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Mapped Network Drives and Network Shares



Having Network Drive Problems?


Network drives sometimes do not get mapped. They may fail to show up in My Computer or in a pull-down when you are trying to save a file in Visual Studio or some other software.

There are still ways to get to the missing drives. In the CIS lab, the PCs now have a script named DriveMapper on the desktop. If you run DriveMapper, it will try to remap your network drives. This is probably the easiest way to get your missing network drives to show up.

There are other approaches. For example, if you log out and log back in again, the drives may map correctly on that second attempt. If you had no network drives, you might want to reboot, in case the PC's networking did not initialize correctly on the first boot.

You can manually re-run the logon script. If successful, this will give you all of your mapped network drives (except for the M drive). Just go to a command prompt by using Start, Program, Accessories, Command Prompt. Copy the following command, paste it in at the command prompt, and press Enter:

\\cis-w2k8server\SYSVOL\cis2.stvincent.edu\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\USER\Scripts\Logon\generic.vbs

If you prefer, you can put \\cis-w2k8server into the address bar of My Computer and browse through the folders shown in the above command. When you finally find the generic script, just double click on it to run it. If you already have My Computer open at the display of your drives, use View, Refresh to see what drives you now have.

Another approach is to manually map each missing drive. Let's say it is your M: drive that is missing. Get a command prompt by using Start, Program, Accessories, Command Prompt. Enter the command:

net use m: \\cis-w2k8server\users\studentb

Fill in your username in place of studentb, of course. See the bottom of this page for other locations that could be mapped, such as your homework drive.

You can also get to the missing drive locations by browsing My Network Places. If you are already in My Computer, use the up button until you get to the Desktop. Then choose My Network Places. From there, choose Entire Network. Next, use Microsoft Windows Network. Then select Cisdept, followed by Cis-w2k8server. Here you will see the various shares on the server. If, for example, you want to go to your homework drive, look inside the Homework share for the homework folder for your course. Inside it should be the folder with your username on it. Deposit your homework in that location. If instead you want a course drive, look inside the Courses share. If you want your M drive (home folder), look inside the Users share. Finally, for your web folder on this server, look inside the www share.

Some software allows you to type in the location so that you do not have to browse to it as above. My Computer, for example, lets you type the desired location in the Address box. Here are the locations for typical network drives for a fictitious user with username studentb who is in CS110-01:

  • For the M drive type: \\cis-w2k8server\Users\studentb (fill in your username, not studentb)
  • For the CS110-01 course drive: \\cis-w2k8server\Courses\CS110-01
  • For the CS110-01 homework drive: \\cis-w2k8server\Homework\HW110-01\studentb (but use your username)
  • For your web drive: \\cis-w2k8server\www\studentb (with your username instead of studentb)
In some software, such as Visual Studio 2008 when creating a new project, you can type \\cis-w2k8server\ and then see the shares listed in the pull-down for the location in which to save. This software also then allows you to click the browse button to navigate through the shares.

Need to Access Files on the STVINCENT Domain?



Even though you are logged into the CISDEPT domain on a PC in the CIS lab, you can still access files that you saved to network locations within the STVINCENT domain. Just go to My Computer and use \\svc-acad.stvincent.edu as the server name in the Address box. This will show you all the locations available, though you can only access those to which you have the appropriate permissions. Let's suppose that your username is first.last. Then you could use the following in the Address bar of My Computer. Note that you will be prompted for your username and password for the STVINCENT domain. Enter your username in the form STVINCENT\first.last and then fill in your password. This is the same username and password that you use for your Saint Vincent email.

  • For a student's home folder: \\svc-acad.stvincent.edu\Students\first.last (fill in your username in place of first.last)
  • For a faculty home folder: \\svc-acad.stvincent.edu\Faculty\first.last (fill in your username in place of first.last)
Maintained by: Br. David Carlson
Last updated: August 25, 2009