Within the past few weeks I’ve had an issue with my system running Windows 7 Ultimate. When I first upgraded from Vista I had no issues, but a few weeks ago a share that was mapped to a NAS disappeared. WHen I went looking, I found that the NAS and a printer on the network are no longer visible under network in Windows Explorer. I can still ping the NAS by name and IP and the Win7 system still shows the Windows 2008 and Windows XP systems on the network in Explorer as well. When I try to map to the NAS using the IP address (\\10.10.10.101\RootShare) I get the Select Certificate dialog – sometimes twice - then the Windows Security Dialog, then the error Windows cannot access \\10.10.10.101\RootShare. I am not running a domain and the Win2008 and WinXP Pro systems on the same network can both still browse and see all the shares, including the NAS and Win7 system. Both the systems still have the mapped drive to the NAS as well, so it seems to be a Win7 issue. I’m not aware of any changes I made to the system that could account for the issue, though I blindly apply all the patches, so something could have happened there I suppose. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, Can you manually access the network drive via Windows Explorer? At this stage, I suggest you try the following steps to troubleshoot the issue. 1. Perform a System Restore on the Windows 7 machine to an earlier point to check whether the drive can be mapped. 2. Temporarily turn off firewall. If the issue persists, please also refer to the following article: Windows 7 RC (Build 7100) and Addonics NAS Device If there is any error message, please capture and upload it. Thanks, Novak

Sorry, I've been on the road and haven't been checking the forums. I cannot even see the NAS from the Win7 system using Windows Explorer, though I could in the past. The other 2 systems on the network can still get to the share. I really don't want to perform a system restore, because, unfortunately, the NAS I 'm trying to reach is where all my backups reside, and I don't want to risk losing data on the Win7 system without access to the backups. The local security policy is already set as suggested in the referenced article. I've tried turning off the firewall to no avail and I've looked in all the logs I can find and there's no indication traffic is being blocked. The device I'm trying to connect to is a ReadyNAS NV+ and I can still ping it and browse to its admin interface using IE. The shares on the NAS are still visible in the admin interface from the Win7 system. The error code return is 0x800704cf, "The network location cannot be reached. For more information..." Thanks, Byron

Did you ever solve this? I think I just got the same problem. Two days ago (and for the last 6 months) my Synology Diskstation was working fine with my Tosh laptop running W7ult 64bit. Then suddenly it stopped showing in Windows Explorer. I can still ping it, and if I access it by name in Windows Explorer (by directly entering \\DISKSTATION) it appears no problem. My backup software also works fine with it. However it has definitely stopped being visible to the Windows Explorer. On my other networked PC also running the same OS it works fine. I have also seem some other strange behaviour in recent times with Windows Explorer (e.g. when I move a file, the windows don't update themselves until I refresh) which makes me think maybe my Windows Explorer has gone screwy. Any thoughts? Alastair.

No, I ended up reinstalling Windows from scratch. I appears that for some reason Windows had decided to use HTTPS to communicate to the NAS, which wouldn't work. I believe that one of 2 VPN software I had installed at some point for work had changed the default protocol. Even working with the NAS vendor and Microsoft did not find the root of the problem, but sniffing the network traffic and looking at some logs revealed the protocol problem. Since reinstalling I've had no further issues.