Available Disk Locations

Disk space for personal data-files is available to at several locations on Lab computers.   Each location is mapped to a specific drive letter.  The mapped drive and a list of files located there are visible via Windows Explorer.

Home Directory Service

The UVa Home Directory Service provides access to personal files stored on a central "network appliance."  This storage location is the same site as that used for standard ITC accounts on Blue-Unix.  The files are password-protected and can be accessed directly from our Lab computers -- without having to use FTP to transfer the files from your Blue-Unix account. 

Files stored here are backed-up automatically by ITC and can be recovered by using a special ITC Web site.

We have installed the ITC-supplied software which allows convenient login to your UVa Home Directory from our Lab PCs.  The little house icon in the upper-left of each machine's desktop will give access to this login program. 

Note that the default "Drive Letter to Use" ("J") may already be used on your particular computer.   If you get the goofy error message,
        "The specified device is already remembered",
then you need to select a drive letter which is not already in use.   "Windows Explorer" or "My Computer" can show you which drives are currently attached.

Warning:  When connected to your Home Directory, your personal files are exposed until you manually disconnect the service.  If you get up and leave the machine without logging-off, your files will be vulnerable until the Forced Logoff which occurs after 20 minutes of computer inactivity.  Be careful when using the Home Directory connection on any public computer.

Tip:  Remember that when using your Home Directory you are transferring data over the network to a machine located in Carruthers Hall.  It is best therefore to transfer a complete data-file (using Windows Explorer or My Computer) to a local-disk location on your PC (i.e., the "D" or "C" drives) before opening the file with an application such as Word or Excel.  Then, after finishing your work, you can copy the updated file back to the Home Directory using Windows Explorer or My Computer.  This will provide more control and will minimize risk should something go wrong with the network.

Drive "Z" (Central to Lab)

This drive consists of a multi-gigabyte partition located on the Lab's file-server.   It is intended as a central warehouse for certain Project Teams which use the Design Lab as a focus of their work activities. 

Users of a particular Team are given read, write and delete access to a shared directory on the partition.  The shared directory is mapped to the Z-Drive when a Team Member logs on to any PC in the Lab -- using the Member's own personal computer account.   Files stored on this drive are exposed only to Team Members who have the associated Z-Drive mapping.

This disk space is intended for files on which the Team is currently working.  It is not intended for personal files, or course work, or large image files.

Files stored on the drive are backed-up nightly.

Tip:  As with the Home Directory, this drive is accessible only via the network.  Best usage of the drive is therefore similar to that described in the Tip given above.

Drive "D" (Local to PC)

This drive is a partition of the local hard-drive installed in each PC.   It generally has considerable free space on which to write and store personal files.  In all machines, the drive is sized at greater than 35 Giga Bytes.  This is the preferred location for large CAD files, archived data files or documents, and important image-files which cannot be saved to the "Z" drive.

Files stored here are exposed to all Lab users and thus can be easily deleted by anyone.  The files can also be opened by anyone – unless they are password-protected from within an application such as Word or Excel. 

No automatic backup service is provided for this drive.

Drive "D" is completely erased at the end of each Spring semester and just before the start of each Fall semester.   Only random cleaning is performed during the academic year, when the only files removed are obvious pornographic material and/or pirated software.

Drive "C"  (Local to PC)

Users are permitted to write to the "Temp" directory on the "C" drive.  This particular space is provided for the many application programs which must write temporary files during the course of their operation.  Normally those files are deleted after the particular program closes, but quite often programs do not cleanup after themselves and so leave a clutter of strange files in the "Temp" directory.

This directory is cleaned each morning at around 5:00 AM.

This can be a handy place to transfer files for temporary use while using an application such as Word, Excel, or MathCAD.  Upon completion of your work, however, you should copy a data file back to a more permanent place such as your Home Directory or a writable CD.

Writable CDs

The all computers in the Lab are now equipped with  CD-RW drives -- which allow the creation of archival Compact Disks for file-storage of up to 700 MB.

Software associated with these drives allows for storage in 2 possible modes.

Easy CD Creator (CD-R).  This mode allows one-time writing of files to the CD for archival storage.   The media used for this storage are generally less expensive and they allow up to 700 MB of file space.    The finished CDs can be used in other common CD-Drives found in nearly all PCs.