Active Directory Only Displays Local Objects

Hello. I have a very strange problem. From PCs which are members of
my domain, when I open the Active Directory search, I cannot find any
objects from the DC. ONLY local objects are shown.

Here is the background on this issue:

I am running a small organization on Small Business Server 2000. There
are approx. 25 PCs on the network, all set up as members of the domain.
The SBS Server is the DC.

I just re-installed SBS on the server, because the C: partition was
initially sized at 8GB and was completely full. I had to re-format the
drive to re-partition into two blocks, C: = 16GB and D: = 56GB. I
understand about unique user identifiers, etc... I had tried to back
up/restore Active Directory and restore it, following Microsoft's
directions, but each time this crashed the installation and
necessitated a reinstall. So I decided to do a clean install, then add
all the users again.

After re-connecting the SBS server to the network, I logged into a
member PC. I was still able to log in and access Outlook/Exchange, but
file sharing permissions were messed up. This is understandable since
the users' unique IDs don't exist any more.

So I removed the computer from the domain, and re-joined the domain.
Fine. Now, I want to share a folder. I can share the folder fine, but
when I attempt to set permissions on the folder, Active Directory will
only allow me to search the LOCAL computer for users. If I click the
"Locations" button, the only thing displayed is the local computer.
There is absolutely no option to search the DC for users.
If I open Network Connections and click on Search Active Directory, I
can select the DC, but when I search for ANYTHING, I get a completely
empty search result.

Why can't the computer, which is a member of the domain, see Active
Directory objects on the DC? Why is it required to ONLY search within
the local security objects?

Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated!!!


Thank you for your time!

.