Domain / DNS issues

[CapnPugwash]

Not sure if this is the right place for this but here goes...

 

I have a number of (VMWare) virtual servers (including a DC) and a physical DC. Both DC's are Windows server 2008 R2.

 

Last night there was a power outage in our area. Our UPS boxes kicked in and everything shut down gracefully. The VMWare HA shuffled all the VM's over onto one host but I restarted the machines and put them back as they were.

 

After the restart some machines (400 machines, mainly Windows 7 but some XP) either couldn't connect to the network OR connected but couldn't see a variety of network resources. Restarting the machines had no effect. If I take a machine off the network and try to rejoin it I get this error:

 

"an attempt to resolve the dns name of the domain controller in the domain being joined has failed. Please verify this client is configured to reach a DNS server that can resolve DNS names in the target domain"

 

I have restarted both DC's (these are also the DNS servers)

I can ping both DC's by IP address and name

I can run nslookup up on both DC's and find the correct IP's and names for machines on the network (including ones that can't connect to the domain)

If I ren repadmin /showreps on both machines it shows succesful replications

I can open AD on one DC and create / delete a user and the changes are replicated

 

I'm really stuck now, any ideas?

[CapnPugwash]

Oh... the network clients are all physical boxes

[CapnPugwash]

Quick update for anyone watching...

 

On one of the client machines that wouldn't connect to the network, I set a static IP - was able to join the domain without any issues!!!

 

It looks like the problem is DHCP. This is a legacy network, not one I built. The paperwork left me by the previous fella says DHCP should be running on another server separate to the DC's... and it isn't. The DHCP service is disabled and it looks like DHCP is dead on the machine...

 

Oh well, at least I think I'm getting somewhere!