Windows cannot connect to the domain - what worked for me

[Doug]

"Windows cannot connect to the domain, either because domain the
domain controller is down or otherwise unavailable, or because your
computer account was not found. Please try again later. If this
message continues to appear, contact your network administrator for
assistance.".


In our case, a tech replaced a PC named "xyz" with another PC named
"xyz" without deleting the "xyz" computer account in AD before joining
the new PC to the domain. This probably causes a SID problem
eventually because it worked OK for a few days, then puked.

I deleted the computer account in AD, then logged into the PC as the
local admin, UNjoined the domain (no reboot), renamed the PC anyways
just for safety sake (no reboot), rejoined the domain & then rebooted.
This resolved the problem, and it didn't hose the user profiles.

 

[vuminhduclp]

me too the same?? help

 

[Trentg]

Thanks a million Doug. I have been trying to get my XPE thin Client added to my domain for quite a while and finally did it with your advise. It must have been a conflict of some sort.

Thanks again for the great post!

Trent Greenawalt
Anderson Pump & Process
Www.aaaco.com

 

[FatBoyTim]

Addendum

Thanks for the advice, you helped me. For any future searchers it's worth noting that youmay have to reboot between removing from the domain and rejoining. I didn't do that (XP Pro SP3) and kept getting an error about user not found (it couldn't remove or rename the computer in AD as it no longer existed).

 

[WickedWonder]

Thank you!

Awesome. It's three oclock in the morning, its my day off, and I decide I should google a problem someone was phoning about earlier in the day. I find your solution, problem is fixed, user will phone in morning and praise my great abilities, while in the back of my head i will go, "Thank you Doug and PCReview.co.uk". Seriously thank you and all the people in the world who take the time to post thier solutions to problems on forums. You make it so much easier for those of us who are still learning.

 

[sweep]

This confirmed what I already just did

This confirmed what I already just did. I didn't have to reboot between steps. I replaced a PC with one of the same name, after deleting the name in Active Directory. But I stupidly reconnected the old PC back to the LAN to reformat it last night, had to leave early, left it running and all was fine until I got the call 9:30am that the "new" PC had crapped. Spent an hour removing the new PC from the LAN and reconnecting 15 PCs to that one because it has a special printer everyone was using this am. Then came into my office and see the old PC still running and got my ahhaa! moment. I didn't need this on my day off!! So don't run 2 PCs with the same name on your LAN. dumb, dumb, dumb

 

[Tugee]

Yeah I bet this'll help alot though checking the AD again showd that for some reason the host PC was named after another Pc just added to the domain. Thanks guys.

 

[natelan]

This post was very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to post your resolution on here.