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I have a problem with copying from a network drive to the root of the C drive or to "program files(x64)" or to directly under "\Users" directly from the network. Here's the error I'm getting:

"X:\ is unavailable. If the location is on this PC, make sure the device or drive is connected or the disc is inserted, and then try again. If the location is on a network, make sure you're connected to the network or Internet, and then try again. If the location still can't be found, it might have been moved or deleted."

I can however copy the network file to a temporary location (such as desktop), another folder I created directly under C drive etc. It is also not a network connectivity issue.

This happens on fully patched Win 8.1 machines on a windows domain network with a domain admin account (and also with a local admin account). Shares are also Windows 2012 Servers, not a third party NAS etc.

Another important thing is, it's fine if you are copying from any local resource to the root of C or to other problematic locations. So this is not a basic permission issue I assume.

Looking to see what is causing this and whether I can change this behavior. You can see the effective permissions on one of the problematic folders below. As you can see I should have full access to this folder.

enter image description here

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  • Is it a UAC issue? Aug 6, 2014 at 13:33
  • No, UAC is disabled. (set to never modify) Aug 6, 2014 at 13:48
  • How did you disable UAC? There's about 10 registry keys that control UAC; only one ties to the slider in the Users control panel. For a quick test, use "Run as Administrator" on Windows Explorer from the source PC and try the copy again. I doubt this, though, as I copy from Win8 to Win2012R2 all the time without trouble (and our GPOs force UAC on, so Win8 tiles don't break). Are you accessing the same share for each copy? Any chance you have one share set to "Full Control" and another to "Read"?
    – DarkMoon
    Aug 6, 2014 at 20:47
  • I told you that I set it to "never modify" specifically. I'm not going to change the registry settings. Aug 6, 2014 at 21:05
  • I tried "run as admin" running explorer.exe from CMD. Did not help. I can copy from Win 8 to Win 2012 (into C drive just fine), have you tried the opposite? I have tried with several different shares, even on several different servers, all has the same behavior. I do have full control over the shares I'm copying from, but even a read permission is enough to copy FROM a share. The important part is the destination (C:). But as you can see on the screenshot, I have all the permissions. Aug 6, 2014 at 21:13

2 Answers 2

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The error message is pretty clear:

X:\ is unavailable.

Whatever user is running this process is not able to connect to the network drive. It hasn't even started to look at C:\ drive yet (and BTW, writing to the root of the C:\ drive is a really bad idea.)

If this is a drive mapped for your user account, and you elevate to run as administrator, mapped drives won't work. You'll need to access the share via it's UNC (\\server\share) path.

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It sounds like it is a permissions issue. Windows 8.1 protected the root of the C drive pretty heavily.

You should be able to get around the protection by setting Everyone to have full control of the C drive and making sure the C drive is shared. When you share the C drive, make sure that under the Share Permissions; Everyone has full control.

That should bypass the built in security for the C drive.

Have you tried doing a Google search on the error message?

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  • I don't see why this should be a permission issue as that user has full control and still cant write to it. Also, sharing C: and giving everyone permissions is not an option for security reasons. And I don't think it will solve it, as that permission is share level but I'm still locked by file system level issues. Aug 6, 2014 at 15:00
  • Is the network user also a user account on the machine? If not, then maybe you can try adding them to the local users. Aug 6, 2014 at 15:08
  • Is there any particular reason that you need to copy directly to the root of the C drive from the network? Aug 6, 2014 at 15:09
  • Yes, network user is also on local admin accounts. There is no specific reason to write directly to C but some users need to do direct changes to folders under Program Files ie. Aug 6, 2014 at 15:27
  • For a quick test, you can try making a particular folder under the Program Files directory shared with Everyone set to Full Control. Then see if you can copy files from the network to that directory? Aug 6, 2014 at 17:47

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