Lost mapped drives

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:52:54 Z

I have a W2K8 SP2 server, every few days windows XP users lost their shared drives to this server. There is no error in the event logs and I have to reboot the server to get the shares back. When the problem occurs, the smb request from the XP workstation doesn't get a response back from the w2k8 server. A Vista machine has no such problem since it is on smb2.

Is that a patch or way to reactify this issue?

Your help is very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Lost mapped drives

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:27:18 Z

Hello ETECHSH,

According to the research, the mapped drive lost issue may be caused by the several possible reasons:

Possible reason1. The problematic client doesn't reconnect to the target share at logon.

Please follow the steps to re-configure the mapped driver on the client and then check if the issue will re-occur.

Steps:

a. Open "My Computer"

b. Click on "Tools" and then select "Map Network Driver"

c. input the \\ipaddressofserver\sharename to give the path of the share

d. Check "Reconnect at logon"

e. Drive gets mapped

f. Double click on the drive to check.

Possible Reason 2. Antivirus software or Windows Firewall may block the SMB protocol on clients.

Please check if there is any Antivirus software and the Windows Firewall is enabled on the problematic client. If so, please disable them to check if the issue can be resolved.

Possible Reason3. Fast Logon Optimization is enabled on the clients.

The fast logon feature may affect the display and drive letter assignment of a mapped network drive. As a result, the drive may have been mapped; however, the user on client cannot see it in Windows Explorer. He may recognize it as a failed network drive mapping. This is the reason why we usually suggest you to disable fast logon on the clients via a GPO, and please check if the mapped network drive will be occur under this circumstance.

Please also configure the following group policy setting to disable Fast Logon Optimization to see if the issue still exists on the problematic clients.

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon\Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

When this policy is enabled, a Windows XP client behaves in the same manner as a Windows 2000 client at both system startup and at user logon.

Please note: As this is a computer configuration, please run "Gpupdate /force" and then reboot the problematic clients to make it take into effect.

For more information about Fast Logon Optimization feature, please check the following KB article.

305293 Description of the Windows XP Professional Fast Logon Optimization feature

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=305293

831998 Mapped network drive shows no drive letter or will not allow you to create new long-named files or folders

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831998

297684 Mapped Drive Connection to Network Share May Be Lost

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684

If the issue still exists on the problematic clients, please also try adding the following registry subkey on the problematic client to check it works.

Steps:

a. Click Start, click Run, type REGEDIT, and then click OK.

b. Locate and click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache

c. Click Edit, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

d. Type SilentForcedAutoReconnect , and then press ENTER to name the value.

e. Double-click SilentForcedAutoReconnect .

f. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any concen.

Hope the information can be helpful for you.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.