How to create a virtual disk from a folder. Mounting and unmounting drives and NTFS folders

Instruction

Mount an arbitrary folder as a virtual disk in operating systems of the Windows family. Launch the cmd shell. To do this, display the Run Programs dialog by selecting Run from the Start menu, typing cmd in the Open text box, and then clicking OK.

Use the subst command to mount the folder. Enter in the console:

subst /?
Press Enter and see a quick reference on how the command works. Mount the folder by executing a command like:
subst<Буква целевого диска>: <Путь к папке>
For example, in order to create a virtual disk X with the contents of the D:\Temp folder, you should run the command:
subst X: D:\Temp

On Windows, mount the folder of the remote network resource like a disk. Open the My Computer folder window. To do this, use the appropriate shortcut on the desktop. You can also run windows explorer by typing explorer in the Startup Programs dialog and clicking OK, and then selecting the appropriate section in the right pane.

Display the network share mount dialog. Expand the "Service" section of the main menu and click on the item "Connect network drive».

Perform the mount. From the Drive: drop-down list, select the item that contains your preferred drive letter for the drive you want to create. In the "Folder" field, manually enter the path to or click on the "Browse" button and select it. Check the "Restore at logon" box if the resource is expected to be used for a long time. Click the Done button. If necessary, enter the credentials to access the remote folder and click the OK button of the displayed dialog.

Mount an arbitrary folder as a directory with a different name on Linux operating systems. Use the mount command with the --bind (or -B) switch. Launch a terminal emulator or switch to a text console. Run a command like:

mount --bind<путь-1> <путь-2>
As parameters<путь-1>and<путь-2>complete or relative paths up to two existing directories. For instance:
mount --bind /home/develop /mnt/test
After executing this command, the contents of the /home/develop folder will be displayed in the /mnt/test directory.

Mount a remote network folder to a local directory in a Linux OS. Use the mount command with the -t option to specify the file system type. For example, to mount a remote Temp folders on a windows machine with IP address 10.20.30.40 to the local directory /mnt/test, you can run the command:

mount -t smbfs //10.20.30.40/Temp /mnt/test
The password to access the resource will be requested. If it is necessary to specify credentials on the command line, this can be done using the additional parameters username and password specified after the -o switch. FTP folders can be mounted in a similar way (using curlftpfs).

Hello.

I will outline typical situation: There are several computers connected to a local network. It is required to share some folders so that all users from this folder can work with them. local network.

To do this, you need:

1. "share" (share) the desired folder on desired computer;

2. on computers in the local network, it is advisable to connect this folder as a network drive (so as not to look for it every time in the "networked environment").

Actually, how to do it all will be described in this article (the information is relevant for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10).

1) Opening public access to a folder on the local network (folder sharing)

To be able to share a folder, you must first configure Windows accordingly. To do this, go to the Windows control panel at the following address: "Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center" (see Fig. 1).

Then open the "Change advanced sharing settings" tab.

Rice. 1. Network and Sharing Center

1. private (current profile);
2. all networks;
3. guest or public.

It is necessary to open each tab in turn and set the parameters as in Fig.: 2, 3, 4 (see below, clickable pictures).

Rice. 2. Private (current profile).

Rice. 4. Guest or public

Now it remains only to allow access to the necessary folders. This is done very simply:

1. Find the desired folder on the disk, click right click click on it and go to its properties (see Fig. 5);
2. Next, open the "Access" tab and click the "Sharing" button (as in Fig. 5);
3. Then add the "guest" user and give him permissions: either read only or read and write (see Figure 6).

Rice. 5. Opening a shared folder (many people call this procedure simply "sharing")

Rice. 6. File Sharing

By the way, to find out which folders are already shared on the computer, just open Explorer, then click on the name of your computer in the "Network" tab: then you should see everything that is shared (see Fig. 7).

Rice. 7. Shared folders (Windows 8)

2. How to map a network drive in Windows

In order not to climb every time in network, do not open tabs once again - you can add any folder on the network as a drive in Windows. This will slightly increase the speed of work (especially if you often use a network folder), as well as simplify the use of such a folder for novice PC users.

And so, to connect a network drive - right-click on the icon "My computer (or This computer)" and in the pop-up menu select the function "Connect a network drive" (see Fig. 8. In Windows 7, this is done in the same way, only the icon "My Computer" will be on the desktop).

Rice. 9. Windows 8 - This PC

After that you need to choose:

1. drive letter (any free letter);
2. specify the folder that should be made a network drive (click the "Browse" button, see Fig. 10).

Rice. 10. Mapping a network drive

On fig. 11 shows folder selection. By the way, after choosing, you will only have to press "OK" 2 times - and you can start working with the disk!

Rice. 11. Browse folders

If everything is done correctly, then a network drive with the name of your choice will appear in "My computer (in this computer)". You can use it in almost the same way as if it were yours. HDD(see fig. 12).

The only condition is that the computer on the disk of which the shared folder is located must be turned on. And, of course, the local network should work ...

Rice. 12. This computer (network drive mapped).

Very often people ask what to do if the folder cannot be shared - Windows writes that access is impossible, a password is required ... In this case, most often, they simply did not configure the network accordingly (the first part of this article). After disabling password protection, problems, as a rule, do not arise.

A network drive is a logical drive (folder) created for sharing files by PC users. The drive can be on a PC, server, or network storage device using the same local area network.

A network drive is often created in enterprises and educational institutions that store documents on servers, providing more storage space and Reserve copy files. However, with the growth of the amount of data, the disk becomes relevant in the home network.

To connect a network folder, you must transfer all PCs connected to it to a common workgroup.

Step 1. Press the key combination Win + R. Type in the menu sysdm.cpl and click OK.

Step 2 Click the Computer Name tab and click Change.

Step 3 Type name in "Member" working group» in English letters. "Computer name" can be chosen any or left the same. Press OK.

Step 4 Restart your PC for the changes to take effect.

Step 5 to do Steps 1-4 on all computers in common network, specifying a single workgroup name for them.

Setting folder access

Before making a connection, you must create a folder on the selected device located on the public network, naming it in English letters.

Step 1. Click on the created network folder, selecting "Properties".

Step 2 Click the "Sharing" tab and click "Sharing".

Step 3 Select "All" from the drop-down list and click "Add".

Step 5 Press "Finish".

The folder will be shared.

Disable network credential entry

When connecting to a network, it is often necessary to disable the prompt for network credentials in Windows 7, 8, and 10 (on XP, this setting is not required). To disable the request, you need to change the settings for accessing the PC.

Step 1. Click on the network icon in notifications (bottom right of the screen) and select "Control Center ...".

Step 2 Click "Change Sharing...".

Step 3 Check in all profiles (opening the drop-down list) whether points are set for network discovery and sharing.

Step 4 Scroll down the list of permissions with the mouse wheel, select "Turn off password protection". Click Save Changes.

Reference! You may also need to disable and then re-enable Windows Firewall to connect to a network share.

Mapping a network drive

Step 1. Open the Computer folder by double-clicking.

Step 2 Click "Tools" - "Map network drive" ( in Windows XP).

Click the "Connect ..." button at the top of the window ( in Windows 7).

Click the "Connect ..." button on the disk image on the ribbon interface ( in Windows 8 and 10).

Step 3 Select the letter of the folder and type the path consisting of two slashes " \\ ”, PC name followed by a slash “ \ ” and the name of the folder itself (with an underscore instead of a space, as shown in the “Example” in the screenshot).

Note! To connect, instead of the PC name, you can type it in, for example: \192.168.1.100folder_name.

Step 4 If the path to the folder is unknown, you can click "Browse ..." by opening the network tree with the mouse, clicking on the desired folder and clicking "OK". If you need a permanent connection to the folder, check the box "Restore connection ...".

If the connection requires different credentials, check the "Use different credentials" checkbox. The password and login will be requested after clicking "Done".

Press "Finish". The disk will be connected.

In a domain environment, you probably won't need to connect with other credentials, because the current domain login most likely already has access to the server.

For example, if there is a file NAS server, and you will need to mount its folder as a network folder, you will probably need to enter the credentials set on the NAS, since the credentials Windows data will not work.

Connecting a drive via the command line

Step 1. Press Win+R. Type cmd and click OK.

Connecting Yandex.Disk as a network folder

When installed on a PC "", it organizes a folder on it for storing copies of files transferred to the server. This is rather inconvenient if the files being backed up are too large and take up a lot of space on the PC.

At the same time, Yandex.Disk supports WebDAV, allowing you to connect the service as a regular network folder without saving files to your PC.

Step 1. Select network drive mapping ( see above) and click on the link "Connecting to the site ...".

Step 3 Enter address: https://webdav.yandex.ru and click "Next".

Step 4 Select a name for the connection and click Next.

Step 5 Enter a username and password to connect to the service.

Important! The point indicated by the arrow in the photo must be marked only if one account is used for the service!

Step 6 Check the box "Open ...", click "Finish".

The Yandex.Disk folder will open.

A location will appear in the Computer folder that you can already use.

Yandex.Disk will be connected as a network folder.

How to connect a computer to Wi-Fi

To connect a computer to a hotspot WiFi access need to purchase wifi adapter, or connect an existing adapter to the network.

Step 1. For turning on Wi-Fi on the PC, click on the network in the notifications (bottom right) and select "Network Sharing Center ...".

Select "Network Control Center..."

Step 2 After turning on the adapter, click on the network and select "Connect" to the desired Wi-Fi network.

Step 3 Enter the access point password and click OK.

A wireless Wi-Fi connection will be established.

If the drive is 100% loaded in Windows 10

Windows 10 sometimes encounters a bug that leads to load hard drive by 100%. At the same time, the performance of the PC is reduced up to its complete “hanging”. If the computer is under Windows control 10 became strong " ", you need to see what is the cause of this situation.

Step 1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc. The Task Manager will launch. Click on the "Processes" tab and see the status of the CPU, memory, disk and network.

If the drive is 90-100% loaded, you need to take action to reduce the load on it. Most often high HDD loading associated with the "looping" of the system on the indexing of files, carried out to speed up access to them.

Step 2 Click on the magnifying glass icon next to the "Start" button and type in cmd line. Click on the "Command Prompt" utility found and select "Run as Administrator".

Step 3 Type the command in the window that appears: NET STOP "Windows Search" by pressing Enter.

Step 4 Run Step 1 this section and see if the load on the HDD has decreased. If the load has not decreased, disable the indexing service completely.

Step 5 Press Win + R, in the window that opens, type services.msc and press Enter.

Step 6 Click on Windows Service Search by selecting "Properties".

Step 7 Click Stop, then select Disabled. Click "Apply" and "OK".

Step 8 Run Step 2 this sub-item and in the window that opens, type the following commands to disable the Windows Diagnostics service, pressing Enter after each command.

Step 9 Without closing the previous window, type the following command, which disables the SuperFetch service, which improves the launch of frequently used applications, by pressing Enter. In practice, the SuperFetch service is often the cause of high HDD load: net.exe stop superfetch

Step 10 Without closing the previous window, type the following command, which disables the automatic windows updates by pressing Enter: net stop wuauserv.

Also enter the following command by pressing Enter: sc config wuauserv start= disabled.

Step 11 Without closing the previous window, type a command that disables the paging file if the main disk in the system is solid state drive SSD by pressing Enter. paging file on SSD drive sometimes loads the HDD at 100%: wmic pagefileset where name="C:\pagefile.sys" delete(where: name="C:\pagefile.sys"- file location)

Step 12 Without closing the previous window, type the following command to check and fix errors on the HDD by pressing Enter. To complete the HDD check, the computer will need to restart: chkdsk /F /R

Step 13 After Windows restart execute Step 1 this section and see if the load on the hard disk has decreased.

Disabling these services in most cases allows you to get rid of the high HDD load.

Video - How to add a network drive in Windows 7,8,10

To get to any folder, we have to click a lot in Explorer, unless, of course, you have taken out the folder shortcut on Desktop. A shortcut to the desktop is, of course, good. But clogging the desktop with shortcuts is also not nice, especially since a more empty desktop is not bad. And someone may not like labels at all. In this case, in order to facilitate access to local folder, you can turn the folder into a virtual logical drive. In other words, your searched folder will be in the window My computer together with others local drives. And then you have to make just two clicks to get to the desired folder. Our article is completely devoted to how you can create a virtual disk from any folder on your computer.

Create a virtual disk

Before creating a new virtual disk (not to be confused with ) we need to get a free letter that is not used by other disks. To do this, open the window My computer and using your knowledge of the English alphabet, select a letter that is not used on this moment. Let's say it's a letter Y. After that, you need to open a command window Windows strings and run a command of the following type:

subst Y: c:\dir\seconddir\

The only thing that needs to be adjusted to fit your needs is the path of the folder that we turn into a virtual logical drive. After executing this command, you can check the number of logical drives in the window My computer. I'm sure there are more of them. In this simple way, you can create a virtual disk from a folder.

The reverse side of the virtual disk coin

The reverse side of the medal is that the created virtual logical disk will last exactly as long as you do not turn off your computer. After a reboot, this logical drive will disappear. Therefore, the above command must be executed on every boot. To do this, you can create .bat-file based on the above code. The creation of such a bat-file was discussed in detail in the article, I suggest you read it. After that, created .bat-the file must be copied to the folder, which is located at

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

If everything is done correctly, then with each new boot operating system will fulfill given command, the result of which we have already considered.

In addition to the above method, which will always work, I can offer another method that may not work in the case of network folders. In this case, in order for the created virtual disk from the folder to appear in its place every time the computer boots, you need to open the Registry Editor (use the commands quick start) and go to the section

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\DOS Devices

In this node, you need to create a string (String Value) parameter and give it a name in the form of a virtual drive letter. For our example, you will need to specify the name Y:

for the created parameter. The value of this parameter must be of the following form:

\??\c:\dir\seconddir\

With these simple steps, you can create a virtual disk from a folder on your computer.

The term "mapping a drive" is commonly used to describe a special kind of disk management often used in large organizations.

general information

A mapped drive is a partition that is mapped empty folder another partition formatted as file system NTFS. Mapped drives are usually assigned a label or name rather than a letter. Mapped drives are used to share partitions or drives with a large number of users. A mapped drive is also called connected folder.

Mapped drives allow you to expand the capacity of a drive or partition. For example, a user saves financial documents to the "Finance" folder on the C drive, which leaves almost no space. There is space on the E drive. To use the space on the E drive, create an empty Documents folder in the Finance folder and map the E drive to the new folder. After that, files saved in the C:\Finance\Documents folder will use the space on drive E. Mapping drives allows you, unlike shortcuts, to move mapped drives without updating the folder to which the drive is mapped.

Drive connection

1. open .
2. In the left pane, under storage devices click Disk Management.
3. Right-click the drive you want to mount and select .
4. Click the button Add, click Mount volume as empty NTFS folder and enter the path to an empty folder on the NTFS drive or click the button Overview to find the folder. Click the button OK; then press the button OK again.

Removing a Mapped Drive

1. open Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management.
2. In the left pane, under storage devices click Disk Management.
3. Right-click the icon of the drive you want to remove and select Change drive letter and drive path.
4. Click the button Delete, then the button Yes.

Note.
The Recycle Bin does not recognize mapped drives, so attempting to delete a file stored on a mapped drive may result in an error. To permanently delete a file from your computer without sending it to the Recycle Bin, click the file and press SHIFT+DELETE. At final removal file cannot be restored if it does not exist backup file.