Cannot connect to mapped drives.

[Randy]

I have a weird situation. I am running XP Pro. I
connect to a Windows 2000 Domain controller. I cannot
access the Network drives that are mapped through my
login script. I reinstalled Windows and joined that
domain. I was able to access the network drives fine
until I went to Windows Update site and downloaded the
patches. I did not download SP2. I am currently still
running SP1. When I Open Windows Explorer and try to
open a network drive, explorer hangs. I have no problem
accessing local drives only network drives. Can someone
please help me. This is urgent. I have already rebuilt
this system twice. Brand new from Dell. It works ok
until I install that patches from Windows Update. Is one
of those patches causing it and if so does anyone know
which one.

Randy Clutter

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I have a weird situation. I am running XP Pro. I
connect to a Windows 2000 Domain controller. I cannot
access the Network drives that are mapped through my
login script. I reinstalled Windows and joined that
domain. I was able to access the network drives fine
until I went to Windows Update site and downloaded the
patches. I did not download SP2. I am currently still
running SP1. When I Open Windows Explorer and try to
open a network drive, explorer hangs. I have no problem
accessing local drives only network drives. Can someone
please help me. This is urgent. I have already rebuilt
this system twice. Brand new from Dell. It works ok
until I install that patches from Windows Update. Is one
of those patches causing it and if so does anyone know
which one.

Randy,

what does Dell customer support say?

Hans-Georg

 

[Randy]

I haven't even called them because I know now that its
not the PC. I have 2 new Dells doing the same thing. I
also now know that as soon as I add an XP Pro PC to my
Domain the problem happens. Here's the new information I
have: 1) I add the PC to the Domain ... works fine. 2) I
restart the PC ... again fine. 3) Login script runs
perfectly, and I can access the network drives. 4) The
very next time I restart the PC, it takes a long time (5-
10 mins) for the login process to finish. 5) When I
Explorer My Computer (right-click, Explorer), Explorer
stops responding for 5-10 minutes. It eventually
displays all the Drives both local and Network. However,
the Network Drives say they are Disconnected. I can
Browse C Drive just fine but when I click on a Network
Drive, Explorer stops responding again for a long time.
Sometimes I have to End Task on Explorer or reboot.
Nothing else locks up. I can continue to use the PC like
normal. I am thinking that this is caused by something
in Group Policies. I have not customized the Group
Policies for this Domain however. Could this also be a
DNS error. One more interesting thing that I discovered
this morning... If I take the PC out of the domain, I can
write a Login batch file with net use commands and the
Network drives will work like a charm. It is only when I
join the PC's to the Domain that this happens. Please
help folks. I'm not a home user. I'm an IT Consultant
and this is one of my clients network.

Randy

 

[Randy]

Cancel this i\entire thread. I feel dumb now. The
problem was the network cable. I didn't suspect it
because my internet worked fine and I could map drives to
the server when I was not joined to the domain. I could
also ping everything on my network and multiple places on
the internet. So go figure. I kept noticing that I was
receiving messages that the "Network Cable had been
unplugged" but since all network connectivity seemed
functional I never dreamed it was actually telling me the
truth. But... It was in fact the cable. Must have been
just enough problem with it to mess up domain
authentication. Weird.

Thanks for the help!
Randy

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Cancel this i\entire thread. I feel dumb now. The
problem was the network cable. I didn't suspect it
because my internet worked fine and I could map drives to
the server when I was not joined to the domain. I could
also ping everything on my network and multiple places on
the internet. So go figure. I kept noticing that I was
receiving messages that the "Network Cable had been
unplugged" but since all network connectivity seemed
functional I never dreamed it was actually telling me the
truth. But... It was in fact the cable. Must have been
just enough problem with it to mess up domain
authentication. Weird.

Thanks for the help!

Randy,

thanks a lot for reporting back! Some people here including
myself are trying to learn about frequent problems, so it's good
to know what actually happened in such a case like yours.

Hans-Georg