Windows 10: I have a mapped drive that shows disconnected but I can still acces it through explorer but...

I am running Windows 10 and have had countless troubles with mapped drives. First of all Windows 10 does not see my NAS (A WD Cloud Drive. I have gotten around this problem by mapping the IP address of that drive. But when I reboot my computer all my mapped drives show a red X that I have to click on each drive to get the X to disappear. But one of my mapped drives shows Disconnected and the red X does not go away. I can still see the folders on the drive when I click on it but other programs that need to access the drive cannot use the drive. The MP3 files on that drive do not play in any of my music players(Groove, Winamp, Amazon Music, etc. When I try finding my mapped drives by using the net use command in the command window it says there are no entries in the list. I have tried every fix I have been able to find in the Microsoft website (www.microsoft.com) and none of them has worked. I cannot find a way to remove the disconnected drive and I cannot remap it as that drive letter does not show in the Map Network Drive list. I am getting very frustrated and am seriously abandoning Windows and going back to Linux unless I get some solid answers pretty soon.

:)

 

Mapped drives not showing up on Explorer

Wanted to mention that I'm experiencing this same issue. Environment here is a Windows Server 2012 R2 domain with network shares and printers mapped by GPO. GPO drive mappings are not on a per-user basis and instead are global for all users.

Affected user can not access mapped drives via explorer, yet NET USE shows drives mapped as expected. Attempting to remap network drives via explorer results in a prompt stating that the connection is already mapped to that drive letter, do I want to disconnect and reconnect it?

Oddly, using applications that provide an 'open document' dialogue can see and access mapped network drives normally. For example, open Word, file -> open -> browse: Left pane shows network shares, clicking on network share shows share contents. Clicking on 'This PC' shows all mapped drives which are navigable and documents can be opened normally. Doing this does not correct the issue with Explorer. Similarly, a command prompt also operates as expected, so it's possible to change to a mapped network drive by the associated letter and to list / copy / delete files normally.

Issue appears to be limited to a single user profile on the workstation displaying the described symptoms. Logging in as another user results in the drives being mapped and accessible as usual. Symptoms persist through reboot. User account with symptoms does not have admin access locally or on the domain.

 

Mapped drives not showing up on Explorer


I have several server drives mapped to my Surface Pro 3 tablet, and from time to time they disappear from Windows Explorer and XYplorer (an Explorer replacement). They are still there and mapped, as Net Use shows them mapped properly. But to get them tho show up in either Explorer or XYplorer, I have to physically remap them (right click: Map Network Drive...) and when I do so they already show up with the proper drive connection but won't appear unless I finish the remapping. XYplorer has a tool to reconnect all network drives, but nothing happens there.

Any ideas where the disconnect is?
Thanks, DaveD

 

Mapped drives not showing up on Explorer


Huh?

Let me restate the problem, a bit more simply. Since at least Windows XP through Windows 8.1, using Windows Explorer you are able to open the Network View, expand a displayed computer, right click on a drive or folder that has been set up as shared under the displayed computer, select "Map Network Drive...", assign a drive letter using the "Drive" drop-down menu, select "Reconnect at logon", and !wow! you have a mapped network drive that shows up every time you start up your computer as long as that network drive is accessible on the network. You can do this also with Windows 10, just as with the earlier OS levels.

But with Windows 10, on my SP3, those mappings sometimes disappear from Windows Explorer after the SP3 is awakened from sleep. To get to them again with Windows Explorer as mapped network drives, I must repeat the mapping operation, just like in the paragraph above. But unlike with the original mapping, the drive assignments still show up like I had set them previously under the "Map Network Drive..." dialog in the list of drive letter possibilities that show up when the "Drive:" drop-down menu is expanded. (As an aside, this means that I don't have to remember the drive letter I had previously used when remapping them, which makes it a bit easier to do.)
DaveD