Network Folders

We have a network drive that my team uses to store all the handouts we use in our training classes. Today I needed access to one of the handouts so it was time to learn how to map a drive in Ubuntu. I started by going to google and searching for "mapping network drive Ubuntu" There was what appeared to be a very useful link on how to do it except that the mount command did not work. I got a random OR error which told me nothing. I looked some more on Google but could not find anything useful. I sent an e-mail to the only person on campus I know that uses Linux and he replied with the same mount command. When I told him I was getting errors he told me to try a different file system type. I had tried cifs and he recommended I try smbfs. I got the same error message and stopped pursing it from that angle. The error message for the curious (or helpful although I don't think many of them read this page) was

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mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock
on //cygnus.cas.utk.edu/common$,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
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Having failed to mount the drive, I went under places and started playing with the Connect to Server Option. After four different configurations, I figured out how to connect to the server. I would like to figure out how to mount it so I don't have to connect to it each time I need it, but I only need it a few times a month anyway so no great deal of pain suffered from that.