"Windows Cannot Access" my WD "My Book Live" NAS drives

New to the forum, hoping to find answers or new ideas to try...
My Win7 OS computer has problems seeing my WD network drives most of the time. I'll say up front that my Macbook, my Windows XP laptops, all other computers of various types in my house see and access these drives just fine, but the one with Windows 7 Pro will not. It occasionally will see and access them for short periods of random time though, which really has me baffled. These drives are right on the same network switch as the Win7 computer.

The scenario goes like this:

• click on the drive name to view contents... 20 or so seconds pass, popup says "Windows cannot access \\drive-name".
• I try the second NAS drive, same thing.
• I try the "diagnose" feature to no avail. I've even explored some of the "explore additional options" suggestions to no avail.

I can ping the IP addresses of both these drives all day long and they respond without fail.


Weird thing is that very occasionally I will click the drive and the file folders show up and I can transfer files, or whatever I want, for a short random period of time.


I swear, this problem is driving me crazy! I've been resorting to using a flash drive to transfer files on this computer's HD to the WD network drives via an XP OS computer, or via the Macbook. I like Windows 7 other than this very frustrating problem.


Soooo... any ideas or suggestions? Anyone else have this issue and figured it out??


TIA for any and all comments and help

optykmuse said:

New to the forum, hoping to find answers or new ideas to try...
My Win7 OS computer has problems seeing my WD network drives most of the time. I'll say up front that my Macbook, my Windows XP laptops, all other computers of various types in my house see and access these drives just fine, but the one with Windows 7 Pro will not. It occasionally will see and access them for short periods of random time though, which really has me baffled. These drives are right on the same network switch as the Win7 computer.





The scenario goes like this:

• click on the drive name to view contents... 20 or so seconds pass, popup says "Windows cannot access \\drive-name".
• I try the second NAS drive, same thing.
• I try the "diagnose" feature to no avail. I've even explored some of the "explore additional options" suggestions to no avail.

I can ping the IP addresses of both these drives all day long and they respond without fail.


Weird thing is that very occasionally I will click the drive and the file folders show up and I can transfer files, or whatever I want, for a short random period of time.


I swear, this problem is driving me crazy! I've been resorting to using a flash drive to transfer files on this computer's HD to the WD network drives via an XP OS computer, or via the Macbook. I like Windows 7 other than this very frustrating problem.


Soooo... any ideas or suggestions? Anyone else have this issue and figured it out??


TIA for any and all comments and help

I'm not sure why the connection would only work sometimes but the following settings will usually allow for access to different types of NAS boxes and older Windows servers. If using the IP address doesn't get you in reliably then try the settings listed.


Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Local Security Policy

Local Policies - Security Options

Network security: LAN Manager authentication level
Set to Send LM & NTLM responses only

Set the Minimum session security for NTLM SSP
Disable Require 128-bit encryption


Reboot all machines after making the adjustment.

Thanks for the suggestions - some things I hadn't yet tried. But... no joy yet.
I tried accessing via IP address to no avail.
I tried the security setting changed and rebooted. Still the same problem.

They were all worth a shot though.

Any other ideas?

It sounds like something is intermittently blocking the connection, like an anti virus software or third party firewall.

If it works sometimes and not others there is most likely a third party program involved that is causing problems.

Might also be something intermittent with the router. Recently switched to a TP-Link TD-W8970. Access to the MyBook Live will be fine on both Win7 and Win8.1 computers, then it goes missing for "\\" access (either symbolic or IP). Oddly, one can then still access the device via: http://{symbolic name of MyBookLive}/UI. It passes a short diagnostic, and the TP-Link router claims all is well.
Also noticed that in the Network view (under Win Explorer), the Storage section (and the icon for the MyBook Live) appear and disappear, similar to if it were a polled connection.

+1 - this drives me crazy. Regularly unable to browse MyBookLive, but still able to access the UI. Tried mapping network drive, using IP address. This is an intermittent problem. Symptoms very similar to that as described by NanooVisitor.

Hi - Has anyone solved this problem. I have a WD My Book World backup storage (White Light). I can ping the device fine. However, I cannot map a network drive. I also see x80070035 Network issue. The device worked fine when I used to connect on XP machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jOS_hE6jjE

Thank you CHEV65. I had a similar problem and "Set the Minimum session security for NTLM SSP
Disable Require 128-bit encryption" solved it for me.