Mapped Drive Not Connecting at Startup

Here is another alternative if you just want to get rid of the warning. Mapped drives will not connect until you click on them for the first time but the annoying warning won't pop up at start up . Again it requires a registry edit and needs to be done with caution.


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\NetworkProvider\

Set or create a DWORD

RestoreConnection = 0

Do a restart after making the changes.

Just a follow up. My Vista PC has started to display the same problem again even with the registry edit in my previous post. (mapped drives fail to connect and I get the warning message) I will do some investigation and post back with my findings. Win7 PC is still functioning as expected.

Hi,

I also have this issue as described by Alakar.

Kit list:
2 x Win 7 Pcs Prem home edition
1 x LG RD1 NAS drive (operating in Raid 1 mode)
1 x Trend Gig switch connecting all devices on the the same LAN.
RJ45 cables between all, and all devices running at 1GB FDuplex

Software config
Win7 is setup to map to my NAS with logon info saved.
NAS is configured for user to allow reconnects and access to directory
WIN7 firewall is on currently (see below)

Symptom
--------

Basically Boot PC and icon pops up with message 'Not all network drives could be re-connected' All applications can't see data on drive until you click on drive mapping in Explorer and then all is fine.

I need this not to occur as our photos are all on the NAS to allow my wife and I to share access and I don't want to have to tell her to click on the drive each time she needs to use any data. Frankly she should not have to do this, it should just work.

Tried so far
-----------
Started by turning off Firewall. This seemed to fix it. Therefore I figured maybe the network service was being blocked. Turned on Netlogon service. Seemed to work for a bit but problem is back. Think it is not related at all.

Rebooted NAS, no change to status. NAS I should say is on 100% of the time, standby and hibernation are currently OFF.

What works please?
-------------------
I noticed the link to the MS support page, with a reg edit. Does this work? Seems a bit drastic given such a basic networking function.

I’ve seen others talk about batch files, again this is not the 1990s people, that seems crazy!

Thoughts
---------

I am wondering if this is a Win7 Home Prem issue that somehow the cut down version is not supporting this feature fully. Or its just broken!

Ideas, comments, all welcome.
Thanks
Andy

How can I set up my laptop so it connects automatically on startup to my home network? On startup, in the lower right hand corner,I have to click the internet connection, find my home network, click on it and I am connected. With previous laptops running XP, I connected to the internet on startup automatically.

shakreit said:

How can I set up my laptop so it connects automatically on startup to my home network? On startup, in the lower right hand corner,I have to click the internet connection, find my home network, click on it and I am connected. With previous laptops running XP, I connected to the internet on startup automatically.

When you click the internet connection and select your home network, check to see that the "connect automatically" box is ticked with a check mark.

Does anyone have a copy of that utility? The download link is dead.

We been having this same issue and after many hours, we have resolved the issue....we are using an intel based PC and the factory nic card. We tried using a diffeent NIC card and found the issue has been resolved extremely quick..

If your Network has to search at all then your mapped drives will fail connection, but using this intel pro/100 s NIC card, the connectivity is instant and the mapped drive is connected at boot!!

Hope my novice language helps all of you out there!!!

It amazes me that no one has posted a helpful, REAL solution, aside from "just re-enter your credentials every time". It truly bothers me anyone would post that as a solution.

So, here is the REAL solution.

The issue is that the name of the drive is not being resolved before trying to connect. To get past this, you need to re-map the drive using the server's IP address.

1. Get the server's IP address.
   
   • Open the command prompt by typing "cmd" in the search box in the start menu.
   • type "ping server". Write down the IP address that it returns.
   
   
2. Disconnect the network drive
   
   • Be sure you are not connected to the network drive. You can do this by clicking on "Computer" in the start menu, right-clicking the drive, and selecting "disconnect".
   
   
3. Re-map the network drive
   
   • In the same folder of windows explorer where you disconnected the drive, click "Map network drive" at the top of the window.
   • Instead of typing "\\server\data" or "\\server\share", use the IP address. For example, "\\192.168.25.10\data".
   
   
4. Connect to the network drive using your credentials
   
   • Enter your user name and password.
   • Click "remember credentials" or "remember password" checkbox.
   
   
5. Check to see if it worked properly
   
   • Restart your computer. It should automatically connect to the network drive now.

Thank you Affe! This started for me about three weeks ago (not auto-mapping NAS drives on boot-up) and I had to disconnect/reconnect WiFi to map. No idea what caused it as I hadn't knowingly changed anything. Remapped the drives using NAS IP address instead of name and all mapped ok after restart. Let's hope this continues to be the case after a cold boot :)

I followed all of this info but still had problems so I thought I'd post another solution. My issues are with a Goflex Home, it maps it's own folders every time but for the USB drive plugged into the back that I use with XBMC for DVD Movies (Backup rips of all my DVD's, no transcoding), TV Shows, and Portable videos. I map directly to each folder in the external drive.

I opened notepad and typed the following, the quotations would be omitted if there were no spaces in the path, but since there are spaces I have to use the quotes. The XXX's is the IP address of the Goflex Home, though I could have just used Goflex Home instead of the IP. The reason I went with the IP address is because if I used Goflex Home, the drives would show up upon reboot/login as unable to connect. When I use the IP address and reboot, the drives always disappear, even though they are set to reconnect at login.

net use M: "\\XXX.XX.X.X\External Drive\FreeAgent 2TB\DVD_Movies"

Then I saved the file to my desktop as "map M.bat"

I repeated the process for two other drives, creating separate files for each, "map V.bat" and "map T.bat".

I moved the files to the root of C: so it'd be easy to find.

I started the task scheduler.

General Tab:
Name: Map Network Drives
Security Options: Selected Run only when user is logged on.
Configure for: Windows 7, Windows Sever 2008 R2

Triggers Tab:
New:
Begin the task: At log on
Settings: Any User
Advanced Settings:
Delay task for: 30 seconds

Actions
New:
Actions: Start a program
Program/script: Browse to C:\map M.bat, Open.
Repeated the last three steps for map V.bat and map T.

Then I clicked "OK", found the task in the list, right clicked and clicked "Run" to test it out.

It works every time. I am not sure if it would work if the mapped drive showed up as disconnected, but when there is no drive showing up at all it fixes the problem.

This problem just seems to go on and on and on.

Windows 8 thread with more possible solutions hope it helps. :)
persistent network drive mappings not very persistent