Missing File Shares or Folders
Summary
This article applies to company file shares and NOT OneDrive. File shares are centrally located at the Data Center located in Allen Texas. Hospital file shares may be referred to as "S" drive, Corporate shares as "N" drive, and Training "T" drive. Employees who have access to file shares access it through permissions that are associated with your computer account. Most file shares are given based on your job title. There may be times you work outside the scope of your job title and require you to have access to other file shares.
The focus of this article is troubleshooting missing file shares. There could be several reasons why it could be missing. The common reasons are below.
- Someone may have moved it
- Someone may have deleted it
- You don't have permission
- Some see it, some don't
- You're not on the network
- I see all my file shares at work, but partially at home even on VPN
- Windows updated
- Your hospital losing internet
- Data Center is down
What to do?
If you're missing the entire drive itself, you first want to ensure you're on the network via network cable, docking station if on a laptop, "hospital_employees" network if WiFi, or VPN if working outside the hospital. If you still don't see it, reboot the computer according to our instructions found here and allow any updates.
The reasons below are most likely if rebooting did not fix the issue. You may need to create a ticket.
1. Someone may have moved it - This happens quite often. Someone is working and accidentally moves the file or folder. If you search nearby folders, it's most likely in one of those folders. Sometimes the user can move it back, but if it's a Folder, it may require IT to move it which will require a ticket.
2. Someone may have deleted it - This happens, but not frequently. We do have backups that can be restored. A ticket will be required for IT to restore the backup.
3. You don't have permission - You simply don't have permission to access the file or folder. File shares require permissions. If you need access to a file share, please look for file shares in the Service Catalog of the ticketing system. It will go through an approval process.
4. Some see it, some don't - This happens when someone takes a file or folder that the other doesn't have access to and moves it to a shared location. This is called file share permission inheritance. It's taking the permissions from that folder and bringing it to the new location. It happens by clicking and dragging versus copying and pasting. If you want everyone to see the file or folder that came from another file share, copy it to your desktop then move it to the new share location.
5. You're not on the network - You must be on the hospital domain to access file shares. This is achieved by being plugged in by a network cable, docking station, or hospital_employees network if WiFi. If you're outside the hospital, you must be on VPN.
6. I see all my file shares at work, but partially at home even on VPN - This is rare when this happens, but it can happen. It's a SYNC setting that was somehow turned on. Group policy has it turned off, but it's possible it got turned on by an update. This will require a ticket with IT so it can be turned off.
7. Windows updated - When Windows updates, there is a possibility it starts turning off processes until a reboot. When this happens, it could cause your computer to act wonky including disconnecting you from the file shares. If this happens, just reboot and allow updates.
8. Your hospital losing internet - Each hospital uses an Internet Service Provider (ISP) like your home. It's a service dependent on your providers in that area. Most of you have heard of outages and it's always a possibility it can happen in your area due to weather, construction, or not paying the bill. This affects the internet and the tunnel to the Data Center. Although each hospital has a backup, even those can fail. In situations like these, you'll need to be patient as these services are restored.
9. Data Center is down - Data Centers are known to have high reliability rates but there could be a circumstance that the data center goes down for several reasons such as power loss, connectivity issues, or a server going down. The only thing you can do in these situations is be patient. Please allow the technicians to troubleshoot the issue.