I have a domain setup with the server acting as the domain controller. There are 6 clients attached to this server. Everyone logs in to the domain (running active directory) with their respective usernames and password... The server has one internal hard drive (NTFS) with the system files installed on it. There is a USB external drive attached to the server that is FAT32 file system. This external drive is used as the file share location for the entire network. Everyone saves all there work to this external drive attached to the server. When people log in and then click on the shortcut to to shared drive, it takes about 5 minutes for anything to happen then after all that it prompts for a username and password for the server. After i put in the domain administrator username and password it takes another 5 minutes then BANG, your in. Problem is this should take like 5 seconds and not prompt for a password...right? Anyway any ideas would be great. Thanks in advance. Nate

Was the External drive formatted with NTFS using that server? "How many squirrels had to die to make you look fly?!"

No, the drive is fat32 and was never formatted. It came out of the box as fat32 and i haven’t changed it since then.

Was it working at one point and then developed delays? I'm assuming you have some sort of backup for the data on this external drive? Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

Yes this was working at one point, and then the server developed a case of the Blue Screen Of Death syndrome. After a fresh install of srv2003 enterprise edition i attempted to setup the network exactly as it was before. The internal hard disk which only contains the OS system data was completely reinstalled. The external drive was not affected by the system crash so after i had re-configured the server i just plugged it in again and shared it out like i had done in the past. Yes i do backup the data from the external drive. It goes to a remote PC on the LAN and is then automatically burned to DVD for archiving. Nate

I would try converting it to NTFS. Back it up first obviously. "How many squirrels had to die to make you look fly?!"

Although it would be best to use NTFS for obvious reasons, i would like to try to get it working with FAT32 so i dont have to take the share drive off the network for any length of time, and so i dont have to work over the weekend!!!! I think my issue is with how i have active directory setup, or the way in which im sharing the drive. I cant understand what if anything im doing wrong. At this point i took the root share off (e$) and am now just sharing the file folder on the drive (netshare folder) and now the response time is much quicker. However whenever i place a shortcut to the share on people desktops it freezes their PC's for about 5 minutes. If they click on the shortcut to the share after that it displays the same problems as before where the network takes about 5 minutes to respond to anything and then asks for a password. However if you go to the netshare folder through your "my network places" shortcut then just navigate to the folder everything works fine, its only the shortcuts at this point that are giving me problems. I assume this has something to do with the fact that everyone had rejoined an "identical" domain after the crash but i really dont know at this point. Never seen anything like this at all while using a domain. Its acting like were on a workgroup yet the DC says nothing is wrong. Might just give up, any idea would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Nate