Windows 7 "(Drive name) could not be accessed" message

[languageservice]

I should say at the beginning, that the actual message is in German, but I believe this to be the correct English version.

I have spent hours searching for an answer to this question, and in the past I have always managed to solve networking problems myself, but now I am stumped! Setup is:
Laptop A: Ultimate 64-bit
Laptop B: Home Premium 64-bit
Both Windows 7
External drive: Maxtor 320GB
Router: D-Link DSL 2640 R

Laptops networked wireless, Maxtor wired.

I recently found I couldn't connect from A, my laptop, to B, my wife's. I found at the same time that B wouldn't connect to either A or the Maxtor. After much searching etc, as the Kaspersky Internet Security expired today, I uninstalled it on both laptops, made sure the Windows firewall was switched off, and tried again. Now I can connect from A to everything, and from B to A, but not from B to the Maxtor. Pinging on IP addresses works fine, pinging on the name of A works, but not on the name of the drive. The drive shows up under Network in Windows explorer, but I get the above message if I click on it. The same applies if I try to map the drive. The same also happens if I type either the IP address or the name of the drive into the box when mapping the drive (instead of using the browse button), something that has worked for me before. Internet access is fine.

I should also add there are two networked printers, one wired via a print server and one wireless, and B can print to both.

It seems to me that the usual suspects such as Net Bios over TCP/IP, firewalls, anything in the ipconfig output etc, can be excluded as there is connectivity over the network to one device. That device is also clearly working as A can connect to it perfectly normally. So I'm out of ideas!

All suggestions gratefully received.

Kevin

 

[Trouble]

I suppose it could be possible that some remnant of Kaspersky still remains on the one computer although I'm not sure why it would be only blocking the connection from B to the Maxtor. In any case, you may try running the removal tool provided by Kaspersky located here Removal tool for Kaspersky Lab products on B, just in case.
When you removed Kaspersky, what have you replaced it with? My suggestion would be Link Removed due to 404 Error, it seems to be a satisfactory replacement and we haven't seen anything in the way of network issue when using it.
On the problem machine open network and sharing center and from the left column choose "Change advanced sharing settings"
scroll down to the section labeled "File sharing connections", select the radio button that says "Enable file sharing for devices that use 40- or 56- bit encryption. You may have to reboot. See if that makes any difference.

 

[languageservice]

Thanks for the reply. I have done all that, but the result remains the same, I'm afraid. It's bound to be something stupid, but I can't think what. I have looked all through the Uninstall programs window to see if anything else is installed that looks sus, but I couldn't see anything.

As to a replacement, I was really busy, so I simply renewed my Kaspersky. As there is a new version, which they recommend is installed after uninstalling the previous version, I decided to uninstall for the troubleshooting. I will keep MSE in mind for next time though. The one I was most happy with was ZoneAlarm, but it became simply too intrusive. Since then I have found no product I am really pleased with. Kaspersky is so far the one I am least displeased with!

 

[Trouble]

Could it be something as simple as a username and password issue? Probably not huh.
Do me a favor and on the Ultimate machine (the one that isn't having a problem) type secpol.msc into the search box and hit enter.
In the Local Security Policy management console, expand local policies and then select /highlight Security Options in the left column.
In the right pane scroll down and look at the setting for "Network security: LAN Manger authentication level
tell us what it says, something like
"Send NTLMv2 response only" or something else.

 

[languageservice]

It says "Not defined", which I hope means more to you than me

Shouldn't be user names and passwords. Both machines have the same two users and each has the same password, exactly for network sharing reasons.

 

[Trouble]

OK, thanks for the info.
How exactly is the external hard drive (Maxtor) connect or made available to network clients. (Host connect USB to computer and shared, Cat5 direct connect to router, USB connection to router, etc.

 

[languageservice]

The drive is connected to the router with a LAN cable, which I guess doesn't bring us any closer to a solution

 

[Trouble]

Probably not, but try clearing the netbios cache on the problem machine
command prompt
type nbtstat -R
then ping the maxtor by ip and add the -a switch
type ping -a 192.168.nnn.nnn see if it returns the name of the maxtor in the ping results
something like pinging MaxtorDrive [192.168.nnn.nnn] with 32 bytes of data:
then attempt to ping again using that name
if it doesn't respond with a name, try the same thing on the other machine to see if the results are consistent.
Is the drive configured with a static ip address? Can you access it with a browser using either the web interface or ftp interface witht he ip address from the problem machine?

 

[languageservice]

Thanks for staying with me

Tried clearing the NetBios cache. Got the response (in German) that the remote cache table could not be cleared. If I ping using the a switch with the IP address, the name is returned, if I ping with that name, it responds that it can't find host "MAXTOR320GB". On the other machine, both work.
I am able to reach the web interface of the router from B, but I haven't tried with ftp. Do I just put in the IP address in an ftp client?
It is not a fixed IP address. My router makes it really difficult to allocate fixed addresses. In fact, I am thinking of reverting to my old router, which had a much better UI. Alternatively, buying a new router, as both laptops now have an 802.11n card, whereas the router is a g.

 

[languageservice]

Don't know if it helps, but I have installed Kaspersky on A, and once I made the home network trusted, it hasn't changed network connectivity in respect of either machine at all. But I think it is becoming clear that the problem lies exclusively with the B machine, isn't it?

 

[Trouble]

Don't know if it helps, but I have installed Kaspersky on A, and once I made the home network trusted, it hasn't changed network connectivity in respect of either machine at all. But I think it is becoming clear that the problem lies exclusively with the B machine, isn't it?

Yeah, I think we're past being suspicious of Kaspersky and the likes, I'm sure you know how to tweak the network trusts to get that part to work. I was thinking that it might have more to do with software that was actually installed on A that wasn't present on B something like a proprietary product from Maxtor to support netbios interaction (Quick Connect, Easy Connect, something like that)?
If you type Link Removed like Link Removed into the run dialog box what happens, same error?
I assume from your OP that this was working at an earlier point in time. So I'm suspecting that a service or piece of software has been stopped or uninstalled, just a guess.

 

[languageservice]

Good idea about the other software. However, I can't spot anything on A to do with Maxtor or finding the drive. Both laptops were set up by me fairly recently, and I don't remember installing any software connected with the Maxtor. I am 95% certain that it used to work. I basically do everything to do with setting up, networking etc. on these laptops and I am pretty sure I would have had it working, especially as the drive was mapped in laptop B, so that theoretically proves it worked at least once. It is certain that nothing has been uninstalled or stopped intentionally. Obviously I can't be sure that a software update hasn't made a change, but my wife wouldn't do anything at that level, and I know I haven't.
I'm afraid it is getting more mysterious, and I really don't see what can be done. It really does feel like something really stupid that I just haven't spotted.
I will have a look on B to see if there is any software that might be causing the problem, but I think I looked once.

 

[languageservice]

I forgot to mention: typing IP address plus known folder name worked fine on B.

 

[languageservice]

Don't know if it is relevant, but I have just seen in the status window of the network adapter that next to IPv6 connectivity it says "no internet access", whereas for IPv4 it states "Internet". This reminded me that I have had a couple of warning messages stating that there was no internet connectivity, even though there was. This is beyond my competence, but does it make sense to deactivate IPv6 completely, or would that muck up something else? If so, how do I do that properly?

 

[Trouble]

IPv6 is required for Windows 7 homegroup feature to work, so if you're not using HomeGroup, but rather standard WorkGroup sharing then disabling IPv6 is fine,and should not cause any problem at all. But it's really probably not causing a problem now so you may not notice any difference in your primary issue, but try it and see, certainly won't hurt anything.

 

[languageservice]

I'm thinking of using HomeGroup to see if that solves the problem, although I don't really know anything about it. Anyway, I shall keep the IPv6 deactivation in mind for later, I think.

 

[Trouble]

I can certainly understand you wanting to try anything that might resolve the issue, but I don't suspect that HomeGroup will be the answer, because it's a feature supported and used by Windows 7 to Windows 7 networking and if as you say the drive is a network attached storage device and connected with Cat5 directly to the router then it is probably running it's own proprietary OS, some version of Samba or other and consequently wouldn't know what a HomeGroup was and isn't likely to even have native support for IPv6, but maybe.
Anyhow, you sort of have a template, in that Laptop A seems to be working without issue. So logic would dictate that the issue is with Laptop B and something unique to it.
Have you made sure that the maxtor drive has a fixed static IP address. And maybe, just as a test, boot B into safemode with networking and test to see if the issue persists even with this minimal boot of the OS. Since the 64 bit Ultimate laptop seems fine and the 64bit Home Premium is having the problem then we need to concentrate our efforts there and determine what is unique about that particular platform. I assume both laptops are using a wireless connection?

 

[languageservice]

That's a good point about HomeGroup. I am not really familiar with what it actually is.

The IP address for the Maxtor is definitely not fixed. As I mentioned before, allocating fixed IP addresses with the router software I have is a pain and sometimes not even possible. However, I am gradually thinking that the only solution is going to be to have fixed addresses for the whole network (3 computers, two printers, 1 external hard drive) with a hosts file on laptop B. Does that sound like it should work, bearing in mind the problems to date.
By the way, I couldn't connect to A from B yesterday.

 

[Trouble]

That may very well be a practical solution, I often recommend on small networks that fixed IP addresses be assigned to all network nodes and DHCP be turned off on the router as well as DHCP client service on the client machines. It will resolve some of these types of issues, as well as allowing you to promptly diagnose network issues because you are familiar with the IP scheme. In the case of traveling laptops you may want to employ the fixed IP address using the Alternate Configuration tab under the properties of IPv4 and leave the DHCP client service running. In so far as configuring the router and DHCP, if you are having problems with IP address reservations from within the router interface. Then adjust the scope so that it isn't offering all 254 address within the subnet range, set it to only offer 10 or 20 or so, depending on your requirements and then define your fixed address outside that scope. As far as the hosts file is concerned, hosts files are for resolving FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names) to IP addresses, and as such will probably not help much in your particular case. Look instead at creating an lmhosts file, this is for resolving netBIOS names to IP addresses and should be of more benefit in your case.