Windows 2000 Domains Problem

[darthVader21]

Hi,

I am urgently in need of help with windows 2000, so please bear with me. A wireless network has recently been setup in our house so all machines can connect to the internet via an all-in-one modem/router device.

All machines on the network are able to connect to the internet fine, but sharing information between PC's has been difficult. However, I only really need to share information between two machines on the network. These machines are both running windows 2000.

However, one of them is an old machine from my dad's work that still logs onto a domain. The other win 2000 machine is a member of a workgroup. To rectify this, i changed the 'domain' PC to log onto the workgroup instead of the domain. When i restarted the machine i could no longer access the user account that was part of the domain. All e-mail settings, file directories are part of that account. However, the computer wont let me go back to the old domain because of the DNS not being there or something like that.

Is there anyway that i can restore this domain so that the user account and all the settings are restored the way they were before i changed it to log onto a workgroup instead?

I desperately need to get this machine back the way it was, i will reward people who help me as urgent business needs to be conducted on this machine.

Many thanks,

Matt

 

[wedor]

All of the information is still there it is just in a different profile than the one you are currently using. Look up "profile corruption" on google, it will tell you how to move all of that data into a new profile so it is all readily available again.

You may have to import the mail but everything else should just be there.

You cannot rejoin the domain because you would need to be connected to it AND have the correct permissions, that seems highly unlikely at this point in time.

 

[darthVader21]

Hiya, thanks for your quick reply.

I have been scouring the internet, and i finally understand what i have done. I found the profile on the PC (under d:\documents and settings...etc), and everything is still there (thank god). I realise that it was a domain account and not a local account, but hopefully now i will be able to get everything back up and running.

I will look in google and let you know any progress i make.

Thanks again,

Matt

 

[wedor]

Here is the link to the MS KB article for XP on that, the same method will work for 2K.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151

 

[darthVader21]

Thanks again for your reply,

I think the 'copying profile' thing might work. However, i'm trying to make up a backup of the profile now so if anything screws up i can get back to it.

The only problem is that there are a couple of files with REALLY LONG filenames, that a) wont burn to a CD, and b) wont copy to another section of the drive. Is there any way of searching for long filenames in the start->search facility? I would look for them manually but the profile is huge (about 3Gb) and i have no way of knowing where these files are.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[wedor]

Probably temp or temp internet files which you shouldn't need anyway.

 

[darthVader21]

I have managed (with the help of a technician) to move the old domain profile into a new local account, set the permissions (inc. registry), and set up e-mail again. It all works as it did this morning, i am so relieved.

Thanks again Wedor for your invaluable advice. If there is anything i can do for you let me know, i will be glad to help.

Ps. You were right about the long filenames, all of them were temporary internet files and were not needed.

 

[wedor]

Glad to hear you got it fixed, thanks for letting us know.