Mapping A Share Fails to Connect At Startup

I honestly don't know what to suggest.

I've never encountered such an issue under Win XP, Linux or OSX when accessing either of my 2 NAS. Given the large number of similar complaints from Win 7 users targeting other Samba based servers and even true Windows systems I'm strongly inclined to believe this is a Windows 7 issue that is not at all specific to ReadyNAS.

Question: Do you really need to map a drive? I had not noticed this issue previously as I don't use mapped drives in Windows, instead preferring to use UNC paths which I don't have an issue with. ie use \\nas\share rather than z: Maybe this would be a suitable workaround - at least in the short term

I don't know what a UNC path is or how to set one up. Is it as simple as the command "use \\nas\share" and including the applicable username and pass? Does it keep you connected when you restart? My wife has a large itunes library that she syncs with her ipad and the share needs to be connected to her PC for it to sync.

Thanks

in your explorer bar simply type: \\nas_name\share

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(computing)#Uniform_Naming_Convention

windows vista/7 sometimes seems to have a problem with your network coming as 'public' mode on startup, this often causes mapped drives to fail.

I don't know of any solution other than to wait a minute or 2 before logging in (so the network can come up and recognize your home network).

you can see if this might be happening, when you boot up mouse over the network icon on the tray, see if its unknown or public network, then after a few minutes it says home network, or something to that effect.

We might have something that is workable here using UNC as sphardy suggested.

I opened windows explorer and typed "\\NAS-01-F0-3F\files" in the address bar without quotes. I hit enter and it prompted me for username and password. I entered them and checked "save credentials". The share opened up to the files. I created a shortcut to the share in my taskbar. Then I tried to reboot and open the shortcut to the NAS I created and it prompted me for a username and password again. I filled out the information again and checked save credentials. I opened up the credential manager and the username and pass I asked it to save were there but the Persistence was set to "Logon Session". I also noticed that the username was set to RAVEN\My_NAS_Username. I rebooted and sure enough the credentials were gone. So I opened up credential manager again and pressed "Add a Windows Credential"

For Internet or network address I used: NAS-01-F0-3F
User name: RAVEN\the username of the user I created on the NAS
Password: the password of the user I created on the NAS

I pressed ok and the Persistence was set to Logon Session. Strange...

So I removed the credential from the vault and tried again this time with the following (I omitted the name of my computer "RAVEN"):

For Internet or network address I used: NAS-01-F0-3F
User name: the username of the user I created on the NAS
Password: the password of the user I created on the NAS

After hitting ok I viewed the credentials, I received "Enterprise" as my persistence so I thought maybe this will work. I rebooted and tried to open the shortcut to my share drive. No dice, I got prompted for my username and password again.

Back to the credentials manager I go. This time I tried adding the name of the NAS to my username:

For Internet or network address I used: NAS-01-F0-3F
User name: NAS-01-F0-3F\the username of the user I created on the NAS
Password: the password of the user I created on the NAS

Hit ok and got "Enterprise" for persistence. Rebooted, clicked on shortcut and it opened without a prompt (albeit after a few seconds of the spinning blue circle). Now for the next test. I added a music file to itunes that exists on the share and played it. Rebooted the PC and first thing opened up itunes and tried to play the song. Waited a few seconds (I assume these are the same few seconds that I initially saw when trying to open the shortcut) and the song played! It appears that the right combination of credential manager username (adding the NAS name prior to the username) led to the correct "Enterprise" persistence and the ability for the NAS to connect without prompting for username and pass. I am going to try this method with mapping the drive as well. Stay tuned...

In short - your final paragraph describes exactly my setup and what I was going to ultimately suggest. It seems to work just fine as far as I can tell

My attempt at mapping the drive (using the same methodology as the attempt that worked) failed to reconnect at startup so it doesn't fix the mapping issue. So I will go back to UNC and use that. The only downside that I can tell is the 11 or so seconds it takes to "connect" and start playing a music file with itunes. Once connected it seems speedy enough though. I am not sure why it would take so long to pass credentials and connect. I just built this PC using the latest components including an SSD drive so everything happens almost instantly except for this.

I am still disappointed after all my work to setup my PC and the NAS drive correctly that the final problem that brought the whole thing to a halt was not being able to map a network share... Come on Microsoft!

Thanks sphardy!

Hmm it seems the victory is short lived. It works but just barely. If I don't actively use the NAS drive by browsing files and folders or by playing a music file from it, I have to wait 15 seconds each time I try to re-access it.

Here is an example. I start playing a music file. I get a phone call. I pause the track in itunes. 2 minutes later I am off the phone and press play in itunes and have to wait 15 seconds for the track to resume playing. The same goes for browsing files on the NAS. If I stop and do something els for a minute or two and try to go back to browsing the files on the NAS I have to wait 15 seconds while the blue circle spins and then finally the NAS can be browsed again...

FUN

That is odd - my connection is virtually instantaneous & always has been

I think I am going to remove all security and retry the connection options. That might give me a better idea as to where the problems are coming from.