Angry at my network drives

Ok, I am getting very frustrated and very angry at my computer, to the point I am about to wipe it clean and start over.

I have a vista machine, 32bit. I had it connected to my home network wirelessly and had a mapped network drive. I took the computer to a school, came home, and the mapped drive is no longer accessible.

1 - I have another Vista computer that has no problem connecting to the network drive.

2 - This computer still connects to the network, and has no problem going through the router and into the magical land of internet

3 - I recently bought an NAS, and again had no problem connecting the other Vista computer to the new drive. But, this computer will not map the drive. It is independent from the XP machine, so I know the XP vs Vista is not the problem.

If someone can tell me the easy fix to why I can not map a drive and can not connect to the network drives, I would forever be in your debt! It has to be a simple fix that I am just not coming across!

When you "took the computer to a school", did you perhaps join their domain?

What's the exact error message when it fails to access the mapped drive?

What's the effect of unmapping-then-remapping the drive?

I suppose it is possible that I joined the school's domain, and that is what I am not sure of. How would a person fix that problem?

As for any error message, it simply says the path can't be found, or the drive just does not show up when I click on "map network drive."

HELP ME! Please Thank you.

cjgrue said:

I suppose it is possible that I joined the school's domain, and that is what I am not sure of. How would a person fix that problem?

As for any error message, it simply says the path can't be found, or the drive just does not show up when I click on "map network drive."

HELP ME! Please Thank you.

Click to expand...

Presumably you'd know about it if you'd added your machine to their domain. It requires a deliberate administrative act.

Can the "problem" Vista computer ping everything else on your network by IP address? Can it ping by name?

Can you UNC to the IP address of the XP machine for example? (start, run, \\IP_of_XP)

Yes, I type in the IP address of the other computer and the "My Computer" opens up on it so I can get to everything that way. But, again, I don't think it is a problem with the other computer as I am also unable to map the NAS drive that I just bought.

Ok, after doing that magical "ping" thing, the NAS is showing up under my network and I can open it. However, I am still unable to map it, which is what I want to be able to do. Also, the other network drive, that I have connected to the XP machine, is still not showing up. We are getting there, and I appreciate all your help so far!