Login to BDC when Wan lines are down

[gmoinse]

I had a complete network under one domain name with a BDC at each off site location. I had Netopia routers that provided VPN Tunneling that would enable me to see all the computers in Network Neighborhood. Well in the confusion of our ISP going out of business at one of the sites, certain users have lost the ability to logon. Currently there is no link at the sites, I am waiting on my new ISP!!!
Now.. here is the problem. I had some users send their computers out to me due to problems. I logged into the domain from their machines, fixed minor problems and then sent them back. Now they can not log onto the their BDC. The error reads "The computer account does not exist in this doamin" I have had a user rejoin the workststion on the domain and no luck. I am using Windows NT 4.0 SP5. How do I get my computers to log into the domain?

HELLLPPP!!! <IMG SRC="smilies/eek.gif" border="0">

[Ron Prestenback]

They will not be able to log into the domain until they get a connection to the PDC. The BDC is read-only, and whatever things you fixed on that computer caused the computer to not be recognized as the same computer by the BDC. The BDC can only receieve a list of domain computers from the PDC, so, you will have to get a connection from either the PDC directly to their computers, or pre-stage those computers that don't have a connection right now, into your PDC, then maually transfer the computer accounts to that BDC (by mail if need be).

[Ron Prestenback]

This is a good example of the benefits of Windows 2000 Active Directory domains. In AD, all domain account information is automatically replicated, thus making each DC a "PDC" so to speak. In this situation, all of your WAN clients would still be able to log into the domain, and when the link came back up, all of their computer accounts would automatically be replicated into AD.