Can I use a networked Macbook as a storage device?

Question

I am needing to see if my idea will work and need some ideas.
I have a macbook in which the screen became damaged this summer. Everything else is running fine.
I am teaching Journalism and would like to use the macbook as a storage device for my students photos. I teach in a classroom with 14 Windows XP computers and they go to a switch, which in turn goes out to the network & Internet. I would like to plug the Macbook into the switch and have each one of the computers access it for the hard drive storage.
Is this a possibility? If so, does anyone have a website they can guide me to that would have directions on how to do this? I have done a search and the only thing I can find is making a server for your website. So, I am thinking that I must be searching the wrong terminology.
Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give.

Answer 1

Let me just tell you how to set it up. On the Mac, do the following:
Go to the Apple Menu, then System Preferences, and select Sharing. Enter a computer name that doesn't have spaces in it for the sake of simplicity. Check the box for File Sharing, then click File Sharing. Click the Options button. Check the box for Share files and folders using SMB. Check the box for your user account, and enter your password. You can now exit System Preferences.
On the Windows PCs, go to Start, then Run, and type \\computername and hit enter. You should see Randy's Public Folder or something like that. Right click it and say "Map Network Drive." Check the box for Reconnect at Login, pick a drive letter and hit Finish. Tada!
So how do you use this? On the PCs, the drive you picked will be the public folder on your Mac. When students open the drive they'll be able to read (only) all the files in the public folder. They can write (only) to the Drop Box folder by dragging documents on top of it.
Now, if you have a PC you want to access this from yourself, you do the same thing but in the Map Network Drive you click the part for connecting as a different user and enter your Mac login credentials. Now you can read and write to the share on only that computer.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Regards,
-Ryan