create trust: specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted

[wyrdo]

I have what i'm hoping is a deceptively simple problem caused by inexperience with active directory and DNS.

I have several development networks running side by side and i'm trying to create a trust between two of them. They are as follows:
dev.net1 - Serves as primary domain controller in all tcp/ip setups for all servers and handles domain name service for ALL (not just these three) networks in the group.
dev.net2 - is a network simulating the production network.
dev.net3 - is a network simulating the external facing network.

All three networks are capbable of providing DNS, however all ipconfigs point to dev.net1 and most definitions and relationships are there.

I am currently trying to create a one way trust between dev.net2 and dev.net3 and i followed the instructions to the letter multiple times on both domain controllers. However i always get to the "Outgoing Trust Authenticatoin Level -- Local Forest" and when i click Next i get the following message in an Active Directory pop-up window: "the Specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted"

I looked in DNS on dev.net1 and to my eye the DNS is set up properly for each domain. So then i tried to set up the DNS on both servers to point to each other and the error persisted.

Additionally i found a similar problem trying to move one machine between these two child networks. If i tried to move from one to the other either direction i received DNS errors, however if i moved from dev.net2 to dev.net1 and then to dev.net3 everything worked just fine.

Is this enough information to allow you point me to some resources that will help me configure my dev.net2 and dev.net3 to talk to each other? (let alone trust each other)

[EINSTEIN_007]

The error that you are getting can occur because the Sysvol directory is not shared out on the domain controller. To resolve this issue, share out the Sysvol directory. However, it is recommended that you enable the system to share this directory. It is not recommended that you share out this directory by using Windows Explorer.