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I'm using the latest version of Cygwin to try to cd into a network drive on Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3. The path in Windows Explorer to this directory is something like:

\\myserver\photos\original

I tried mounting it to a drive letter ('X') in Explorer, which worked just fine, but then when I ran the command:

ls /cygdrive/x/

It just froze there and hung. Any ideas how I can go into this directory and at least taking a listing of the files in there?

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  • I was able to use "ls /cygdrive/x/" on Windows 7 Enterprise
    – Salvador Valencia
    Nov 8, 2019 at 0:28

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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To add to quack's answer: You can access the network drive also via

ls //myserver/photos

However, on my machine (Windows Vista) it works only after at first pointing the explorer there (\\myserver\photos) and entering my username and password.

In the Cygwin docs they lose a short word about this.

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  • Awesome. This works without mounting the drive in windows as a letter.
    – Brent Faust
    Jun 3, 2013 at 5:56
  • 2
    ls //VBOXSRV/<vbox share name>/ - for those who wants to access VirtualBox shares through cygwin.
    – FelikZ
    Feb 17, 2015 at 15:35
  • It also works with MinTTY (git bash)
    – Julien
    Jun 27, 2020 at 2:12
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You're doing it correctly -- this process works on my setup. The /cygdrive/X notation should work for any drive that Windows has mounted and given a drive letter.

  • Can you browse this network share in Explorer? (Your question doesn't state so explicitly, so double-check.)

  • You can try a standard Windows cmd shell (not Cygwin) -- Windows' builtin pushd will auto-mount the share to a temporary drive.

    C:> pushd \\myserver\photos\original

Z:\original>

If neither of those work, you've got another problem. (Is the computer with the network share up?)

If those work but Cygwin still can't view /cygdrive/X (or /cygdrive/z after your Windows pushd test), I'd try rebooting your workstation. If the problem persists after a reboot, you may have a broken Cygwin installation; I honestly can't think of any other reasons why it wouldn't work.

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  • Thanks very much for your help! I can browse it in Explorer, actually, and it was definitely up and running. I just tried the pushd command and that worked, but not in cygwin. It seems that I can't list any files in any network drive. Is there a tool I need to download from setup.exe?
    – daveslab
    Feb 2, 2010 at 13:47
  • i can't think of anything in particular; this functionality should just work. i mean, Cygwin is just using regular filesystem access calls, nothing special, so it should be able to list directories and read files on any mounted filesystem. if i were you i'd try uninstalling Cygwin then reinstalling. if you have an old version, consider reinstalling the latest version (v1.7.x of the cygwin.dll).
    – quack quixote
    Feb 2, 2010 at 20:50
  • The mounted share is hidden on my setup if mounted after the start of Cygwin. It is shown if I restart Cygwin afterwards.
    – tricasse
    May 11, 2014 at 9:48
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I had the same symptoms. The problem appeared to be related to running the application in administration mode. As soon as I turned off the option to 'Run this program as an administrator' and restarted the application I was able to access the network drives via the /cygdrive/ directory.

Note: I'm running Windows Server 2012 R2 but I would bet this would work on windows7 and up.

Note: You must open the properties dialog of the binary itself (ie mintty.exe) and not the short cut to access the administration option for the application.

Hope this helps!

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  • I cannot stress enough how HELPFUL THIS ANSWER WAS! ...I would have NEVER thought of that! Woo Hoo! HAPPY! I've been puzzling over this for a LONG time!
    – Richard T
    Aug 5, 2022 at 20:47
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Stumbled here with the same problem. I know this is an old post but hope it will help others just in case. I had no luck with the suggested solutions. However this worked for me: cd //remotehost/d$ if the the remote host is a Windows machine. The dollar sign does the trick.

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  • The d$ may get you into the root of the D: drive on that machine, if it's not disallowed. What the OP is looking for is how to get into a specific share on the box.
    – Taegost
    Jul 11, 2013 at 14:13

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