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Ok I admit I screwed up big, I dont know NT enough to know that what I was doing would screw the machine.


On a user machine I switched the name of the PC from Rroberts 1 to Mrobinson (This is a NT machine) and I clicked ok ok ok like an idiot. THen BOOM off the Domain. Now I tried to change it back to Rroberts1 and wham it tells me the message i clearly ignored said something along the lines of.

"If you switch the name here before the domain admin does all accounts will be basically screwed from logging back onto the domain"

So I cant put this machine on our domain ( cant create new users on it either ) and it needs to be on it ASAP. I dont know what machine (servers) I would need to alter the PC name all I know how is to alter the users id's not hte PC's ids from our servers..

HELP ME GET IT ON THE DOMAIN pleas please please please please please please please please please pease please please

I have no idea either, but I would suspect that it can't log back onto the domain because you can't have two on the same domain that have bene assigned the same ID. Or some such.

My recommendation, delete the Rrobinson1 from the NT server and then relog it back to where it was. Just a guess though

At our school anytime a student needs their laptop reimaged, we end up giving their computer a new name and adding that to the domain instead of dealing with that hassle.

If you have the access to add a domain member you can use that, but if you don't the easiest way is talking to the sysadmin.

You can add a computer to the domain by using Server Manager under Administrative Tools on the PDC. You need to do it on the PDC though, because if you do it on the BDC, when the PDC replicates, it will just overwrite the data. Then you can join the domain from the workstation. You may have to remove the computer account first from the PDC before you can add it back though. It's been awhile since I done this, so I am working from memory here. I'd go ahead and use the name you were going to change the computer too since either way you're adding it fresh.

Or, you can do it all from the workstation. When you changed the name to MRobinson, under the member of section, click DOMAIN, then select the create computer option. You will need the administrator account and password to enter in when it prompts you.

Is it an NT4 or NT5 domain? If NT4, than yes, BS is on the right track. When you change the name of a machine/wkstation on the domain, the SAM doesn't have any records of the new machine. I don't remember if changing the name of a machine generates an new GUID. I'm guessing no, and if not, that correlates to the problem with the SAM.

Given this, I am surprised that changing the name back didn't rectify the problem. If not, then yes, use the server manager tool on your PDC in the NT4 domain, and add the workstation to the domain there. After that you will need an admin password on the domain level to rejoin the wkstation to the domain.

It's been quite a while since I've had to work with NT4

Originally posted by Ned Flanders


It's been quite a while since I've had to work with NT4

Same here. Things are starting to slip from my memory too I was a little confused as to why changing the name back didn't fix it, but figured i had forgotten something I knew if you deleted a user account and created one with the same name it wouldn't work, but wasn't sure if that held true for computer names or not.