Here's my scenario:
1. Prompt user to load .xls file from their machine
2. On click event of Upload button, save the rows in the .xls file to an existing table on the database server

So, if the existing database table has 10 rows, and the user's .xls file has 10 rows, after the click event of the Upload button, the table will now have 20 rows.

I'm told since the db server is a separate machine, I have to map a drive to the server.

How can I do this w/in my ASP.NET application?

Thanks!

Who ever told you that was a fool.

You do not need to map a drive. You can create an ado.net connection to the excel file (On the web server) and select the rows into a dataset.

Then you create a connection to the database server via ado.net and dump the contents of the dataset into the table.

Here are some articles to help:

EXCEL TO SQL Server
-------------------

http://www.dotnetmonster.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/asp-net/39245/Load-Excel-to-SQL-Server-using-NET

ADO.NET and EXCEL
-----------------

http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/Code/Jun2003/2096.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;316934