Columbus State has created 300MB of storage space on the college's network drive for each student to safely store and retrieve files. When a student is logged onto a campus computer, the storage space appears as Student Home Directory (B:), also known as the "B drive." Students can access saved files or upload files from any computer connected to the Internet by going to files.cscc.edu and logging in with their CSCC username and password.
If you know the name, date modified, or file type of the saved file you are looking for, searching a drive for the file is an efficient method for locating the misplaced file.
To search for a file, click on the search bar at the top of the file explorer window.
Type in the file's name, date modified, or file type into the search bar and Windows will automatically search your drives for files matching your search results.
If you're not certain what the whole name is but you know that your file has a specific word in it, type in what you can and Windows will find any document with that word in it's title. For instance, if you type in "ENG" when looking for your paper for English 1100, then Windows will find all documents containing "ENG" anywhere in their names.
If you are looking for a specific file in a drive or folder containing a lot of other files, it may be useful to sort these files based on what you're looking for. There are four options that you can choose to sort your files by: Sort by Name, Date Modified, Size, and Type. These different sorting methods are explained in the next few tables above.
To begin sorting your files, navigate to the file which you want to sort. Right click anywhere in the white space, away from any text, to pull up the right click menu.
Hover your mouse over the "Sort by" option in this menu to pull up your sorting options.
If you know the name of your file, sorting a folder by "Name" will sort all the files by their names.
To do this, right click and choose "sort." Select the "Name" option to sort the files by their titles. Note that file names are organized alphabetically and numerically, starting with zero.
Sometimes you may not know the name of your file, or you may have multiple drafts that you've been saving up. If you know when the last time was that you worked on that file, sorting a folder by "Date Modified" will sort all the files by the date and time you lasted edited each document.
To do this, right click and choose "sort." Select the "Date Modified" option to sort the files by the date and time at which they were last edited.
Sometimes you may not know what your file was named or when the last time you edited was, or you may have many different file types with the same name. If you know what type of file you are looking for, sorting a folder by "Type" will sort all the files by the their type. If you know you're looking for a word document, you can sort all your files by type so that you can narrow your search to only word documents.
To do this, right click and choose "sort." Select the "Type" option to sort the files by their type. Note that file types are organized in alphabetical order by the type name, with folders always being displayed first.
In some cases, you may have different versions of a file that are different sizes. An example of this would be if you have been working on an image file and you have a smaller size image for using on the web and a larger file for printing. In this case, if you know if you know you are looking for one size in particular, sorting a folder by "Size" will sort all the files by their size. Another great example is if you are trying to free up space on your drive; you can focus on removing some of the larger files first, then the smaller ones, until you have freed up enough space.
To do this, right click and choose "sort." Select the "Size" option to sort the files by their size.
Documents
.doc .docx .pdf .txt .rdf
Presentations
.ppt .pptx
Spreadsheets
.xls .xlsx
Images
.jpg .png .bmp
Audio
.mp3 .wav
Video
.mp4 .mpeg .mov .flv .wmv .avi
Check out the information on personal achiving provided by the Library of Congress.
Need Help? Contact the IT Support Center
Walk up computer related support available in the Cyber Café, TL 116, or by calling (614) 287-5729.
Be specific when you name your files
You should be able to look at the file name and know what it contains, without having to open it. If you cannot, consider a more descriptive file name.
Group your files logically
Files that have a close relationship with one another should be placed in a folder. For instance, all of the files for your English 1100 class should be placed into a single folder.
Be concise with folder names
A good folder name will indicate the relationship of the files that are contained within it. i.e. You may name the folder containing all the files for your English 1100 course "ENG 1100."
Create an organizational hierarchy
Create additional folders within others when the need arises. These subfolders should contain files that have an even more specific relationship than the other files in the main folder. For instance, you may create a sub folder within your ENG 1100 folder called "Final Paper," which contains only the documents needed for that one assignment.
Organize as you go
The best time to organize your files is as you create them. Name your file and save it in the appropriate folder as soon as you've created it. Get in the habit of saving your files into the right place at the start, this will save you a lot of time and hassle later.
Clean up regularly
It becomes increasingly difficult to locate the files you need as the number of files in a folder expands. If you no longer need all of the drafts for a particular assignment, consider getting rid of them.
Back it up
Make sure to back up important files in two different places for safe keeping. Use two different drives, if you can, just in case one stops working or you lose access to it. For instance, save that important paper you've been working on for your English 1100 course on both a flash drive and your student B drive, that way you'll always have a copy of it even if you misplace your flash drive. Don't depend on one drive to hold all your important documents.
