Fixes for WinXP Ignoring Novell Disk Mapping?

Arcidius asks: "It's been a year and still nobody seems to have a real solution for getting USB devices to work under Windows XP in an Novell environment. If you're running Windows XP and Novell servers (NetWare 6 for us), Windows XP will show all drives available, even though usually many are have been drive mapped. When you plug in an external hard drive or USB device, Windows maps it to the first free drive letter, usually F:, but since Novell has mapped it already, you can't access the drive. The fix so far has been to manually remap the memory key to a free letter, such as B:, and this has to be done on every machine. Either that, or switch your first mapped drive, which is more of a problem in most environments. Since Novell can't figure out a solution, (and Microsoft obviously doesn't care), I throw it to Slashdot. Does anyone have a real, network wide solution?"

Software that might help you

[IntelliAdmin]

I have heard of others using this program http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html [uwe-sieber.de] to solve the issue you have. Have not used it myself, so I cannot say how good or bad the utility is

Windows Admin Tricks and Tips [intelliadmin.com]
www.intelliadmin.com

It's not just Novell

[natmsincome.com]

Hi,

It happens with any mapped drive. If you map a drive as the next avalible letter then plug in a USB device it will do the same thing.

Do you want a pony too?

[tverbeek]

You have a solution: configure the Novell Client to use G as the first drive letter for automapped drives. Do you want someone here to come implement it for you, as well? It's a fairly simple software tweak. A few clicks on the client properties, or double-click a .REG file with the proper setting in it, etc. 10 seconds per workstation, tops. Less on a new install, since you're probably already setting the default tree and context. If your users can't do it themselves with a short e-mail explaining the steps, and you have too many of them and/or too few of you to do it for them... then your problem isn't this XP/Novell "bug" but a lack of proper support systems.

Re:Do you want a pony too?

[Joiseybill]

Other Novell users have already solved this for you, too. Cool Solutions [novell.com]
This covers installs with or without ZEN.
+mod parent up - not a troll, he actually offered helpful info! Using a carefully crafted .reg file might actually preserve some level of security, too; isn't that the point of using Novell?

Change the mapping!

[misleb]

There is nothing magic about the F: drive and Netware. It just happens to be the traditional default mapping. There is no reason why you need to accept that the default. Simply modify the login script(s) and/or the client settings on the computers. Geez. Was this REALLY worthy of an "Ask Slashdot?"

-matthew

Re:It's not just Novell

[BabyDave]

See the knowledgebase article New drive or mapped network drive not available in Windows Explorer [microsoft.com]

And here is the MS KB article

[rduke15]

But, as mentionned in my parent post, no solution for non-admin users who cannot re-assign drive letters.

New drive or mapped network drive not available in Windows Explorer [microsoft.com]:

"This behavior occurs if you map a network drive to the first available drive letter after the drive letters for the local volumes and CD-ROM drives. When you install a new device or volume, Mount Manager, which assigns drive letters to volumes, does not recognize the mapped network drive and assigns the next available drive letter to the new device or volume. This causes a collision with the existing mapped network drive."

Re:People still use Netware?

[a9db0]

'Cause if it ain't broke, don't fix it.... and NetWare doesn't break much.

It can break, of course, just as much as any OS can, but generally once you get it stable it just runs. I've seen NetWare boxes run for years without a reboot - in corporate environments, supporting users and printers, doing their job.

Have you got a box you haven't done a OS reload or recompile on in seven years? I do. It's NetWare 4.11. It sits quietly in the corner and serves files. It's fairly secure, as it runs IPX making it difficult to get to from the internet. NDS (eDirectory) makes user and rights managment as cinch. And it doesn't require new/fast/powerful hardware to support 30 or so users. Or even 300.

Re:Dont you PAY for the privelege...

[DavidTC]

This comment is completely inaccurate. Do not listen to it.

Drive letters are assigned by the OS, period. Neither NTFS or FAT has any idea what drive letters they are, or in fact any concept of drive letters.

Letters are assigned, under Windows, by simply picking the first one as the drives are enumerated in their fairly random order. However, if a device has a 'serial number', which most USB ones do, you can assign it a specific drive letter in the console, and Windows will remember it.

Sometimes you will run across weird cases, like USB drives that share serial numbers, so whatever you assign to one of them will get assigned to the other, or ones that don't have a serial number and hence won't 'remember' any assignments. (Sometimes you can name the partition and Windows will remember, sometimes not.)