suddenly doesn't work with the username and password in credentials=... in the mount line

Hi,

I'm using Scientific Linux 5.3 (~ RedHat Enterprise 5.3).

After a reboot today, I probably have switched to a new kernel, "uname 
-a" gives :

Linux yipkin.c-ad.bnl.gov 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5 #1 SMP Mon Aug 24 08:22:26 
EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Somehow, the auto-mounting with cifs for the following line in 
/etc/fstab doesn't work but it used to work :

//c-adweb/data          /mnt/c-adweb            cifs    
domain=BNL,credentials=/root/.credentials,gid=kinyip,uid=kinyip 0 0

I see error in /var/log/message:
Nov  8 13:11:50 yipkin kernel: Status code returned 0xc000006d 
NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
Nov  8 13:11:50 yipkin kernel:  CIFS VFS: Send error in SessSetup = -13
Nov  8 13:11:50 yipkin kernel:  CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return 
code = -13

Using the command :
   mount -t cifs -o 
domain=BNL,credentials=/root/.credentials,gid=500,uid=500  
//c-adweb/data /mnt/c-adweb

would get me :
mount error 13 = Permission denied
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)

And I can see the same errors in /var/log/message (or dmesg).

If I do "mount -t cifs -o domain=BNL,user=kinyip,gid=500,uid=500  
//c-adweb/data /mnt/c-adweb", it would ask me for password and
then it'd mount successfully !!

In my file /root/.credentials  ("ls" would have : -rw------- 1 root root 
39 Nov  8 13:02 /root/.credentials ), it's like
username=kinyip
password=$.....

My first character of my password is $ and I'm wondering whether this is 
creating trouble ????  I've tried "\$...." but it doesn't help.

Any idea ???

Kin