How to Map a Network Drive

Tue, 05/22/2007 - 17:45 — Ciprian

One of the most searched topics on our site is "how to map a drive". Unfortunately, until now, the searches on this topic didn't return any result for our users. As a consequence to this, we decided to create this article in which we show you how to create a drive mapping in Windows Vista.

For those of you who don't know it, a drive mapping is a letter assigned to a disk or drive. The most common drive mappings are A: for the floppy disk and C: for the primary hard disk. If you are on a network, a drive mapping can reference remote drives to which you can assign a letter of your choice. For example, you can use the letter Z: to refer drive C: or a network server or a specific shared folder to which you have access to.

As you will see for yourself, the procedure of creating a map drive in Windows Vista is very simple. Just follow these steps:

First, click on the Computer shortcut from your desktop or from the Start Menu. In the toolbar you will find several buttons, including one called Map network drive.

Map a Network Drive

Click on it and the Map Network Drive window will open. Firstly, you need to assign a drive letter for the connection and then type the drive or the folder you want to connect to.
The folder can be located on a remote server or computer you have access to, a FTP site or a shared folder on your own computer.

Map a Network Drive

If you want to connect to a remote computer just type "\\" followed by the computer name or the IP address and then "\" followed by the location of the folder you want to connect to.
If you want to create a drive mapping to a folder on your own computer type "\\127.0.0.1\" (this stands for the local host) or "\\computer_name\" and then the path towards that folder.
Sometimes, when you create a drive mapping, you might need to use a special user name and password that allows you to connect to it. In this case, click on the Connect using a different user name link.

Map a Network Drive

Type the appropriate user name and password and click on OK. Now you will return to the previous window. Click on Finish and the drive mapping will be created.

If you access the Computer shortcut again you will see that a new drive having the letter you assigned is listed and you can access it at anytime.

Map a Network Drive

Comments

Sun, 11/11/2007 - 06:04 — LeMMiNGS (not verified)

Vista Ultimate Not Remapping Drive At Startup

I'm having the same issue as many others, after I map a drive in Windows Vista (Ultimate 64bits) and explicity tell it to remember user&password, after a reboot or relog, the drive does not map, and windows tell me it has a problem with mapping it, so after I open explorer and go to the mapped drive it asks me for the username & password I already told it to save, and then I can access normally. Adding the credentials on Control Panel/User Accounts did not help either. (Server host is also set into trusted zone). So there seem to be nothing to solve this f*cking issue. Vista never remembers the right username for the mappings.

Wed, 11/14/2007 - 12:27 — Richard B (not verified)

Freecom Ethernet Hard Drive

Hi guys this problem has been driving me crazy since purchase of a Freecom 500gb Ethernet HD the supposed solution to a lack of storage. I have Vista Home Premium on my laptop but I cannot configure it to see my HD as a drive on the laptop. If i look under network center it recognises the device is there but not as a drive, when i try to map the drive i get various errors (sorry I havent got these with me) but the fact remains I just cant get it to be seen as a drive. If I try using the command \\192..... within the mapping screen it connects to the web interface of the drive.

Please help!
Richard

Sun, 03/16/2008 - 14:04 — Henk (not verified)

Hi Richard, The Freecom

Hi Richard,

The Freecom Network Drive comes with a CD that holds the program "Freecom Network Storage Assistant".

When you install and run this program, it gives you the option to map the Freecom Network Drive to a local drive, like drive F:

Good luck,
Henk.

Fri, 11/23/2007 - 06:57 — Anonymous (not verified)

NetCenter Network mapping

I know how to map the drive. The problem is reconnecting once i restart my computer. The way I usually reconnect is by clicking the Network Icon and wait for the drive to be recognized. Once it is recognized I click on it and the user name and password prompt comes up. I type in the user name and password and click ok, it reprompts me but this time it has the name of my computer followed by a "/" and the user name I typed in. While this is happening there is a green status bar that is slowly filling up on the address bar. If i click ok before it is half way full it will not connect, but if I wait until it is atleast half way then it will connect.
Once I do that I can map the network drive successfully, the problem is when I restart the computer. If I want to access the folder I have to go through the whole thing again. Any ideas? (I hope I made myself clear)

Wed, 11/28/2007 - 19:13 — Anonymous (not verified)

to be able to connect to a

to be able to connect to a Vista based PC you have to control panel and network sharing...from there you have to select file sharing ON(default selection is OFF)... when you restart (sometimes you may not need)

then you can use your vista based user name and password to connect from other PC... do not forget to select the user (any of them, or just select all users) when you turn File Sharing ON...

Sun, 12/02/2007 - 07:48 — Teach1 (not verified)

map network drive

I have vista PC and cannot map network drive. I purchased six of these Gateway machines and five mapped fine but one will not. I can ping the IP address and I can ping the name of the server, but it will not map. I have turned off the firewall and don't know what else to do can you give suggestions?

thanks

Sun, 12/02/2007 - 11:43 — Ciprian

Terrance

Thu, 02/07/2008 - 20:47 — John Ring (not verified)

Logging on to a mapped drive in Vista

Hi, I must be doing somthing wrong. I cannot actully loggon to my network disk. It says wrong format did somthing change? I can with my XP computer.

Login / Register