I have just upgraded my 2 DC's to Win2003 (I totally recreated Active Directory and did a clean install). I set the first DC up with DNS which seemed to work fine. I then set the 2nd DC up with active directory integrated DNS. That seemed to work fine too and it populated itself and generally looked OK. However, I can't ping anyone on the network from either DC (they can ping themselves quite happily though). The primary DC has itself as the preferred DNS server and the secondary DC has the first as preferred and itself as alternative.

I used dcdiag to test DNS on both DC's and they both pass OK, but come up with the following connectivity error which I fear may mean my Active Directory has become corrupt:-

Performing initial setup:
[first DC] Directory Binding Error -2146892976:
Win32 Error -2146892976
This may limit some of the texts that can be performed.
Done gathering initial info.

Doing initial required tests
Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name[first DC]
Starting test: Connectivity
[first DC] DsBindWithSpnEx() failed with error -2146892976,
Win32 Error -2146892976.
...................... [first DC] failed test Connectivity

then later on....
Performing initial setup:
* Verifying that the local machine [first DC] is a DC
* Connecting to directory service on server [first DC]
[first DC] Directory Binding Error -2146892976 etc.

On the secondary DC the error is as follows:-

Performing initial setup:
* Verifying that the local machine [second DC] is a DC
* Connecting to directory service on server [second DC]
[second DC] Directory Binding Error -2146892976 etc.

then:-

Doing initial required tests
Testing server: Default-First-Site-Name[second DC]
Starting test: Connectivity
*Active Directory LDAP Services Check
*Active Directory RPC Services Check
[second DC] DsBindWithSpnEx() failed with error -2146892976
Win32 Error -214etc.

Further down on both it says "Root zone on this DC/DNS server was not found" but everything else passes ok.

In the event viewer of the first DC there haven't really been any problems reported, but today I had the following "DCOM was unable to communicate with the computer [gateway address] using any of the configured protocols."

I also had "The DNS server has encountered a critical error from the Active Directory. Check that the Active Directory is functioning properly. The extended error debug information (which may be empty) is "". The event data contains the error".

And "The Secutiry System detected an authentication error for the server host/[second DC]. The failure code from the authentication protocol Kerberos was "The handle specified is invalid (0x80090301)" Plus the same error for the first DC. and the same error for the LDAP _msdcs.domain.local.

I have also found that the Help & Support Service has not been installed on my first DC (its fine on the 2nd) so I can't click on an error and get help for it.

I'm beginning to think I might have to re-install the first DC but would really like to avoid it. After all my ramblings, does anyone have a clue what's going on with my system?

Thanks