Mapping GIS Network Drives from Outside the GIS Lab

Tufts GIS Center

March 2011

The GIS Center maintains three drives, the H:\, M:\, and S:\, which contain data and information related to
GIS. The H:\ drive is a user’s personal directory of up to 500 MB that is used to store any information a user
wishes to save. The M:\ drive contains frequently used GIS datasets organized by geographic location. The S:\
drive contains information regarding Classes, Projects, and GIS Center Administration.

NOTE:
Only users with an authorized GIS account can connect to the H:\, M:\, and S:\ drives.

To map to these drives from a campus computer outside the GIS Lab (see special note for Eaton
Computer Lab and Ginn Library at the end of this tip sheet):

Step 1:
Windows XP - Go to My Computer. From the menu bar, select Tools → Map Network Drive.
Windows 7 – Go to Start –> Computer –> Map Network Drive tab
Mugar Lab – Go to Start – Drives and Network Shares, and from the menu bar select Tools → Map
Network Drive

Step 2: In the drop down menu labeled Drive: choose the drive letter that you want to
map (H:\, M:\, or S:\)
If the letter drive is not available, select an available drive letter.*

Step 3: In the Folder: drop down menu manually enter (or copy and paste) one of the following pathways

For the H:\ drive enter:

\\rstore2\gisusers$\yourUTLN\
Example: \\rstore2\gisusers$\asmith01

For the M:\ drive enter:

\\rstore2\gis$

For the S:\ drive enter:

\\rstore2\gisprojects$

Step 4: Uncheck the box Reconnect at logon. Click Finish.

*Note: If using ArcMap, always make sure that ArcMap data paths are set to be relative,
not absolute. This will help make your ArcMap documents be more portable. To do this in ArcMap, click on
File - Map Properties. At the Untitled Properties window, select the Data Source
Option button and select store relative path names.

Accessing the H:\, M:\, and S:\ in Eaton Computer Lab and Ginn Library (updated
3/12/2011)

It seems that some of the public computer labs at Tufts have disabled the ability to map network drives. This is
true in the Eaton Lab and the Ginn Library. If you are at a Tufts computer, can’t map a network drive, and want
to access data on the M, S, or H drives from ArcMap, follow these steps:

1. Start ArcMap
2. Click on File - Add Data or the Add Data icon
3. Click on the Connect to Folder icon and type or paste the drive path you want (see list above) into
the location box as you see here – in this example we are connecting to the GIS Center’s M drive:

Copy and paste

the drive info
here and click
OK

copy and paste the drive info here and click OK

4. You will now see the desired drive contents

Note that you can’t open existing map files using the process above.

If you have a mapfile on your GIS Lab “H: drive” that you want to open, you can open your H: drive to see its
contents by entering the drive path \\rstore2\gisusers$\yourUTLN\
into the "Run" command located in the Start Menu of the Eaton Lab and Ginn Library computers. E.g.,
\\rstore2\gisusers$\jsmith01\

Your mapfile will open but will likely have red exclamation markers by your data layers in ArcMap, meaning
ArcGIS can't see the "M drive" from Eaton. You have to go and manually repair the data sources (right-click
and go to Data - Repair Data Source.