The "ask for location" behavior occurred for me in one of my Navy databases, and I was never able to figure out why. I tried both drive-letter mapping and UNC mapping, but nothing helped.
However, the workaround was trivial. I built a query that was the equivalent of SELECT * FROM table; (i.e. a single-table, all-of-the-fields query with no filters or ordering) and used THAT for all forms and reports that needed the table's contents. Once I did that, I never again was questioned on location. And the tip I got for that fix, perhaps 10 years ago, came from this forum.