What are network drives or server volumes?

Every student at Saint Mary's College is provided with 50MB of disk space on our network to save files to and/or host a web page. Faculty and staff are provided with 100MB of disk space on our network. This space is accessible from any networked computer on campus, and is commonly referred to as a personal network drive or the H: drive. A student can save a paper she is working on in her room to her network drive; go to a computer cluster; access the paper saved on her network drive; and print it on the laser printers. This eliminates the need to carry files around on disks. Also, a backup of all network drives is created every night, which makes it a secure place for your important papers and other files. Saint Mary's College strongly recommends that you save a copy of your work to your network drive.

You may also need to connect to additional network drives or server volumes to access shared department work/file space.

For Windows XP Professional Edition computers:

Special note: As you map the network drives, some computers may not have an X: option (X referring to any letter, H is the letter most commonly used for personal network drives) to select as a network drive letter. Simply choose another letter, but remember that when someone else is talking about the X: drive, you may be using another letter to identify it on your computer, but it is still the same network drive.

1. Click on the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen.

2. Move the mouse over My Computer to highlight it, then click the right mouse button and select Map Network Drive...

3. Select H: from the Drive: pop-up menu.
   (If you would like to select a drive other than your personal drive, please select another letter. If possible, select the letter that is commonly associated with that particular drive.)

4. In the Folder: field, type in the full name of the server and directory you wish to connect to. If you wish to connect to your personal network drive, type:
   \\diamond.saintmarys.edu\yourusername
   (If you would like to select a drive other than your personal drive, please type in the name of the drive instead of yourusername, such as public.)

5. Make sure that Reconnect at login is checked.

6. Click Finish.

7. Type in your user name and password when prompted.

8. Do NOT check Remember my password.

9. Click OK.

10. A window displaying your network drive should appear.

11. You can find your network drive by going to the Start menu and selecting My Computer. The network drives should be listed at the bottom of the window.

12. With Windows XP, your network drive will not automatically mount every time you log in to your computer while on ResNet. (Microsoft considers this a security feature.) To access your network drive after logging in to your computer, go to the Start menu and select My Computer. The icon of the drive will be visible in that window, but the icon will have a red X on it to show that the drive is not mounted. To mount the drive, double-click on the drive icon and type in your password when prompted. Click OK.