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View Full Version : Network Drives and Photos


Jason Dunn
07-05-2004, 04:03 PM
I store all my photos in the My Pictures folder on my main PC (Windows XP Pro) - a little over 10 GB worth in total. My wife wants to have access to those photos on her computer, so I shared out the folder over the network and drive-mapped the folder on her computer to "P" for pictures. Naturally. :-) Here's the problem: even though the computer hosting the share is powered up and running, when I reboot my wife's computer (running XP Home) and she logs on, it gives a "Could not connect to network drive" error. When you click the error window it takes you to My Computer, where drive "P" has a red "X" and is disconnected. Double-clicking on that drive letter opens up the share and everything works properly - the red "X" disappears.

The question I have is why doesn't Windows XP connect to that drive at boot up? The resource is obviously available, so why does it take a manual connection before it's seen as valid?

Mike Temporale
07-05-2004, 04:10 PM
I've seen this happen many times too. It only happens with Windows XP Home. I have fixed this by making sure the user name and password are in sync across both machines. I don't know how you have shared the folder, if you have created an account for her on your machine, then make sure they are the same. If you just used "Everyone" for the share, then I think there is a setting on XP home someplace that says reconnect mapped drives on startup. Just not sure where that is.

David Horn
07-05-2004, 04:26 PM
On my copy of XP Home, you need to delete the shared drive on the guest PC. Then remap it (Tools, Map Network Drive) and give the address (eg, \\10.3.44.1\Pictures); choose a drive letter, then tick "reconnect at logon".

Hope this helps,

Jason Dunn
07-05-2004, 04:48 PM
If you just used "Everyone" for the share, then I think there is a setting on XP home someplace that says reconnect mapped drives on startup. Just not sure where that is.

Yes, I did an "everyone" share and that's how I mapped it. I'll have to look for that setting...

Jason Dunn
07-05-2004, 04:49 PM
On my copy of XP Home, you need to delete the shared drive on the guest PC. Then remap it (Tools, Map Network Drive) and give the address (eg, \\10.3.44.1\Pictures); choose a drive letter, then tick "reconnect at logon".

Hmm - thanks David, I'll look into that.

brianchris
07-05-2004, 05:11 PM
It sounds like when you set up the map on your wife's computer, you did not select "reconnect at logon" (as others have mentioned). You probably did, in which case something else is afoot. But if you didn't check that box (which I believe is checked by default when establishing a mapped drive), there's no need to look further.

SassKwatch
07-09-2004, 12:33 AM
The question I have is why doesn't Windows XP connect to that drive at boot up? The resource is obviously available, so why does it take a manual connection before it's seen as valid?

I frequently run into the same problem on my home network. I have this vague suspicion that the process that looks for network drives isn't 'dependent' upon network authentication occurring first. It almost seems as if they're 2 processes that both occur during boot, but occur independently of each other. *IF* that's the case, it doesn't make much sense, 'but'......

I also suspect it has something to do with running all the networked pc's as a 'Workgroup'. Don't think I've ever seen this at work where everything is domain based.