In a remote desktop connection to a Windows 2008 R2 box I had a drive that showed up a Z: and showed up as Disconnected, but right clicking and selecting “Disconnect” I recieved the error:
The network connection does not exist.
The mapped drive was operational, connected to a network share, but I no longer needed it
Running ProcMon while attempting to remove the drive I noticed an ACCESS DENIED on an .ini file, in a folder I didn’t even have access to at all.
Typically a user’s persistent mapped drives are stored in HKU\Network\<Drive Letter> key within the registry. This drive mapping was persistent across logoff/logon, but kept coming back.
So I thought, what if I add the registry entry in manually, and I set it to a folder I had full control of.
I set the following registry values:
ConnectionType REG_DWROD 0x1
DeferFlags REG_DWORD 0x4
ProviderName REG_SZ Microsoft Windows Network
ProviderType REG_DWORD 0x00020000
RemotePath REG_SZ <file share>
UserName REG_SZ <blank>
After adding this entry, I was able to right click drive and Disconnect worked!
chentiangemalc 
Thank you. I had exactly the same problem, and this was very helpful indeed!
If you have another valid share, an easy way to create the necessary registry entries is to export the entry for the valid share, which creates a file, then copy the file giving it a new name (but with a filetype of “.reg”), edit the copied file, and then double-click on the file you updated to have the entry put in the registry. Since you’re only editing the data, this approach ensures that you have the names and data types correct for each of the entries.
If the valid share you have is drive G:, the registry entry you want to export is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network\g, which will copy that entry and all the entries in the pane on the right to a file with a filetype of “.reg”.
When you then disconnect the drive you were unable to disconnect before (in “My Computer”), the entry you added to the registry using the file you edited will be removed.
The above instructions didn’t work for me (the mapped drive that was broken was on a Unix filesystem which I couldn’t verify full access permissions) but these ones here did the trick – http://www.falconitservices.com/support/KB/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=213 – delete the reg entry specified there then restart explorer.exe (or the computer entirely, of course) – and the disconnected drive disappears.
Thanks! this really helped :)
I thought this would be the answer I needed, but it was not. I have a drive X: mapped to a remote drive. But when I go to delete X:, it says the network connection does not exist. Also, I cannot “disconnect” the mapped drive either. When I looked in the registry, HKCU\Network – drive X: does NOT appear. I am not sure what to do now. A remap to a different letter does NOT work either, Any help would be appreciated.
Very useful, thank you. I’ve uploaded the .reg file to here to make it easier to create the key: http://www.osdeasy.com/scripts/ZDrive.reg
This isn’t working for me, at least not in Windows 10. I have a W: drive that currently says “Disconnected Network Drive (W:)” in Windows Explorer with a red X through it. It cannot be deleted or otherwise removed. I added the registry key for a W drive exactly as described here and identical to other mapped drives, except for the RemotePath (which is one of my local server’s shares, like \\server_name\share_name).
If I type “net use” in a command window to list all of my mapped drives, it does list the W: drive however it has “Unavailable” for the Status where all others say “OK”.
I restarted the Windows Explorer process (in Task Manager) just to make sure it’s not caching anything and double-click on the W: drive. A dialog pops up titled “Restoring Network Connections” and it says:
“An error occurred reconnecting W: to
Microsoft Windows Network: The local device name is already in use
The connection has not been restored”
It still cannot be disconnected.
This also may happen if a drive is mapped under LocalSystem context – drives appear as disconnected in all user sessions for some reason. You can eventually unmap them via psexec -s cmd (to start cmd as LocalSystem), then net use drive: /delete /y. The drives disappear immediately :)
You’re awesome, Petar!!! I’ve looked for a solution to this a hundred times and yours was right on the money. Thanks so much!
That was it! Nothing else worked.
Awesome, this was the solution for me, many thanks!
Few drives remain connected all the time and few Lotus Notes drive gets disconnected very often… If I click on the disconnected drive it gets connected automatically or at times I need to provide the password of the drive to get them connected. Can anyone please help how can we keep the drives connected always?
Thank you, been searching for hours for a solution and yours was spot on!
easier way. Grab psexec from sysinternals.
bring up cmd shell and get a system cmd shell by running the following command
psexec -sid cmd
in the new window, if you do a whoami you will see nt authority\system
do a “net use” and see the drive letters that are mapped. remove them with
net use : /delete
example net use p: /delete
close the shells. mapped drives should be gone.
Yes I did that with psexec but the system account mappings randomly re-appear and bring the problem back
Thank you to Petar Georgie and Darin for the psexec tips. What worked for me was the psexec -s cmd and then net use s: /delete
I found the problem returned fairly quickly after group policy refresh. The next step to fix it was to reconfigure my group policy (Applying to an RDS server with loopback processing enabled) mapped network drives to “Run in logged-on user’s security context (user policy option)”. This is on the Common tab of GP Preferences Drive Maps.
9 years later and still the only solution I found that worked :-)