Problem with directory-mapped removable drives

[A user]

Hello,
I have a combo card reader installed on my computer. Instead of mapping individual slots to drive letters, I opted to map them to directories (through Disk Management snap-in of the Computer Management console). Therefore, I have directories like C:\MemoryStick or C:\CompactFlash, which are unreadable unless there is the respective card physically inserted.
Now, whenever the XnView navigates through the C:\ root directory (when it is expanded in the tree view), I get about 15 messageboxes saying something like 'There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \device\Harddisk2\DR4', followed by a box saying 'C:\MemoryStick is not accessible. The device is not ready.'. Then another 15 messages for the other slots. Very annoying. You should detect an unaccessible directories and do not try to read from them whatever it is you are reading.

Windows explorer, of course, does not exhibit such a behaviour. It gives 'The device is not ready' message only when I directly navigate inside the directory.

Thanks.

Windows 2000/XnView 1.80.1

[xnview]

Hello,
I have a combo card reader installed on my computer. Instead of mapping individual slots to drive letters, I opted to map them to directories (through Disk Management snap-in of the Computer Management console). Therefore, I have directories like C:\MemoryStick or C:\CompactFlash, which are unreadable unless there is the respective card physically inserted.
Now, whenever the XnView navigates through the C:\ root directory (when it is expanded in the tree view), I get about 15 messageboxes saying something like 'There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \device\Harddisk2\DR4', followed by a box saying 'C:\MemoryStick is not accessible. The device is not ready.'. Then another 15 messages for the other slots. Very annoying. You should detect an unaccessible directories and do not try to read from them whatever it is you are reading.

Windows explorer, of course, does not exhibit such a behaviour. It gives 'The device is not ready' message only when I directly navigate inside the directory.

Yes it's a bug. How do you map USB device to folder?

[Guest]

Yes it's a bug. How do you map USB device to folder?

winXP:
1. connect the device, so it is registered with the system
2. create empty folder 'C:\USB drive'
3. Right-click on My Computer, select Manage. 'Computer Management' console appears.
4. From Storage category select Disk Management. List of disk devices appears in the right bottom part of the window.
5. Right-click on the removable device, select 'Change drive letter and paths'
6. Click 'Add' button, select 'Mount in the following empty NTFS folder', fill in the 'C:\USB drive' path, click OK, and there you go.

[xnview]

Yes it's a bug. How do you map USB device to folder?

winXP:
1. connect the device, so it is registered with the system
2. create empty folder 'C:\USB drive'
3. Right-click on My Computer, select Manage. 'Computer Management' console appears.
4. From Storage category select Disk Management. List of disk devices appears in the right bottom part of the window.
5. Right-click on the removable device, select 'Change drive letter and paths'
6. Click 'Add' button, select 'Mount in the following empty NTFS folder', fill in the 'C:\USB drive' path, click OK, and there you go.

Ok, thanks i have never made that I'll check

[xnview]

Hello,
I have a combo card reader installed on my computer. Instead of mapping individual slots to drive letters, I opted to map them to directories (through Disk Management snap-in of the Computer Management console). Therefore, I have directories like C:\MemoryStick or C:\CompactFlash, which are unreadable unless there is the respective card physically inserted.
Now, whenever the XnView navigates through the C:\ root directory (when it is expanded in the tree view), I get about 15 messageboxes saying something like 'There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \device\Harddisk2\DR4', followed by a box saying 'C:\MemoryStick is not accessible. The device is not ready.'. Then another 15 messages for the other slots. Very annoying. You should detect an unaccessible directories and do not try to read from them whatever it is you are reading.

With XnView 1.80.3 i have no message...

[Guest]

With XnView 1.80.3 i have no message...

Neither do I....

Well, after some more investigation, it's more complicated. With USB flashdisk, everything is working OK because once the disk is removed, the device disappears from the system. For the card reader it is different, because without a card, the device is still present, but there is no media in it. I believe this is the important difference.
The card reader is more like the floppy drives, you have A: always in the system, whether or not a disk is inserted. The bottom line: clicking on A: in XnView's tree produces about the same number of 'There is no disk in the drive' messages.

So now I think the problem is not related to the directory mapping, but to 'no media' in an existing device. The directory mapping only stressed the problem, since the devices were accessed every time the c:\ root was traversed.

[windbag]

Been using XNView for years; been forced from my old Vista PC to a Win7 laptop, both running V2.43
Nearly all my data (especially photos) on a NAS drive with a particular area mapped to my P: drive.
Vista worked fine, and had made XnView as default jpg opening app.
Win7 on the laptop interminably throws this same error as OP.

This is NOT a removable drive, it is permanently mapped across our internal ethernet network.

It is making XnView pretty much unusable as it is.

Any ideas what to do?

[windbag]

For info, the files ARE there, and appear in Windows Explorer, and I usually invoke XnView by navigating to the folder in Explorer and double-clicking on the relevant file...
That is when the dozens of messages come up - even after the relevant file opens in XnView.

[xnview]

For info, the files ARE there, and appear in Windows Explorer, and I usually invoke XnView by navigating to the folder in Explorer and double-clicking on the relevant file...
That is when the dozens of messages come up - even after the relevant file opens in XnView.

and what's happened? Slow startup?

[windbag]

and what's happened? Slow startup?

I don't know what wasn't clear;
As I said, XnView "interminably throws this same error as OP."

I go into Windows Explorer, double click on the jpg showing in the window, XNview tries to start up and I get dozens of the OP messages:
'There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \device\Harddiskx\whatever'

It can sometimes be (temporarily) solved by rebooting (the laptop), but sooner or later it comes back.
Trying to get rid of dozens of such messages, even after the relevant picture finally gets displayed, makes XNView pretty much unusable in that state.

[xnview]

and are you able to go to this folder by xnview's browser?

[windbag]

and are you able to go to this folder by xnview's browser?

Yes, when I can eventually clean out all the multiple error banners.
The directory then looks identical to the one that appears in Windows Explorer
Even when in, the banners often continue to be pushed up afterwards.

The behaviour does change with the recent activity of the PC.
For example, I recently had to do a reboot, and, just at the moment, it is enabling reads from the NAS pictures just fine.
However, put in an SD card into the reader, open up the relevant folder in Win Explorer and double click on a photo file selection and up come all the "xnview.exe - No Disk" error banners, citing "\Device\Harddisk2\DR2" at the moment.
The card is in the reader just fine.

Later in a Windows session, it will suddenly kick into saying the same for the NAS drives, with no apparent specific trigger.
Once it does, it looks like there is no way out of it except a reboot, which is obviously a pain.

Could it be some sort of internal Windows status flags that are misleading xnview?
None of the banner options (Cancel, Try again, Continue) make any difference - they all fail to clear the underlying error and loads more have to be cleared to get the picture originally double-clicked on to be displayed
For example, I just tried, and it took 7 banners to be cleared - I then minimised this browser window to go to the Xnview window and it immediately put up another one. I then clear another 20 banners, go to move the mouse to click on the "Browser" icon on the far left of the toolbar to initiate seeing the tree on the left, click on it, and it throws up another banner with no tree displayed.
Clear another four and the tree finally appears, with the picture on the right.

Those number of error banners seems to be a variable, I wouldn't say it was the same number every time, and I get the impressio it depends on how fast you "kill" them; be too slow and you get given more.

For instance, I just went back and tested how it was opening files on both the C-drive and NAS, and it opened 4 such perfectly fine.
However the fifth has just flipped back into the same error banner, still citing "\Device\Harddisk2\DR2" after a double-click in Windows Explorer on what is now a file on a totally different (NAS) drive. Another 7 banners to get the picture displayed.
This time 12 more to get the Xnview window with no banners.
This time I've given up getting the tree after clearing another 60 banners failed to let me get there...
I sometimes have to just kill Xnview execution in frustration...

[windbag]

If it helps, the multiple error notifications all look similar to this:

[windbag]

Sadly, the issue remains in v7.16 ...

[xnview]

Sadly, the issue remains in v7.16 ...

"\Device\Harddisk2\DR2" is the shared folder?? you have only this error when double clicking on windows explorer to open XnView, right?