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Won't restore mapped drives

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5 replies

by computer_repair

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My client has windows 98se and is hooked up to a NT network. He has a mapped drive for backups at night. Everything was working great until he reinstalled windows. Now when the computer starts, it shows the drive as being disconnect. If I start the computer and let it logon by itself and then log off then back on again it works just fine. I have tried changing the logon method and removing user profiles. Everyone else at his office uses the Microsoft Family Logon, they have no problem. If you have encountered this problem before, please help me out.

Thanks in advance,
Andrew Langley

5 replies

by ann777

What are you using for the automatic logon? When he reinstalled Windows, did he format first or reinstall on top of current?

It may be that he has a *.pwl file that is interferring with the logon process and that when he logs on again, he usesthe proper user name and password so that the server really sees him.

Delete *.pwl files from this system.
Have this user login
Input password
confirm password
then reset autologon
and see if the problem is resolved.

by joseph moore

I don't know why the dropped drive mappings happens in every Microsoft OS. It just does.
There is a way to cheat, though, to get things to work. It sounds like the Backup is scheduled to run at night; no one pushes the button to make it run. If so, then you can set up a Net View command to run before the Backup runs.
If you send a Net View command to the \\server\share you want to backup to, that will refresh the IPC connection between this 98SE box and the server the backup will save to. Now, adding a Share name to a Net View command will make it fail, but that is ok. It will also reinstate the connection, so the mapped drive will then be available.
So, I would write a one-line .BAT file that reads:

NET VIEW \\SERVERNAME\SHARENAME

Where you put in your server name and share folder name in the appropriate spots. Schedule this BAT file to run (using AT scheduler or Task Scheduler, whichever one the 98SE box has) to run 1 minute before the Backup runs.

True, this is not fixing the problem, just a workaround, but it works. Sometimes, that is all we can hope for!

Hope this helps.

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