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Joining a new DC to existing Forest

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7 replies

by eddie

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We are migrating an NT 4.0 Domain to Win 2000. During the Active Directory installation on the newly upgraded PDC we are having trouble joining an existing Win 2000 Forest. It ends up with the error mesage: "The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted"
We have tried numerous different configurations. Can someone help?!!!

7 replies

by joseph moore

Sounds like the NT4 PDC (newly upgraded to Win2K) is not set up to use a DNS server that has the SRV RR records for your AD Forest.
So, make sure the Primary DNS Server listed for this NT PDC points to whatever DNS server you are using that has theSRV RR DNS records for your Forest.
If the first Win2K Domain Controller you set up is also the DNS server for the Forest, then use its IP address as the Primary DNS server for the NT PDC.

hope this helps

by curlergirl

If you are upgrading your PDC, then I'm assuming that this is the first server in the domain that you are upgrading. In that case, this would be the first DC in a new forest, not joining an existing forest, because there is no AD forest created yet. You have to specify on the PDC that you are creating a new forest and AD domain - it will then migrate all your existing info (user & computer accounts, etc.) into the new forest and make itself the "PDC Emulator" for the mixed mode domain. The NT4 machines will see it as the "PDC" for their purposes. Hope this helps!

by kmcniff

The bottom line whith this error is DNS. Make sure that the new server you are upgrading has the Primary DNS set for the internal AD root DNS server.

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