Problems creating Trust with NT and W2K3

Hi I have a brand new Win NT server and I am trting to create a trust between the NT server and my brand new W2K3server.

I get an error immediately:
‘Could find domain controller for this domain’

I both servers can successfully ping each other.
On the NT server i can see the W2K3 server in network neighborhood but cannot access it.

I do not use WINS but have the following entry in the LMHOSTS file on the NT side:
192.168.32.99 tricon #PRE #DOM:tricon.local

Is the domain name case sensitive as it is in common letters on the 2K3 server but it only allows capital letters when entering the domain on NT
I also leave out the .local ext when entering the domain on NT but the trust keeps failing.

Any help much appreciated.
Jason.