NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi, here is a question for the networking experts:
Using WinXP Pro and NasLite-2, is there any way (or tool) to map a NAS network share to a drive letter, and then mount this "virtual" drive into an empty NTFS Folder?

So far, to make my mapping for various applications most universal between PCs, I have been using a folder C:\Images (NTFS), which has empty folders such as C:\IMAGES\IMAGES01, C:\IMAGES\IMAGES02. In those folders, I have mounted local harddrives, using Disk management console. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307889 This setup allowed me to search for images using as path C:\.

Now I have moved some HDDs containing images to NAS and want to mount e.g. \\NAS02\Disk-3 (mapped to U:\) into an empty NTFS folder.
Is this possible? There is a tool which seems to want to accomplish this, but it also seems too unreliable at the current state:
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/ext2ifs.htm

Is this possible to do?
Would the NFS driver for Windows help in any way?
Thanks for any hints in advance,
Thorsten

I was looking into similar issue. I have not tried it yet, but if you want to do this with a network share, you need to pay MS. If its a local drive there are free tools (sysinternals). The solution are junctions. read this:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=205524
http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/junction.html
hope this helps, Wolfgang

Correction, MS does not support network shares, only local. If sysinternal does, I dont know.
//Wolfgang

Thanks Wolfgang, that's a good start. With the KB link I was a bit hesitant, since it is aimed at Win2000, but wikipedia shed some more light on the junction points:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point

Windows XP Professional Windows Explorer
Deleting a JP using explorer is not safe - it will delete the targeted files immediately if using shift-delete.
Beware: if the JP is sent to the recycle bin, the targeted files will look safe, but will be deleted when the recycle bin is emptied.
Moving the JP to a different location on the same drive only moves the JP, however moving to another drive turns the JP into a normal folder and moves all files there (leaving the targeted directory empty).
Whilst walking through the directory with explorer, it seems impossible to delete folders, however files can be deleted.
A solution for these issues is installing NTFS Link (see external links section), which makes Windows Explorer handles junctions correctly. One can also use the fsutil application to delete and query reparse points (administration privileges are required).

There seem to be certain possible pitfalls involved though - see the warnings in same articles.

I will also check out sysinternals.
Thanks and Greetings, Thorsten

Well, after long and intensive research with plenty of trial and error, I had to give up on this route. It just does not seem possible to mount a NFS Share in an empty folder in WinXP Pro. It would have been beautiful: Have one Folder C:\IMAGES as a hub and link various volumes, folders and network drives into this, making for a central places to do searches.

For those who care to pursue this further, here are some items I found. Junction point/ Reparse points definitely was a good start.
http://www.google.com/search?q=directory+junctions+NTFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en

To get anywhere, it seemed essential to install the Windows Services for UNIX (SFU - free from MS; only the Client and the Auth are necessary to install). After some mocking around with settings and permissions, I got all drives exported, then tried my luck with "mounting" in various ways, but ended up only with "mapping" the drive. The SFU has a sufficiently detailed online help (look for mount/ umount). I then also installed NTFSLink from http://www.elsdoerfer.info/ntfslink/?page=faq, to easily manage the links to be created.

A great article is here: http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=284 (good explanation of the situation - with complete overview over all integrations)

On Namespaces and Dfs (Distributed Filesystem): http://www.setup32.com/resource-guides/windows-2000-server/installation-and-configuration/basics/understanding-distributed-file-system.php

http://www.codeproject.com/w2k/junctionpoints.asp?df=100&forumid=75&exp=0&select=362535 also seemed worth looking at: "You could probably solve this by mapping a drive letter to a dir on a non-Micros~1 OS using SAMBA, and from some point in that tree use an NFS mount to... Well, you get the point. You'd need devilish fast net to make it work as-local though..."

All to no avail though, everything only seems to work for local drives, but not networked ones.
So the alternative solution of course is to have all image drives in one NAS Server, and search the root. This does not allow for inclusion of local directories in the path though. But through the remote storage option things remain scalable, albeit at the expense of performance probably.

Quite a waste of time this research was, without the desired result, but at least an answer found...

I'm still waiting on the drives for my new NAS to come in, but this may be possible to do via the FTP service.

I've mapped Drive Q:\ to my online FTP site using Webdrive, so I don't see why it wouldn't work here as well...

Editfish