Cannot connect to a shared network drive

Right finally this to work. Firstly, I am putting down everything here I tried that didn't work as it might also be of use to someone. If you have the same problem as I described here, you should do everything here.

In Control Panel \ Network and Internet \ Network Connections \ My Connection \ Properies:

  • I ensured Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver was enabled
  • I ensured Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder was enabed Tried with
  • I tried with IPV6 enabled / disabled

In Control Panel \ All Control Panel Items \ Network and Sharing Center \ Advanced sharing settings and I checked relevant settings in "Home or Work profile".

  • I ensured: "Turn on network discovery" is set
  • I tried both security settings in "File sharing connections"

In Control Panel \ All Control Panel Items \ Network and Sharing Center

  • I wnsure my network was marked as a "Work" network. Ensure this is correct for you.

Ok so none of the above yielded any luck.

Then, I did the following:

At, Control Panel \ All Control Panel Items \ System

I selected: "Computer Name" tab.

  • I entered something in the computer description text box. This was blank.
  • I selected the Change... button.This gives you the opportunity to change the Workgroup name Mine was "WORKGROUP". I set it to something else and then set it back to WORKGROUP. The thinking was this might flush something.

I then logged onto the machine that had the folder I wanted to share thru RCP. Then I accessed a share folder on my PC. Now, when this session was alive, I opened up Computer Management and I opened the "shared folders" and sessions and saw the computer I was trying to connected, connecting to me.

Again the thinking was this would flush something out. After, I did all this it worked. I am not sure exactly what step fixed it. I was under too much time pressure to keep checkeding after I changed anything.

Thanks for all who helped out here.


Maybe it's a little too late to answer this, but I solved this issue in this way:

Go to start, run, type services.msc and press enter.

When you are on the services applet make sure the service "Workstation" is running and is set to start atomatically.

Hope this helps more people looking for a solution.


I had to reinstall my OS and immediately i could have full access to my network share

As I installed programs I kept checking accessibility to my share.

It turns out that Brother installed a printer monitor for the HL-2270DW that when turned off allowed access to my NAS.

Too bad I had to do a reinstall to locate the problem.


0x80004005 = Access Denied.

Double check your login name and password (credentials) to ensure they match on both the computer you are connecting from and the one you are attempting to connect to.

Then ensure the account/credentials are given access to both the share itself and the folder that's shared.