I have a computer that is in a domain that has two valid DNS servers 172.20.12.14, 172.20.4.25 (172.20.12.150 is my ip) but I need to use the DNS server on 172.20.26.100. I can ping addresses in the 172.20.26.x subnet, but I can not access them by hostname even though I have made 172.20.26.100 the 3rd DNS server. What can I do to be able to resolve addresses via hostname on that subnet? Thank you, Leto the Just

add that hostname to your dns server pointing to that hostname's IP. Is it in a different workgroup/domain?

How about a more detailed network layout, physical and logical. Are these seperate sites seperated by routers/firewalls? Do the zones have any relationship? Can you get a successful name resolution using NSLOOKUP on the host names/IP addresses? I think a bit more information is needed for a successful resolution.

I'm not sure if more info is needed on the layout but I would say more information is needed. The questions to answer are: are these Windows 2000 DNS servers? Are the DNS zone AD Ingrated and/or are zone transfers enable as well as secure updates? Do you have Forwarding enabled on the DNS servers? Also, what subnet mask are you using? The addresses you give could place all 3 servers on different subnets, or all 3 on the same subnet so that information would help. Michael is pretty close in his solution. Your problem seems to be that the DNS server you are pointing to does have a record that you request. A common misconception is that if you have 3 DNS server listed it will query all three. It won't. It will query the first one. If it replies at all, even if it says "I don't know the answer", then that's it. It will not then go ask the second and the third. The only time the second will be asked is if the first is unavailable and does not reply at all. This probably isn't a very difficult problem to track down but you'll need a little better understanding of how DNS works.