Question : macintosh os x 10.5 losing connections to NAS devices in windows network

We have a hybrid network with MACs and WinXP pcs in a workgroup which includes 4 NAS BUffalo LinkStation disks setup as IP devices.  There are 2 MACs on the network that go offline and return after 1 or more days offline.  When they come back online, they can no longer see any of the NAS drives and the windows XP computers - all of whioch have dhcp asssignments.  These macs can see the local windows home server and each other.

How can we get these mobile macs to see the NAS devices as well as the othe network resources they normally would see?  Is there some kind of find or mount operation that would do the job?

Answer : macintosh os x 10.5 losing connections to NAS devices in windows network

I presume the NAS devices have fixed IP addresses.  

How do you manage to mount the NAS on the Mac in the first place? Do you just go into Network in the Finder side panel, and see it there and select it?  If so, the Macs may be seeing the NAS on the SMB protocol, which is somewhat broken in general.

The Buffalo devices support AFP which should be faster.  See if it is enabled on the Buffalo device.

Try using Cmd-K in the finder (or in the menubar select Go -> Connect to Server) and type in "afp://<ip of NAS>" and click Connect.  The AFP connection may be more stable and possibly more robust across reboots.  Once the NAS is mounted, you can drag it to the finder sidebar and it should remount more reliably.