Drive mapping issues-o-plenty...

C

Chris_G

Recently (within the last two months or so), I have been getting some
quite odd and very drive mapping issues with my Windows XP Pro with
SP1 PC that I do not have with my Windows NT 4.0 PC.

Due to job requirements, I need to map to Users PC's, servers (NT,
2000, 2003 and various flavors of Novell) and sometimes over painfully
SLOW links. In certain cases, I need to do so with different
credentials, etc. 99% of the time, I map using a batch file using net
use * and about 75% of the time, everything works fine. However, the
other 25% of the time I get the following issues:

1) Drive drive doesn't show up within Windows Explorer or My Computer.
Though, if you type in the drive, you can get to it. On Windows
Explorer, it shows it as a connection via the little network icon,
though it has no drive mapped to it. Sometimes, it even removes the
little network icon if you refresh your screen hitting F5 OR doesn't
show one at at. Then, if you try to copy files to the PC via Windows
Explorer/My Computer, it comes up with an error stating that the
remote drive doesn't support long file names and wants to know if I
want to automatically change it to the 8.3 naming convention (at this
point, I give up and use DOS to get the job/task done). If you try to
unmap it via Windows Explorer/My Computer, it doesn't. However, if
you go to disconnect a network drive via the Network Neighborhood
Icon, the drive mappings are all there and it will allow you do unmap
the drive (DOS allows you to unmap the drive to). I know that most
might think it is the slow connection that is doing it. However, it
can happen between two PC's, on the same subnet, one number off on the
IP address with 100 Mbps cards, logged in via the local admins with
Virus Scan turned off.

NOTE: Sometimes, this problem resolved itself over time. However, I
have also had the problem take over a day and a half to resolve to a
PC on the same subnet.

2) The other thing is phantom drives. These show up whenever they
want to, even with no mention of it under the Network Registry entries
or any old mapped drives. Sometimes rebooting removes them, other
times it takes numerous reboots to fix it.

3) Yet another thing is opening up Windows Explorer to cruise around
my local hard drives, which sometimes ends up with a hung process and
the white screen of Explorer death. This happens sporatically, logged
in via the network or the local admin, with or without virus scan
running. Sometimes, even with the network cable taken out logged in
as the local admin of the PC.

The only thing I can even remotely think of that might be related to
this is that XP is trying to "save resources" and dropping all drives.
But, that doesn't explain why it works SOMETIMES and it fails
sometimes logged on locally with the local admin.

Since I am at a loss, does anyone have any ideas??? Let me know and
thanks!


Chris
 
G

Guest

I'm having the same problem. We are using Dell GX260/270/280 PC's primarily.

Windows 2003 Server AD, well maintained, etc.. High quality switching
equipment, running 100/full or 10/full.

We deploy a vbs login script to map several drives to different network
resources. Every once in a while users will log on and none of the drives
mapped via the vbscript will show up in the My Computer listing. However, if
you go to Windows explorer, and type in the drive letter(s) directly in the
address field, it comes up. You can browse, open files, etc.. I don't think
I've tried copying. It seems to happen on a regular basis if you run windows
updates or install new software, then reboot and log in - no drives. Log out,
log back in again, and they show up.

We have had issues with PC's not finding the domain or extreme slowness, and
have hard set the NIC and switch to the same speed to resolve them. However,
this seems to occur even if the settings are hard set. Although I can't
report requiring multiple reboots or login's to restore the drives (All our
PC's have hard set NIC speed now). Every time it's only been one logout/login
and they're back.

Another interesting aspect of this is we have a global drive that is
available for every user, we map this via the homedrive setting on the users
AD profile. That drive always maps, even when the vbscript drives are not
showing up.

I would really like to know why it's doing this, although for us it's mostly
an annoyance at this point. Hopefully some of the information I gave might
help you.
 

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