Unable to add AD server due to naming problems

[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.

 

[David Fisher [MSFT]]

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

 

[jpond]

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.