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Question
Thursday, September 24, 2015 6:54 PM
I receive the following error when I try to disconnect from a self mapped network drive: "network connection does not exist"
The network drive icon appears with a big red "x" and says it is disconnected, yet I can double click on it to enter the mapped folder. Doing this does not reconnect the folder, and remains disconnected. This causes problems because programs that pointed to this path are unable to read the files. I am unable to remap this drive because the associated drive letter (E:) and mapping no longer shows up in the list.
I've tried all the typical suggestions including:
--Tried to delete mapped drive via the command prompt with the net use delete command, (not found in there.)
--Tried the above with the actual network path instead of the drive letter, did not work
--Tried to delete the registry entries from:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2
HKEY_USERS\ Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Mountpoint2\
None of these solutions worked. Though deleting the registry entries momentarily hid the disconnected drive, the drive letter was still not available for mapping. I tried to force the drive letter (E:) to map to my optical drive, which worryingly, pointed back to the mapped network location on the NAS instead of to the optical drive.
How do I get rid of this? Reformatting the computer is not an option.
Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks.
All replies (4)
Thursday, September 24, 2015 10:07 PM ✅Answered | 1 vote
Boot using Safe Mode, some program is trying to access the mapped drive. You should be able to unmap the drive then, so program is trying to access it during boot up.
Friday, September 25, 2015 8:33 PM ✅Answered
I don't know why I didn't try that. Thanks for the suggestion, though I went through a slightly different process.
Drive letter E:\ was only occupied when booting up normally, however, it is 100% available in safe mode. The broken mapped drive was gone too. I successfully remapped E:\ in safe mode, and the correctly mapped E:\ drive stuck around when I rebooted normally.
Friday, September 25, 2015 7:46 AM
I have tested that when I remove the registry key below:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network\E
And restart the computer, the mapped drive will be moved completely.
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Friday, May 1, 2020 2:05 PM | 1 vote
OK. I would think that "Rebooting in SAFE mode" is a "work-around". I wonder if MSFT is seeing this is a "BUG" in current windows, the "DISCONNECT" should be working... :)