Mapped Drives: Failed to Reconnect at Boot-up

[PinkPanther 0]

NOt sure what causes this problem, but over time I have seen it happen at some time or another on every machine I have and run.

 

Basically, mapped drives fail to reconnect when the machine boots up, BUT they reconnect fine the minute you open explorer and open the drive; thus, it is not a password issue or a permissions issue. The machine CAN access the mapped drives without problem, but it fails to reconnect them during the boot process.

 

My only guess is that the order of things as they load is causing a problem; i.e. if the drivers for the NIC load after the attempt to reconnect the drives, obviously this would cause a failure. However, I do not know how to control the boot order of such things, so I have not been able to test my theory.

 

The systems are all Windows XP Professional.

 

Thanks for any advice or hints

[PinkPanther 0]

Thanks for the help.

 

Unfortunately, the problem persists. It certainly seems like this should have solved it, but alas, no such luck.

[Jeff WCH 0]

I have what appears to be the same problem as Pink Panther. XP clients on a peer to peer network with a mapped drive to a drive on an XP file server. On startup or reboot I get an error message saying "Network drives could not reconnect". If I go to windows explorer and click on the mapped drive (which is labeled as disconnected) the drive and folder on the file server open right up. But if I try to run the software program that needs info from the file server, I get an error message saying "path not found", until I go to windows explorer and click on the mapped drive. Then it works fine.

The clients and the file server are all Dell Dimensions with XP Professional SP1. They all run Norton Anti Virus 2003 and Zone Alarm 4.5. Windows firewall is turned off. I've made the change AlecStaar suggested in GPEDIT.MSC with no success. I've shut off NAV and ZA and rebooted with no success.

Other possibly useful information. The Windows 98 and Windows 2000 systems work fine. They reconnect automatically after a reboot or shutdown. Also, a third Dell Dimension XP Professional SP1 works fine, so I don't think the problem is at the file server end. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Jeff

 

[Jeff WCH 0]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Unfortunately that did not work. One difference between our setups is Techccbcc is running a domain and I’m running a peer to peer workgroup. At this point I have both the original change in GPEDIT.MSC and the change recommended by Techccbcc set to “Enabled”.

 

Going back and rereading the original post by PinkPanther, and the order of things loading. Our (2) XP systems that will not reconnect at logon are both connected to our network through a wireless connection, while the (1) XP system that works fine is hard wired through an Ethernet connection. I reasoned that if the wireless systems took longer to establish a connection, compared to the wired connection, then maybe the attempt to establish a connection to the mapped drive was happening before the wireless setup could establish a connection to the network. So I took out the wireless card and reconnected using a hard wired Ethernet connection on one of the systems. Again, no success.

 

This problem has been frustrating me for several weeks. I’ve searched the Microsoft website and can’t find anything that is relevant. If anyone has any ideas, I’m willing to try just about anything.

 

Jeff

 

[Jeff WCH 0]

WOW, that is an impressive list of settings. Did you come up with that list off the top of your head? It may take a while to research and experiment but I will absolutely keep you posted with findings and results. Thanks for your help.

 

Jeff

[Jeff WCH 0]

It's been a busy week but here are the registry settings I've tried.

NameSrvQueryTimeout: Changed value to 10,500, rebooted, no success, changed back to OEM value

 

NameSrvQueryCount: Changed value to 10, rebooted, no success, left value as is

TcpMaxConnectAttemps: Changed value to 10, rebooted, no success, left value as is

TcpMaxDataRetransmissions: Changed value to 10, rebooted, no success, left value as is

TcpMaxConnectRetransmission: Created this key, set value to 10, rebooted, no success, left value as is

TcpNumConnections: Created this key, set value to max (16,000,000+), rebooted, no success, left value as is

TcpKeepTries: Changed value to 50, rebooted, no success, left value as is

TcpKeepCnt: Changed value to 240, rebooted, no success, left value as is

EnableFastRouteLookup: Created this key, set value to 1 (on), rebooted, no success, left value as is

DefaultTTL: Created this key, set value to 255, rebooted, no success, left value as is

 

I also found a thread that suggested turning on Enable NetBios over TCI\IP so that is turned on.

 

Another thread suggested modifying the LMHOSTS file. But that seemed applicable to a domain based network not the peer to peer we are running. Any thoughts?

 

None of the above changes have fixed the problem. I tried opening a DOS window and pinged the mapped drive, which worked, but when I went back to windows explorer the mapped drive is still listed as disconnected.

 

I’ll keep trying suggestions as long as you have ideas.

 

Jeff

 

[praiser 0]

This is very interesting, I have exactly the same problem... I'm running a backup software on four computers that synchronize files every 5 mins with a server. When I start Windows, I will get an error message from the backup software that the shared drive does not exist. When I click on that drive in the Windows Explorer, it will connect without any problems. From this point, the backup software makes its job good.

 

Anyone solved the problem yet?

 

[ontrackcorp 0]

Hi Guys,

 

YES! YES! I have the same problem. Any backup or other software can not access mapped network drives on a peer to peer network backup storage server (NAS) in Win XP Pro SP2 after bootup, UNLESS you click on the mapped network drive first via Windows Explorer.

 

The 2 separate network drives seem to be connected, as they do NOT have a red x through them, but any software (e.g. backup software, any software that has to access data on the network drive) does not see either drive until it is toggled on via Windows Explorer.

 

I have made sure the connect at startup box is checked is enabled, tried the run:..../persistent switch that someone posted to keep the drives connected, but nothing works. Microsoft does not seem to have a solution on their site that I can find.

 

This is a VERY COMMON problem. Surely someone has a solution?

 

Help!

 

George

[mrx100 0]

Hi all. Same problem but slightly different. Namely, there's a port LPT1: which is mapped to some remote print server via TCP/IP. In order to map the port I use the following:

net use LPT1: \\printserver\remoteport

The port is mapping easly with no problems no matter which kind of network protocols is used - IP adress ( for instance \\192.168.0.100\remoteport) or NetBIOS like above. Everything works OK...until the system is rebooted. After the reboot when using net use in console I see that the mapped port is not responding (by the way all mapped drives have OK status anyway ) The question is following. How could I unload the mapped port like LPT1: using console commands? I'm just gonna force this kind of "disconneting" of LPT1: during the shutdown of the system and from the other hand always connect the port using net use when the system is booting up. Looks kinda funny but gonna work I hope if there's a way to dismount the mapped port.

[adamvjackson 0]

How about a simple logon script:

 

net use LPT1 \\printserver\port /delete

net use LPT1 \\printserver\port

 

Run that each logon... Not necessarily clean or perfect, but it should work.

[MadBomber 0]

I kinda have the same problem but just a little different.

 

I have a user running XP Pro that when ever she turns the PC on from a cold boot or even a restart for that matter one of her 4 network drives are not connecting. But when she logs off and back on again her missing drive returns.

 

Not sure if this is happening to anyone else but if you can give me some pointers I'd appreciate it.

[mrx100 0]

adamvjackson, thanx a lot! I'll definitely try that. Let's hope it's gonna be OK

[adamvjackson 0]

No problem, and good luck

[mrx100 0]

Well. Have some "news" about the thing Adamvjackson actually first part of the script must be corrected like this

 

net use LPT1: /delete say (1)

 

but the second one

 

net use LPT1 \\printserver\port say (2)

 

is OK

 

Then. The trouble is when I used the batch in a single file during startup it didn't work. But when I had divided it in two that was a success. I run first batch (1) during the startup (as a scheduled task). Second batch (2) is started on logon (same way). May be it's enough to run a single batch just on logon but I didn't try cos was rather sutisfied with the result. Why is it so complicated? We should remember that in case of the port mapping on XP it's a usual thing when the mapped port LPT goes to "disconnected" status after a certain time of inactivity (when there's no printjobs). The same thing happens when you start up the system - the default status of LPT just after the system is loaded is "disconnected". And it's impossible to reconnect LPT making a printjob - it remains notresponding. The only way to solve the problem is to run those two commands on startup and logon and say "refresh" the connection of the mapped port starting it just before you gonna print using mapped LPT if it's in a "disconnected" status (you can monitor that using net use).

 

[mrx100 0]

Alec§taar, well...Please tell me how often do you print using DOS-progs running under XP? I mean an old 16-bit based stuff. I'm just curious too Don't you think it's a rare thing? So who REALLY cares how it goes within NT core since it's completely out of date? IMHO...that's why such a LPT-based problem happens. I repeat - no matter how many sheets of paper you gonna print knocking on that disconnected LPT - it remains asleep...At least I couldn't wake it up. Only STOP/START method works. You try it yourself, please.

 

Respect.

[mrx100 0]

Alec§taar, thanx for paying so much attention to this say highly-extinct problem. Sometimes the old stuff is really useful...to remind us what was it all about in the beginning

 

Take it easy in your discrete point 8)

[Nekyinboots 0]

Hi,

I have ran into this problem at work. The solution I use is to make a batch file and put it into the startup folder.

The batch file should read something like this.

 

net use G: /DELETE

net use I: /DELETE

net use J: /DELETE

net use K: /DELETE

net use G: \\"path"\"path"

net use I: \\"path"\"path"

net use J: \\"path"\"path"

net use K: \\"path"\"path"

 

Replace "path" with your actual drivepaths of course and remove the quotes.

Hopes this helps...

[adamvjackson 0]

Originally posted by nekyinboots:

Quote:

Hi,

I have ran into this problem at work. The solution I use is to make a batch file and put it into the startup folder.

The batch file should read something like this.

 

net use G: /DELETE

net use I: /DELETE

net use J: /DELETE

net use K: /DELETE

net use G: \\"path"\"path"

net use I: \\"path"\"path"

net use J: \\"path"\"path"

net use K: \\"path"\"path"

 

Replace "path" with your actual drivepaths of course and remove the quotes.

Hopes this helps...

 

If you want to keep just a single file of that (so it is easier to maintain and make changes) you could just use that as a logon script.

[Geni 0]

One possibility, for those using logon scripts on a domain (it's generally the user's home directory that doesn't map in these instances, and it happens sporadically) - this is a known problem with XP SP1. Try upgrading to SP2, and see if that resolves the issue.

 

See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330519

 

[rhilim 0]

Originally posted by madbomber:

Quote:

I kinda have the same problem but just a little different.

 

I have a user running XP Pro that when ever she turns the PC on from a cold boot or even a restart for that matter one of her 4 network drives are not connecting. But when she logs off and back on again her missing drive returns.

 

Not sure if this is happening to anyone else but if you can give me some pointers I'd appreciate it.

 

 

I am having a problem VERY similar to this. When my client logs in (either from a cold boot or restart) NONE of her network drives are being mapped. When she logs off and back on ALL drives appear as normal.

 

When logged in from cold boot or restart, I can go the the domain controller NETLOGON share and run the login script and it runs just fine and all drives appear normally.

 

For the time being I placed a shortcut to the login script in her startup folder but this is not a good solution as this client has a laptop and is not always connected to the network.

 

Does anyone have a "clean" fix for this issue?

 

- Windows XP Pro SP2

- XP Firewall is DISABLED via Group Policy

- Client has Local Admin rights to PC

 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

 

Thanks!

 

Rusty