The Net Logon service does not validate users on Windows Server 2003-based domain controllers after a power failure

After a power failure, you try to start all the domain controllers in the network at the same time. However, you find that no domain controller exists to validate any users. Therefore, you cannot start services that run on other servers such as Microsoft SQL Server servers, Exchange Server servers, or server clusters. When you try to stop or start the Net Logon service on the domain controllers, it takes much more time than usual, and you cannot find significant error messages.

This problem occurs when all the domain controllers in the network start at the same time. The Net Logon service on the domain controllers cannot work correctly because each Domain Name System (DNS) server is unavailable in the network. The result is that all DNS servers are unavailable. Therefore, the connection process to the DNS servers is unsuccessful.

To resolve this problem, restart the Net Logon service on each domain controller. To do this, follow these steps.

1. Stop the Net Logon service on each domain controller.
2. Flush the DNS cache on each domain controller.
3. Point the domain controller to a correct and live DNS server. The DNS server should be located in the same domain zone as the domain controller.
4. Disable the network adapter.
5. Enable the network adapter.
6. Restart the Net Logon service on the domain controller.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.