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I'm using a cloud backup service that only permits internal drives to be backed up. The thing is, I share all my backup-relevant stuff on a NAS.

Is there anyway to fool Windows 7, or at least any software running on it, into believing the network drive is internal? the NAS is a qnap which supports Samba, NTFS, Apple, FTP…

Giacomo1968
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Geir
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3 Answers3

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Whether you can cheat your backup software depends on the intelligence of the software. You can easily map a network drive or folder in the drive to a local drive name (eg. Z:)

I did the same things for the same reason recently and this were my steps:

  1. Open the location of the folder or drive.
  2. Press the Alt key once to reveal menu.
  3. Select Tools> Map network drive.
  4. Select the drive name and folder by browsing.

In Windows 7 there might be a bug reconnecting to the network drive when you boot up. You can see the solution to that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQZanQD-wG8

Hope this helps!

Stef
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  • Depending on what the software actually does, this would not work. A simple WMI request to list all drives (`Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Logicaldisk` in PS) will show you that drives are listed with type. If you look into the [documentation for Win32_LogicalDisk](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394173(v=vs.85).aspx) you will see that the type would indicate `Network Drive` for a network share that is mounted with a label. – Seth Feb 01 '17 at 08:57
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I read through the answers and come up with my own solution / workaround to this problem.

It's something like this:

mklink /d "c:\data\network docs" "\\server\shareddata\"

originally asked here: How do I mount a network drive to a folder?

this does not create a new Z: drive but rather maps c:\data\network folder as a network share and then you can point your software just to this folder.

I was unable to fool CCleaner to scan for duplicate files on a Z: network drive but it worked on a mounted C:\share folder.

If you strictly need the share to represent a "drive" on your system - you can go 1 step further with: subst y: c:\share

sourced from: https://winaero.com/create-virtual-drive-from-a-folder-in-windows-10/

Roman Spiak
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There is a command that maps a network drive the way, that Photoshop Lightroom does not recognize it as a network drive, maybe it works for your service as well:

C:\Windows\System32\subst.exe a: \\nasIpAddress\share

But I would rather use another backup service like duplicati, which supports many network protocols.

Fabian Horlacher
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  • I've already tried using subst with network shares, but get "Path not found" error. As for a different backup service that is a cost issue.. the cloud provider who has this limitation has ulimited storage for 10usd, 2TB on amazon costs a lot more than that – Geir Sep 16 '14 at 12:37
  • Then try it with a symbolic link: mklink /D a:\LinkName \nasIpAddress\share But it depends on how your application recognizes the network drive. – Fabian Horlacher Sep 16 '14 at 12:42
  • able to create the link, but it doesn't appear as a local folder. backup software detects that and complains.. – Geir Sep 16 '14 at 12:46
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    There are many ways for an application to recognize a mounted drive. Maybe mounting the network drive to a folder works: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753321.aspx – Fabian Horlacher Sep 16 '14 at 12:54
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    How about mounting the share as a drive (say `X:`) and substing `Z:` as `X:\\` Would that work? – Tripp Kinetics Jun 01 '18 at 13:26