Ping server NETBIOS name returns wrong IP and "Destination host unreachable"

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Kudos to: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/121513-server-giving-wrong-ip-address-when-doing-internal-ping?page=1#entry-598812

Based on this thread (and this particular response to it) on Spiceworks, I was pointed towards DNS. Checking the DNS server I found the DNS record for the NETBIOS name for the printer server was assigned the .1.124 (incorrect) address, and there was no associated record for .1.11 (the correct address).

I modified the record to point to the correct IP address and had it update the PTR record at the same time.

...and things started spewing out of the printers.

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music2myear
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music2myear

30-something guy who loves God, people, music, and computers, and happens to be reasonably good at the latter two. IT experience is nearly all self- and real-world-taught with no classroom and only a wee little bit of book learnin'. I'm driven by the dual motivations of being unable to leave well-enough alone and the desire to make technology work better for the user. My experience is mostly in Wintel systems administration and user support, with a smattering of *nix experience, mostly in the CLI, mostly on test machines and small-role systems, and I've acquired that experience in a wide range of professional business environments ranging from fast-food mega-conglomo-corps to international law firms to one of the largest corporate banks in the world, to small manufacturing firms and government departments.

Updated on September 18, 2022

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  • music2myear
    music2myear almost 2 years

    Problem server is Windows 2008 R2 VM running on VMWare ESXi 4 host. Single network adapter manually assigned single IP address (192.168.1.11).

    When I ping the server from any other network computer, it returns 192.168.1.124 and "Destination host unreachable".

    Yesterday I found a second network adapter assigned to this server with an IP of 169.254... indicating it had no real valid IP. Using the MAC addresses I determined which adapter was not needed/not wanted, and removed it using VMWare systems.

    This is the network Printer Server and, understandably, nothing is printing right now.

    I've looked at the solutions here Why was my ping answered by a different IP address than the one pinged? and they aren't applicable to my situation for the following reasons:

    • Output of arp -a on another computer returns the correct IP address (.1.11) assigned to the correct MAC address, the incorrect IP .1.124 is not listed, and the MAC of the network adapter I removed yesterday is not listed at all.

    I checked out the Microsoft KB article which listed pretty much my exact symptoms ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981953 ) and it says to check binding orders and look for hidden adapters. But there are no hidden adapters, and there is only one Network Adapter listed in the Binding Order list.

    Essentially, I can communicate from the server TO any other network device, but I cannot communicate from any other network device TO the server.

    Help!

    UPDATE: Solution found, see this solution for the details.