Mapped Drive disappears (Windows XP SP1)

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Of all XP machines we have tested on, one XP machine keeps on “losing” its mapped drive to home folder and this would happen every time the machine is restarted. We are running login batch that automatically maps all the drives that the particular user needs. Those drives are still intact, except for the home folder! The user profile even has F:home(username) path set up just like everyone else but the F: drive keeps on disappearing.

We are in process of upgrading our server farm to Windows 2000 in next few months, so right now, we are running NT 4.0 servers. Does anyone has any clue why this is happening?

Thanks.

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What is the local drive configuration on this computer, including floppy, CD’s and etc.?

Also is there a “Lastdrive” entry in the Config.sys or was it used in the Autoexec.bat?

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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A: Floppy
C: Hard Disk Drive
D: CD-ROM

Nothing in Autoexec and Config. They are blank.

What is so puzzling about this situation is that when I log in as myself on the “problem” computer, it goes ahead and map the F: to my personal folder just as it is supposed to work. When the user tries this on other computers, it doesn’t map at all either. I am sure it is an user profile problem. I even deleted the profile and set up a new one. Any ideas?

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Yeah, the mapping of network drives IS profile dependent. Looks like to me you need to do the map while the user is logged on and that should make it stick.

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I’m not sure what you mean by running a login batch to map drives or why it would even be necessary in Windows, let alone XP. If you map a drive from within Windows and check the box for persistency, it should be there, always.

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That’s the kicker. I did exactly that and it still disappears next time she logs in, when I choose “Disconnect a drive” option OR try to map it again, I actually see the drive already mapped, but it simply refuses to show up as a drive. HOWEVER, when I log in as myself, it promptly shows up as a drive mapped to my personal folder! She is the only user that has this problem when logging into ANY XP machine.

This was done through her own profile as well. The User profile I was talking about, is the user account located on our PDC.

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Brent,
I’m coming in late here so let me get some stuff straight:
1.) After the user logs on can the drive be mapped correctly?
2.) After the user logs in but before any new mapping is attempted does disconnect network drive show the correct mapping?
3.) Are there any other programs executed in the user script after the mapping?
4.) Does the Disk Management applet show anything strange?

Joe

--Joe

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Guys, I just wanted to let you know that I resolved the problem by upgrading our Kixtart program and it did the trick…

Thanks for your help and advice. I really appreciate it.

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That’s a new one for me. Thanks for the lead to a “new” web site (Kixtart). But one thing that’s been nagging at me since you wrote the initial post, if you don’t mind one final question. Why do you need a logon script to map network drives? Can’t that be done successfully from within the OS and made persistent for the user? I wasn’t aware that folks would have to use scripts for this chore.

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BigAl,
In a domain environment you can have roaming profiles so that everyone gets ‘their’ desktop no matter which PC they use. Also, you can set mappings once for the whole company in a .bat file so everyone always has the devices identified for network sensitve programs to use. Changes then become really simple – change the .bat file rather than each PC. You can also use group policies to ‘lock’ these settings.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks, Joe. I’ve heard of roaming profiles, but have zero experience in that area. I’ll do a little reading now…..

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Big Al,
Have a script run at logon is not just for roaming profiles. That is just one use. The others are standardization of network mapping, running a common set of programs at initialization, and ease of maintenance – all controlled by the network administrator.

Joe

--Joe

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You are right, you don’t need login script to map drives, you could map it by hand, unfortunately, our users are blind and it is generally easier for us to use login script to map appropriate drives to their computers without user intervention.

Also, we map specific drives depending on their membership in security groups.

Brent

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Thanx to you and Joe. (That limited experience on my part is why I ain’t a network administrator!)

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