
them have given me an error when trying to map the domain dfs drive.

The error says:
The mapped network drive could not be created because the following error
has occurred: The system cannot find the specified file.

I can map them to the dc directly, i.e \\dc\data, but not with the domain
name.

These three have the exact same setup as the other new systems, which work
fine. And no other existing clients have ever given this error.

These three also DO have network connection and are receiving IP, etc from
DHCP, like everything else.

Has anyone ever seen this, or know the cause and a fix. I need to untwist
my brain.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Stefan Buchman]

What happens when you type in the fully qualified name of the domain?
(i.e. \\domain.name.com\data)

- Stefan

 

[Dan B]

That worked. I'm not sure why those 3 machines needed "special treatment"
but...they did.
Thanks,
Dan

 

[Stefan Buchman]

It sounds like a NETBIOS resolution issue. Do you have a WINS server
setup that these new workstations are not configured to use?

Stefan

 

[Dan B]

No. I'm not using WINS

It sounds like a NETBIOS resolution issue. Do you have a WINS server
setup that these new workstations are not configured to use?

Stefan