Cannot log in: The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

[mithrilling]

Well hello everyone. I just finished installing windows XP on an Asus L3000D. Finished setup, rebooted and when i got to the log in screen for the first time i didn't enter any password as I had not set it yet, and pressed enter. and i got this error. so i boot into safe mode to try logging in on admin and same error happened (that's the picture)

I just have no idea what it wants me to do. And I may be wrong but "domain" implies it's doing Something with the internet and this thing has never touched the internet. I just want to log in to windows.

ps. im sorry if i don't respond quickly or if there's typing mistakes. I'm not good with phones.

Edited May 6 by mithrilling
clearer title

[mithrilling]

okay so turns out something went Wrong during installation and after the language settings it was meant to ask me for an account name and work group name whatever it was and to create an admin password. then it asks about internet settings. this did not happen for me it just skipped those dialogues and instead i only got a list of entry boxes to write in my username and Other users names. no idea how this happens. didn't exactly lose anything with reinstalling other than my time. (sorry for posting this and not waiting for a reply but hey maybe someone else has the problem...)

[FranceBB]

I'm gonna post a reply only because someone else might be wondering about that in the future. The reason why you got menu in which you have to insert a username and a password instead of the normal login screen is actually because your Windows XP Professional thinks that it's part of a domain. In a real domain, when a computer joins, it allows the person logging in to use his Active Directory username and password which would work not just for that computer but also for every other computer and server scattered across the company that joined that domain. For instance, this is one of my XP machines and as you can see it's part of a domain which is federated with other domains and it allows the user to login it by selecting any of those and inserting a valid username and password:

Once the user inserts the username and password and selects the domain he wants to login to, XP contacts the Domain Controller to make sure the credentials are valid, then it allows the user to get to the desktop. The reason why your XP was complaining about the network is that it was clearly failing to contact the domain controller you were trying to login to. Anyway, when a computer is in a domain, it doesn't mean that it only allows you to login using a domain account, in fact you can have local accounts as well, like a local separate user account or a local administrator account. As you can see from the screenshot I posted above, one of the entries you can select says "this computer" and that one is the one you gotta select to login to a local account.  

 

Edited May 10 by FranceBB