"An error occurred while reconnecting to e: to..."

[techsales]

2 of my 5 client workstations in a small windows server 2003 network with WinXP 32bit sp2

get the following error:

An error occurred while reconnecting to E: to

\\dc\xxxx

Microsoft windows network: The local device name is already in use.

This connection has not been restored.

This problem only started occurring after 1 of the 2 client stations had the hard drive replaced and I decided to do a backup for that client to an external drive connected to the 2nd client in this dilemma. I have since uninstalled the backup software and deleted all references to the external drive and continue to get the above error. If I reboot each client, I can access the E:\\dc\xxxx with no error. If I leave the client on overnight, I get this error and have to reboot again.

I have tried dos cmd: nbtstat -RR and -R reset/reload and this did not clear.

Anybody have a solution for this?

Thanks in advance!!!

[VideoRipper]

Did you double-check each workstation's (and server's) IP-address settings and/or

computer-names?

Do you use DHCP or static IP's?

I prefer to connect to shared drives using the computer's IP-address instead of

using their computernames (if possible), just to avoid these kinds of things.

Greetz,

Peter.

Edited July 7, 2010 by VideoRipper

[cluberti]

That error usually means the system has an open connection in that session to the server already - given that both XP and 2003 use session 0 for everything, if another account that's currently logged on to session 0 already has a connection open to the same network name, that's the error you'll get (and using the IP address is likely to work when name fails, unless of course you've already got one of those too ). I used to see this mostly when someone would map a drive with a service account, or a scheduled task, and then sleep/hibernate and wake back up, and the mapped drive would fail as the interactive user. Grab TCPView from sysinternals and see if you can kill the connectoid and TCP connection, and re-create it. It's not really a long-term solution (it will depend on how the drive is getting mapped in the first place), but it is something to try to make sure this is really it.