Question : Windows cannot determine the computer name. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

Hi,

We have a VERY old machine that is a domain controller and also runs a couple of not so critical sites.  This machine was not updated for years.  Yesterday we found it has 1MB space left!! and event log errors stating this.  We deleted some old site files and temp files.  We made 230MB space and rebooted.  Now it is stuck at boot screen saying applying security policy.  We can get in via Safe mode.  It now takes about 2 hours to go past this screen and login.  Since this is a domain controller, all our other servers are experiencing problems.  We are seeing errors like "Windows cannot determine the computer name. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted. ). Group Policy processing aborted. " and "The browser service was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\DC-THE_DOMAIN on the network"  DC-THE_DOMAIN is the domain name.

The domain is Windows 2000 server sp3

Can anyone suggest what to do?

Many thanks in advance
H

Answer : Windows cannot determine the computer name. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

You can determine wheter or not the domain controllers are in the same domain.  Open up Active Directory Users and Computers on the good DC and browse to the Domain Controllers OU.  If there is only one DC in there then you have two domains and should not shut the other DC down.  If you have both DC's in there then shutting the DC down is an option.

When budgetting for new hardware considering buying two domain controllers to give you fault tolerance.