Laptop not adding to domain

[ndavies]

Chaps
Got a XP SP2 laptop trying to add it to our admin network. Have an IP, can access interweb etc..but when I try to add it to the domain I get a message saying that the DC can't be reached. I can ping it by IP but not by name..I've dropped the firewall on the laptop, flushed the dns, pinged the laptop from the server by ip, re-install tcp/ip stuff in Add/Remove Windows components?

What else is there to do?

Ta

Nick

[j17sparky]

May be obvious but is it picking up the correct DNS servers?

[ndavies]

yep tried both automatic dns pickup and also manually entered the servers ip for dns...the DC does DNS

[PEO]

create the machine account on the DC first

make double sure that the account credentials you are entering when prompted to join the machine to the network has all the necessary priviliges to do so.

ensure dhcp is enabled on the laptop and you havent set any ip address settings in the tcp/ip config area.

also worth doing an ipconfig /all in cmd to check settings are correct

[Diello]

Checked you haven't got an explicit DNS suffix set in Advanced TCP settings for that connection?

[strawberry]

try using your full domain name, so instead of domain, use domain.com

[GlennT]

I've had this before. It's really annoying!
What I did was remove if from the domain, reboot it and then rejoin the domain.
Seemed to work ok for me.

[ndavies]

@mrhappy
>>create the machine account on the DC first
how does one go about doing this?!

@diello
>>Checked you haven't got an explicit DNS suffix set in Advanced TCP settings >>for that connection?
Yep!

@glennt
i'm can't join the domain yet with the client, so i can't leave it and reboot!. It won't accept to join it whatsoever..even though i can ping the server's ip..

got me baffled...done this procedure tons of time with little issues..

[Michael]

Temporarily allocate a static IP, Subnet, Gateway and Primary DNS server. This should do the trick