File Storage

On your own computer you may be accustomed to saving everything on the local machine, but here at the ECC that is not allowed. Anything that you save locally (like on the desktop) will go away as soon as you log out. The following locations are available for saving your work.

The "S" Drive

Whenever you log on to any of the ECC computers part of the logon procedure is to connect the computer to a remote folder located on the ECC server. This remote folder is connected to "My Documents" and also shows up as the "S" drive under "My computer". Anything you save here is stored on the server and therefore is not erased when you logoff. Another nice thing about this "S" drive is that it follows you to which ever computer you logon to in the ECC. And it is backed up every night.

Currently every student starts out with a 10mb quota. If you exceed this, Windows gives you the warning message "unable to write file". You need to delete some old files before you will be able to copy more data to it. And here's the trick of the week, you can access the "S" drive from your own computer at home or wherever. Check out Server Access for more info.

USB drive

A second option for saving your work is to bring your own media. The ECC PCs do not have CD-R/RW burners so you will not be able to burn CDs. What we highly recommend are USB drives. They're small, they have large capacities, they're easy to use and they're reasonably priced.

To make it easier to plug in a USB drive, we have taped extension cords to the keyboards on the PCs in the main part of the ECC. In 203A there are external USB ports on the right side of the large monitors. Once connected the drive appears as a second removable disk under My Computer, most likely as an "E" drive. Drag and drop files to and from the USB drive just as you would to any other location.

When you're ready to go, eject the media by clicking only once on the icon in the lower left. It brings up a box saying "safely remove hardware", click on the box. (If you double click or right click on the icon, you get a message saying you are not authorized to remove the media). Then pull the drive out of the slot.

Please remember to take your USB drive with you when you leave! Or, at least, write your name and email address in an obvious file on it so we can let you know when it shows up in the Lost & Found!

Zip disks

Most of the PCs in the main part of the ECC have zip drives and you can bring your own zip disks to save your work on. There are two sizes of zip disks, 100mb and 250mb, the PCs can read either of them. The newer PCs, in 203A with the flat panel monitors, do not have zip drives. Be aware that sometimes the computers do not like to eject the zip disks. If this happens, save everything you're working on and restart the computer. This usually ejects the disk.

Please remember to put your name on your zip disk and take it with you when you leave!