network drives disconnecting immediately

I've got a Windows 2003 Server on a tiny network of about 5 XP Pro SP3
PCs.

Its been up and running for at least a year.

Recently I noticed an odd thing.

I log into the domain on one of these XP PCs and I get a list of
network drives to folders on the Server.
(OK, not odd)

I can see in My Computer all my network drives are shown as connected.
(Again - not odd).

But If I open the Entire Network icon and click down to Microsoft
Windows Network then ALL of the network drives become listed as
disconnected and I can not access them any more via My Computer.
They're listed as disconnected.
It's as if they got switched off instantly.
(That is odd)

I must have a netbios problem so I ran a diagnostic program from MS
called browstat via a command prompt on the XP PC:

Browstat status

and got:

C:\>browstat status


Status for domain ECSTECH on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-
DFEA-492C-AB16-ABFAAB
0531EB}
Browsing is active on domain.
Master browser name is: GAIA
Master browser is running build 3790
1 backup servers retrieved from master GAIA
\\GAIA
Unable to retrieve server list from GAIA: 51


But if I log off and back on then run the above, before the network
drives are disconnected. I get this:

Status for domain ECSTECH on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-
DFEA-492C-AB16-ABFAAB
0531EB}
Browsing is active on domain.
Master browser name is: GAIA
Master browser is running build 3790
1 backup servers retrieved from master GAIA
\\GAIA
There are 12 servers in domain ECSTECH on transport \Device
\NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-DFEA
-492C-AB16-ABFAAB0531EB}
There are 1 domains in domain ECSTECH on transport \Device
\NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-DFEA-
492C-AB16-ABFAAB0531EB}


The network only has the one Server - Windows 2003 R2 SP2 called GAIA.
The domain is called ECSTECH


The other odd thing is if I repeatingly try to double click on a
network drive in 'My Computer', then after about 5 or 6 goes, I can
access the network drive OK. Once this is done then 'Browstat status'
works 100%.
The connection to the network drive remains open even if I close the
drive window. But as soon as I do a browstat status command it closes.

The result of all this is if I log in then at some point in the day if
I happen to close all my network drives for some time, then I lose the
ability to reopen the drives with a click.

I'm baffled. This all started happening after Xmas.

What is in the event log of the server and the client that you are running
the diagnos on?

"stuarth" <Stuartmh@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:854f5bee-3fbe-4ec8-91cb-87044c5c013d@r41g2000prr.googlegroups.com...
> I've got a Windows 2003 Server on a tiny network of about 5 XP Pro SP3
> PCs.
>
> Its been up and running for at least a year.
>
> Recently I noticed an odd thing.
>
> I log into the domain on one of these XP PCs and I get a list of
> network drives to folders on the Server.
> (OK, not odd)
>
> I can see in My Computer all my network drives are shown as connected.
> (Again - not odd).
>
> But If I open the Entire Network icon and click down to Microsoft
> Windows Network then ALL of the network drives become listed as
> disconnected and I can not access them any more via My Computer.
> They're listed as disconnected.
> It's as if they got switched off instantly.
> (That is odd)
>
> I must have a netbios problem so I ran a diagnostic program from MS
> called browstat via a command prompt on the XP PC:
>
> Browstat status
>
> and got:
>
> C:\>browstat status
>
>
> Status for domain ECSTECH on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-
> DFEA-492C-AB16-ABFAAB
> 0531EB}
> Browsing is active on domain.
> Master browser name is: GAIA
> Master browser is running build 3790
> 1 backup servers retrieved from master GAIA
> \\GAIA
> Unable to retrieve server list from GAIA: 51
>
>
> But if I log off and back on then run the above, before the network
> drives are disconnected. I get this:
>
> Status for domain ECSTECH on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-
> DFEA-492C-AB16-ABFAAB
> 0531EB}
> Browsing is active on domain.
> Master browser name is: GAIA
> Master browser is running build 3790
> 1 backup servers retrieved from master GAIA
> \\GAIA
> There are 12 servers in domain ECSTECH on transport \Device
> \NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-DFEA
> -492C-AB16-ABFAAB0531EB}
> There are 1 domains in domain ECSTECH on transport \Device
> \NetBT_Tcpip_{305CE30A-DFEA-
> 492C-AB16-ABFAAB0531EB}
>
>
> The network only has the one Server - Windows 2003 R2 SP2 called GAIA.
> The domain is called ECSTECH
>
>
> The other odd thing is if I repeatingly try to double click on a
> network drive in 'My Computer', then after about 5 or 6 goes, I can
> access the network drive OK. Once this is done then 'Browstat status'
> works 100%.
> The connection to the network drive remains open even if I close the
> drive window. But as soon as I do a browstat status command it closes.
>
> The result of all this is if I log in then at some point in the day if
> I happen to close all my network drives for some time, then I lose the
> ability to reopen the drives with a click.
>
> I'm baffled. This all started happening after Xmas.
>

On Jan 14, 6:05*pm, "donald huang" <donaldhu...@live.ca> wrote:
> What is in the event log of the server and the client that you are running
> the diagnos on?

No errors in the event log of either machine.

I discovered the problem. It was a corrupted LMHosts file on the
client.

It was causing look up errors and conflicts with the DNS/WINS on the
server.

:-)