Unable to add AD server due to naming problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter jpond
  • Start date Start date
J

jpond

I am looking for help to resolve some naming problems in
Windows 2000 server. We began with two NT 4.0 domains
CHALLENGE and ARENA. CHALLENGE servers were
replaced/reformatted with W2K Servers with the new domain
name wasct.com. There are three servers but only one DC.

I am now in the process of replacing the servers in the
ARENA domain with W2K server and joining them into the
wasct.com domain. However, I did something wrong when
introducing the first W2K server in the naming process and
this is now preventing me from promoting the new W2K
server to a DC.

The naming anomolies are as follows - under Network ID the
DC has a Full computer name of cs-exchange.challenge and
the Domain is wasct.com. In AD the name at the very top
level (Next to AD Users and Computers heading) is cs-
exchange.challenge and the only Domain under that heading
is wasct.com. If I right click on that domain the Pre W2K
name is CHALLENGE and we are still running in mixed mode.
I am ready to change the mode to Native but thought I
better sort this out first.

In DNS (the DC is also the DNS server) the SOA and NS
records in the FLZ for wasct.com show cs-
exchange.challenge.

When I try to install AD on the new server (which attached
to the wasct.com domain successfully) I receive several
DNS error messages. When asked which domain to join if I
use wasct.com I get a DNS error message but if I change
the domain to CHALLENGE I can proceed. I then get a
message "The domina name "challenge" refers to the
domain "wasct.com". Is that what you intend?" I answer yes
and then receive another DNS error message.

Do you know of a way around this? I am going to add
another NS entry to DNS as cs-exchange.wasct.com and try
that. Any advice will be gladly received.

Thanks.
 
Hello.

It appears that the upgraded Windows 2000 domain controllers belonging to
the domain CHALLENGE have what is known as a disjointed namespace. This
occurs if, while the system was running NT 4.0, a DNS suffix was configured
for the system and then the upgrade to Windows 2000 was performed
(specifying a different name for the domain than the suffix).

This article details the issue and methods to recover from it:
257623 Domain Controller's Domain Name System Suffix Does Not Match Domain
Name
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=257623

Best regards,
David Fisher
Enterprise Platform Support
 
Thank you so much for your reply David. I was really at a
loss how to get around this problem. I will test it out
tonight.
 
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