I feel stupid asking this, but I really have little experience with windows networking. basically I need to connect to a drive on another machine, and have the network path in form \\home.asdf.com\drive
but what do I do with that? I tried going to "connect network drive" but it said path not found, even though it's the correct path. is there some other way to log in to this drive?

Questions:
How is the network setup, i.e., how are the computers connected to one another?
What operating system is on each machine (95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP)?
What are the IP addresses of the two computers?
Are the IP addresses static or are they assigned by a DHCP server?
Do you see the computer you want to connect to in "My Network Places"?
Is sharing enabled on the drive you need to connect to?

You may find this useful: File and Printer Sharing with Microsoft Windows

uh...I don't admin the other machine so I really don't know, but it's on a separate network on campus and is likely winxp. it's not in my network places. sharing should be enabled because many others use the database located on it.

Oh, OK. This puts the networking in a totally different light. I thought you were trying to network two machines together on the same network.

Try this:
- In Windows Explorer click Tools > Map Network Drive
- On the window that appears click on the text that says "Sign up for online storage or connect to a network server"
- Complete the "Add Network Place Wizard" that appears.

Hope this works for ya.