We have a six-computer network, all on WinXP, with most data residing
on a single system at the front desk. Lately for some reason, Every
time we restart one particular computer (that we'll call "lab"), we
have to remap the network drive for the front desk machine.
Coincidentally we replaced this offending "lab" computer and son of a
gun, we still have to keep remapping after any restart in order to
access the front desk machine. Reconnect at logon is checked, by the
way. Anybody have any idea how to fix this?

---

Request for Question Clarification by joey-ga on 09 Jun 2004 13:08 PDT

Is the login and password used to start up "lab" identical to the
login/password necessary to access the front desk machine?

---

Clarification of Question by hudsonian-ga on 10 Jun 2004 09:02 PDT

Neither machine has a login password. And the problem occurred first
on a "lab" machine with XP Home and then on the new lab machine with
XP Pro.

Someone suggested that in mapping a drive there "should be a checkbox
to make the mapping persistent." Only one I see is "reconnect at
logon," which is and has always been checked.

Is it WinXP Home or Pro

could you possibly be mapping a drive of the same letter as a hard drive or cd?

would simply making a startup.bat that includes
net use h: /delete
net use h: \\front-desk\desksharename

and putting it in the all users\programs\startup directory be helpful?

A couple of things you can do.
In a command window use the "net use" command with the "/PERSISTENT:yes" as in

net use z: \\targetmachine\targetshare /PERSISTENT:yes

You can also right click on "My Computer"
Select "Map Network Drive"
In the dialog that pops up there should be a checkbox to make the
mapping persistent.

Additionally, in Windows XP:

Open up shared computer,
Right click on shared drive and do mapping...

It will ask which drive to map to and an option to Reconnect at logon.

If that doesn't work, you can always do what was said above.  Make a
bat file that contains the net use commands the crythias-ga stated and
put that in your startup folder.

Also, I've noticed a "bug" on some computers where a drive may not
appear in My Computer/File dialogs but actually be mapped (i.e. you
type in H: and it displays the mapped drive).

I have the same problem with my XP box.  My manually-mapped drives
don't show up after restart, even though I've checked 'reconnect at
logon'.  Interestingly, I notice that if I go to 'map network drive'
in Windows Explorer and pull down the list of drives to choose from,
my mappings are listed there for the drive letter I assigned them
originally.  It's like the computer knows about it, but didn't tell
the filesystem.  Also notable is that once, *immediately* after
startup, I opened Windows Explorer --> My Computer, and saw my
mappings in the list of drives.  However, a second later, they
disappeared when Explorer did an auto-refresh.   Hmmmmm........

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?