How to Quickly Check if C Drive is Accessible on Multiple Machines with PowerShell

Table of Contents

Introduction

When managing a network of machines, it can be useful to quickly determine which machines have accessible C drives over the network. In this blog post, we will walk through a PowerShell script that checks the accessibility of the C drive on a list of machines and outputs the results. This script can be particularly useful for network administrators who need to perform routine maintenance on machines or troubleshoot issues remotely.

Getting Started

The script prompts the user for a path to a file containing a list of hostnames. The script assumes that the file contains one hostname per line. If you have a large network with many machines, you can use PowerShell to generate a list of hostnames and save it to a file. For example, you could use the following command to generate a list of hostnames for all machines in a specific domain:

 

 

This command uses the Get-ADComputer cmdlet to retrieve a list of all computers in the specified domain, Select-Object to extract the hostname from each object, and Out-File to save the list to a file.

 

 

Checking Accessibility

 

 

Once the script has a list of hostnames, it loops through each hostname and checks the accessibility of the C drive. To check the accessibility of the C drive, the script first resolves the hostname to an IP address using the Resolve-DnsName cmdlet. If the hostname cannot be resolved, the script outputs “(unresolved)” for that machine. If the hostname can be resolved, the script then uses the Test-Path cmdlet to check if the C drive is accessible over the network. If the C drive is accessible, the script outputs “Yes” for that machine. If the C drive is not accessible, the script outputs “No” for that machine.

 

 

Output

 

 

The script outputs the results in a format that includes the hostname, IP address, and accessibility status (Yes/No) for each machine. For example:

This format makes it easy to quickly scan the results and identify which machines have accessible C drives and which machines do not.

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

In this blog post, we have walked through a PowerShell script that checks the accessibility of the C drive on a list of machines and outputs the results. This script can be a useful tool for network administrators who need to quickly determine which machines have accessible C drives over the network. By using PowerShell to automate this task, network administrators can save time and ensure that routine maintenance tasks are performed efficiently and accurately.

 

 

Full Script