Question

I am mapping my network drive using powershell like follows.

$net = new-object -ComObject WScript.Network
$net.MapNetworkDrive("r:", "$Folder","FALSE","Domain\UserName", "Password")

But here i am sending drive letter as r: . If r: drive is already utilized it would fail.

Is there any way to map drive to unassigned drive letter. ( For ex. If R: is already assigned but S: is not then it should map to S: drive automatically)

Answer 1

First you’ll need to get the next available drive letter. Here’s an example from Archive of PowerShell.com:

function Get-NextFreeDrive {
  68..90 | ForEach-Object { "$([char]$_):" } | 
  Where-Object { 'h:', 'k:', 'z:' -notcontains $_  } | 
  Where-Object { 
    (new-object System.IO.DriveInfo $_).DriveType -eq 'noRootdirectory' 
  }
}

From PowerShell.com:

It starts by enumerating ASCII codes for letters D: through Z:. The
pipeline will then convert those ASCII codes into drive letters. Next,
check out how the pipeline uses an exclusion list with drives you do
not want to use for mapping (optional). In this example, drive letters
h:, k:, and z: are never used. Finally, the pipeline uses a .NET
DriveInfo object to check whether the drive is in use or not.

$net = new-object -ComObject WScript.Network
$net.MapNetworkDrive((Get-NextFreeDrive)[0], "$Folder","FALSE","Domain\UserName", "Password")