diff --git a/python/lancedb/db.py b/python/lancedb/db.py
index f905aae3..9782163f 100644
--- a/python/lancedb/db.py
+++ b/python/lancedb/db.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ import pyarrow as pa
 
 from .common import URI, DATA
 from .table import LanceTable
+from .util import get_uri_scheme
 
 
 class LanceDBConnection:
@@ -26,10 +27,12 @@ class LanceDBConnection:
     """
 
     def __init__(self, uri: URI):
-        if isinstance(uri, str):
-            uri = Path(uri)
-        uri = uri.expanduser().absolute()
-        Path(uri).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+        is_local = isinstance(uri, Path) or get_uri_scheme(uri) == "file"
+        if is_local:
+            if isinstance(uri, str):
+                uri = Path(uri)
+            uri = uri.expanduser().absolute()
+            Path(uri).mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
         self._uri = str(uri)
 
     @property
@@ -43,7 +46,11 @@ class LanceDBConnection:
         -------
         A list of table names.
         """
-        return [p.stem for p in Path(self.uri).glob("*.lance")]
+        if get_uri_scheme(self.uri) == "file":
+            return [p.stem for p in Path(self.uri).glob("*.lance")]
+        raise NotImplementedError(
+            "List table_names is only supported for local filesystem for now"
+        )
 
     def __len__(self) -> int:
         return len(self.table_names())
diff --git a/python/lancedb/util.py b/python/lancedb/util.py
index 4444c881..92bb9315 100644
--- a/python/lancedb/util.py
+++ b/python/lancedb/util.py
@@ -35,4 +35,9 @@ def get_uri_scheme(uri: str) -> str:
         scheme = "file"
     elif scheme in ["s3a", "s3n"]:
         scheme = "s3"
+    elif len(scheme) == 1:
+        # Windows drive names are parsed as the scheme
+        # e.g. "c:\path" -> ParseResult(scheme="c", netloc="", path="/path", ...)
+        # So we add special handling here for schemes that are a single character
+        scheme = "file"
     return scheme
diff --git a/python/tests/test_util.py b/python/tests/test_util.py
index 687de11d..1090fa3d 100644
--- a/python/tests/test_util.py
+++ b/python/tests/test_util.py
@@ -21,8 +21,9 @@ def test_normalize_uri():
         "file:///absolute/path",
         "s3://bucket/path",
         "gs://bucket/path",
+        "c:\\windows\\path",
     ]
-    schemes = ["file", "file", "file", "s3", "gs"]
+    schemes = ["file", "file", "file", "s3", "gs", "file"]
 
     for uri, expected_scheme in zip(uris, schemes):
         parsed_scheme = get_uri_scheme(uri)