Help! re-installing Win2000 server- DNS and other probs...

OK, I am not a tech, but I am forced to be one occasionally. Our techie left recently, and I’m maintaining things in our small office. Unfortunately, we had the motherboard blow on our file server. I got it replaced, but have had to re-install Windows 2000 Advanced Server(it wouldn’t boot becasue of some Directory Services problem, so I re-installed). While trying to set up the DNS and everything in Active Directory, it doesn’t want to let me re-set this server as the domain controller for the original domain. (Oh, we have an email server and a file server, plus 5 terminals running Win2000. So when the file server died, we didn’t have too many problems because I had copied all of the files on the server to one of the 5 terminals, and we could access them from there)(So everything old can still talk, and our email is fine).

Where I think the problem is: Active Directory. I went through the wizard and tried to get it to be a member of an existing domain (lets call it Tomcat). So our DNS would be Tomcat.com, etc. BUT, even though it showed Tomcat on a list, it wouldn’t let me join it (some accessing problem). So I started over to create a brand new domain controller, and after I went through it and clicked go- it changed the domain to Tomcat0 (Tomcat was changed to Tomcat0 because of some conflict) but kept the DNS of Tomcat.com…which is confusing the hell out of me.

So now I have a server that can look out and see all of the other computers, but none of them can look at it. Every time I try and look at the server, I get the error message:
“Logon Failure: the target account name is incorrect”

AAAHHHH!!!

I’ve tried to add users, computers, etc. but nothing seems to work. The IP of the server computer ends in .210, and the primary DNS server ends in .210 (this is correct, right?)

I even tried to change the domain of the terminals through the network properties, but when I try and switch to Tomcat0, it asks for a login and pass word then says: “the credentials supplied conflict with an existing set of credentials”

AAAHHHHH!!!

I’m chasing my tail. Has anyone ever had to re-install Windows on a server and tried to get it to hook back up with everything?

Thanks-
-Tcat
ps, I’m 6 hours ahead of NY, but I’d call ya tomorrow if you sent me your phone number…The only help I can get here is a Linux guy, who is smart, but stumped as well.

Okay, your only domain controller was rebuilt from scratch, right? This means that all of the client machines that were members of this domain are effectively orphaned. Even if you create a new domain with the same name as the old one, it’ll have a different GUID number than the domain the client machines are associated with.

All you should need to do, if I understand what you’ve done correctly, is to remove each machine from the domain, and then add them back.

If that still doesn’t get things working, shoot me an e-mail at steve_pantol@chicago.kirkland.com, and I’ll see what else I can do for you.