I had a folder on a drive I assigned "Q".  Within it were very
important Quicken files. Well, I "disconnected" that mapped folder and
all the files are gone. I am not a programmer/engineer, but it looks
to me like when a mapped drive is disconnected, all files are lost.

Can anyone inform/help me with this.  The files in question were not
deleted using "delete" in any way. But, I did "disconnect drive" and
it appears that action may erase the file(s). Does it?  It it does, is
there any recourse to getting this information back??  No, I did not
back them up to a different (unaffected) area-I know; very stupid.
Recreating my information is going to be very daunting if that is my
only option.

Any help available from any experts?? PLEASE!

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 20 Mar 2004 14:25 PST

evets...

You say you disconnected the folder, then later you say
you disconnected the drive. Assuming you actually did the
latter, in what way did you acccomplish this? It may be
possible to reverse the process.

sublime1-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 20 Mar 2004 14:27 PST

P.S. - If the drive was simply disconnected, the files should
still be fine, and not erased.

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 20 Mar 2004 14:33 PST

evets...

Also, it would help to know what kind of drive this was.
Was it internal or external? Was it USB or a regular IDE?
Did it require a software interface, such as an Iomega
Zip drive? And so on...

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 20 Mar 2004 14:44 PST

evets...

I apologize if I misunderstood your situation.
If you disconnected a mapped network drive,
Is it not possible to re-map the drive path?

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Clarification of Question by evets-ga on 20 Mar 2004 16:15 PST

Here is what I did:
Right click My Computer choose Map Network Drive
I browsed and used "make new folder" and created folder.

Well, at a later point I chose "disconnect network drive" (using a
right click from My Computer) and I disconnected the "Q" drive which
is the letter I used originally. I didn't actually delete any folders
or files, but now I can't find the ones that were out there.

I suppose I may be forgetting something else I may have done, I get so
mad I tend to start experimenting...but I do know I never chose
"delete" with regards to the folder in question??

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Clarification of Question by evets-ga on 20 Mar 2004 16:17 PST

One other thing. There were no external drives involved, just the IDE hard drive.

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 20 Mar 2004 19:00 PST

evets...

When you map a network drive and create a new folder,
you are not really creating a folder, you are accessing
a folder on a network from another machine. The example
\\server\share
would be the name you would have to type in, where
'server' is an IP or FTP address, and 'share' is the
folder name which already exists on that computer.

Please see this tutorial on the Georgetown University
website:
http://uis.georgetown.edu/software/documentation/winxp/winxp.mapping.drive.html

If you are on a network, the folder you mapped to drive
'Q' still exists on the network with which you originally
connected, as do the files you left on it. You just need
to click on the 'Browse' button and locate it once again.
This is nicely illustrated on the page I referenced.

I would also strongly recommend against leaving such critical
files on a networked computer, rather than your own. If that
server goes down or is removed from the network, your files
will be unavailable.

Let me know if this resolves your problem, and I will post
an official answer in order to collect the fee.

sublime1-ga

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Clarification of Question by evets-ga on 20 Mar 2004 21:02 PST

sublime1: Thanks. I found it!

evets...

I'm very pleased to hear that you were able to recover your
Quicken files. I use Quicken for several accounts, and I know
what it feels like to lose the data!

I will repeat the information pertinent to the resolution of
your problem below, to formalize the answer:

------------------------------------------------------

When you map a network drive and create a new folder,
you are not really creating a folder, you are accessing
a folder on a network from another machine. The example
\\server\share
would be the name you would have to type in, where
'server' is a computer name, and 'share' is the
folder name which already exists on that computer.

Please see this tutorial on the Georgetown University
website:
http://uis.georgetown.edu/software/documentation/winxp/winxp.mapping.drive.html

If you are on a network, the folder you mapped to drive
'Q' still exists on the network with which you originally
connected, as do the files you left on it. You just need
to click on the 'Browse' button and locate it once again.
This is nicely illustrated on the page I referenced.

I would also strongly recommend against leaving such critical
files on a networked computer, rather than your own. If that
server goes down or is removed from the network, your files
will be unavailable.

sublime1-ga


Searches done, via Google:

XP "mapping a network drive"
://www.google.com/search?q=XP+%22mapping+a+network+drive%22

Very thorough. Thanks much!

Disconnecting from a mapped drive won't delete any files.
Using a drive letter just gives you an easier way to access another
drive on a network (it saves typing/selecting the full path every time
you want to save to that drive/folder).

According to "Windows Help", to map a drive letter to a drive letter
to a network computer or folder:
1) Open the "My Computer Icon" (double click on it)
2) On the tools menu, click "Map Network Drive"
3) in "Folder", type the server and share name of the computer or
folder you want. eg. \\servername\sharename (by servername they mean
the computer you want to onnect to)

You can also map network drives from the command prompt
eg. net use m: \\computername\foldername or something.