Error Connecting to C$: Device Attached to the System is not Functioning

Troubleshooting
Published Apr 16, 2014 Updated Mar 18, 2018

When I tried to connect to the administrative file share C$ on my wife’s computer I got the error A device attached to the system is not functioning.

A device attached to the system is not functioning - 2

The other way round worked without a hitch, i.e. I could access my laptop’s C$ share from my wife’s computer.

When I tried to connect to her computer on the commandline I got this:

d:\>net use \\Computername\C$ /user:Computername\Username *
Type the password for \\Computername\C$:
System error 58 has occurred.

The specified server cannot perform the requested operation.

Different error message, same result.

After fruitlessly poking around some more I finally had the idea to check the target computer’s firewall settings. And indeed, file and printer sharing was disabled:

File and Printer Sharing disabled in Windows firewall

After enabling file and printer sharing for private networks and also disabling UAC remote restrictions (we are in a workgroup environment, not in a domain) things worked as expected.

Administrative Shares Firewall

Comments

Comments are powered by Giscus. Please enable JavaScript to view them, or view discussions directly on GitHub.

Related Posts

Simple OPNsense Firewall Rules for a Secure Smart Home

Simple OPNsense Firewall Rules for a Secure Smart Home

This article presents a simple, balanced OPNsense firewall configuration for a secure smart home. The config provides good security while still allowing the freedom that is required by a family that is comprised mostly of people who wouldn’t call themselves IT geeks. This post is part of my series on home automation, networking & self-hosting that shows how to install, configure, and run a home server & network with dockerized or virtualized services.

Home Automation, Networking & Self-Hosting

Creating an Application Crash Dump

Creating an Application Crash Dump

How to Create User Mode Crash Dump Files If you experience application crashes you may be asked by support to create a crash dump file.

Troubleshooting

Remote Management of Windows PCs in an Isolated Security Zone

Remote Management of Windows PCs in an Isolated Security Zone

With the advent of BYO it has become fashionable to regard PCs as untrusted devices that should be isolated in a dedicated security zone. Zoning Such an approach has a big advantage: by separating clients from servers it is possible to treat them differently and potentially apply more relaxed security policies - which is a basic requirement for BYO. In a truly BYO-only environment you block everything except Citrix ICA or some other remoting procotol of choice at the firewall and life is good. In real corporate networks things are a bit more complicated, however. Say you want to isolate your managed Windows PCs. In that case you might want to be able to manage them remotely from systems outside the client security zone (e.g. from management terminal servers). And suddenly you have a problem: Windows management protocols, especially RPC and DCOM, are not exactly firewall-friendly.

Race Condition - a Troubleshooting Tale

Race Condition - a Troubleshooting Tale

The most obscure effects often have the simplest explanations - once you know where to go looking for them. Luckily uberAgent tells you exactly what is going on. People often ask about the resource footprint of uberAgent. I usually tell them “no IO at all, around 15 MB RAM and below 0.5% CPU” and everybody is happy. Not this time, however.

Troubleshooting

Latest Posts

Fast & Silent 5 Watt PC: Minimizing Idle Power Usage

Fast & Silent 5 Watt PC: Minimizing Idle Power Usage

This micro-series explains how to turn the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90t Gen 6 into a smart workstation that consumes only 5 Watts when idle but reaches top Cinebench scores while staying almost imperceptibly silent. In the first post, I showed how to silence the machine by replacing and adding to Lenovo’s CPU cooler. In this second post, I’m listing the exact configuration that achieves the lofty goal of combining minimal idle power consumption with top Cinebench scores.

Fast & Silent 5 Watt PC: Lenovo ThinkCentre M90t Modding

Fast & Silent 5 Watt PC: Lenovo ThinkCentre M90t Modding

This micro-series explains how to turn the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90t Gen 6 into a smart workstation that consumes only 5 Watts when idle but reaches top Cinebench scores while staying almost imperceptibly silent. In this first post, I’m showing how to silence the machine by replacing and adding to Lenovo’s CPU cooler. In a second post, I’m listing the exact configuration that achieves the lofty goal of combining minimal idle power consumption with top Cinebench scores.

Scripted WordPress to Hugo Migration

Scripted WordPress to Hugo Migration

After having published in WordPress for almost 20 years, it was time for a change. This site is now rendered by Hugo, a static website generator built for Markdown content hosted in a Git repository. The migration from WordPress (HTML) to Hugo (Markdown) was far from trivial. Since I couldn’t find any tool for the job, I developed my own set of migration scripts that fully automate the migration process. You can find them on GitHub along with extensive documentation.

Mitsubishi Heat Pump Data in Home Assistant via Modbus

Mitsubishi Heat Pump Data in Home Assistant via Modbus

This article shows how to get detailed information about your Mitsubishi heat pump’s status and operations into Home Assistant. Prerequisites You’ll need a Mitsubishi Modbus interface, either the older A1M (serial Modbus/RTU via RS-485 only) or the newer A1M+ (Modbus/TCP via Ethernet in addition to Modbux/RTU). I’m using the Ethernet variant.

Home Automation, Networking & Self-Hosting