Mapping a network drive

terencejames

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I've got an old D'Link 320l running just for storing photos really. Anyway, I've had to reinstall windows on my laptop recently and now I can't map the folders from my Nas. Whenever I try to map it, I get 'The network folder specified is currently mapped using a different username and password' and that I should disconnect any existing mappings to this device. Does anyone have any idea what this actually means and how I can rectify it? Thanks
 
It means pretty much what the error message says: The folder you are trying to mount is already mounted using a different set of credentials to that you are presently using, so the mapping operation cannot be completed.

However, sometimes error message can be a bit misleading - it's not as if there's some expert system sat behind the OS perfectly figuring out what's wrong and sometimes the error message produced may not be exactly correct. It could be (for example) that this is a "credentials" issue in that the account you are using hasn't got permissions for the share and Windows is chucking out the best error message it can find.

Given that you are using a fresh install of Windows, your credentials (inc userid and password) will be different to anything you've used before - even if they are spelled the same. Windows created a unique "security descriptor" for each security principal and the permissions is often keyed on this and not the human readable names.

To list present drive mappings, it's probably simplest to open up a CMD window and type NET USE and see what's mapped. If there's anything there, the delete it and then try to re-establish it.

Using mapped drives is a bit old fashioned these days - we tend to use UNC paths instead (which don't have drive handles.) It depends a bit on what version of Windows you are using.

If that doesn't work, maybe try deleting and recreating the Share on the NAS - hopefully that will blow away any permissions it has set up (or is caching) and let you set them up again from scratch.
 
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What's the advantage to using this UNC path thing over mapped drives?
 
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IMS - principally that there's only so many drive handles available. Unlikely to be a big deal in a small SOHO environment, but it got to be a real problem in big business some years ago.

I'd perhaps flip the idea it's head and suggest "there's no disadvantage to not using drive handles" unless you've got some old application that requires them.

For example, I don't believe there are any performance impacts - it's mostly a matter of human convenience.
 
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Do you logon with a Microsoft account or local account on your laptop ?

Did you map via hostname or IP address of your NAS device ?
 
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Do you logon with a Microsoft account or local account on your laptop ?

Did you map via hostname or IP address of your NAS device ?
I think it is an MS account. I clicked on network and the nas was in there so I tried to right click and map network drive.
 
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I think it is an MS account. I clicked on network and the nas was in there so I tried to right click and map network drive.
Yeah, it stores the details in your profile with is stored is backed up to the cloud. When you logged back in with your MS account it copied your profile back and includes your UUID used for the mapping which will be different after rebuild.

As Mick says unmap the old connects and you should be able to remap.
 
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