samba - Feb 2008 - Samba suddenly not working, and all I did was change hard drives!

Hi,

We've had our business server functioning dandy for a long time, with
SAMBA acting as a domain controller for our Windows XP pro clients. No
issues. All was lovely.  We're running Suse 9.3, Kernel
2.6.8-24.14-smp, Samba version Version 3.0.9-2.3.

Now, it was time to upgrade hard drives in the RAID controller, to
create a 200 gb container (rather than the 100 gb container we had).
So, hard drives were changed, and all our good data dropped right back
on the new drives. All looked good.

The clients can see the domain controller (Babylon), browse the domain
(SVS), read and write files, etcetera. But they cannot join the
domain!

As an aside, browsing the domain is recorded in the SAMBA logs on the
server, but requests to join the domain are not.

   1: The Babylon SAMBA server is physically the exact same machine,
configured the exact same way as it was before, save that we put new
(larger, faster) hard drives in, and dropped all of the old data back
on the new drives (still RAID 5).
   2: The clients are still the same old clients.
   3: The samba server is running, with no errors in the log files
(log level = 9).
   4: The clients *sometimes* see the SAMBA workgroup (once they have
seen it once, they continue to see it until either SAMBA or the client
is restarted).

BUT

 When I attempt to actually have one of the clients join the SVS
domain (by going to system properties -> computer name changes,
clicking the "domain" radio button, typing the domain name SVS, and
clicking OK), it doesn't work so well. . . . I get the following
error:

A domain controller for the domain SVS could not be contacted. Ensure
that the domain name is typed correctly. If the name is correct, click
Details for troubleshooting information

 Details, gives the following: "DNS name does not exist." (error code
0x0000232B RCODE_NAME_ERROR)

I am almost positive that the problem is on the client end.
1: The clients take their sweet time *finding* Babylon in the
workgroup in the first place, and can't always frind the workgroup.
2: Once they have found Babylon in the workgroup, they can browse
Babylon fine. And their browsing is recorded as expected in the SAMBA
logs.
3: They do not even probe Babylon as a domain controller -- nothing
happens in the logs when I try to connect to the SVS domain from a
client.
4: The error messages indicate that the Windows machine thinks that it
should find the authentication via DNS wather than Netbios or Wins.

I have shut off every piece of equipment in the network (switches,
routers) for at least 45 minutes, to clear out possible caches that
may be messing up the clients. I have added a hosts and lmhosts file
to the clients, to make it easier to find the server. But these are
having no effect.

Any assistance would be very welcome!  Thank you!

-- 
-- Scott David Gray
http://www.sudval.org/