dragging My Documents folder to second hard drive

memory

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If I just drag the My Documents folder from the Windows XP hard drive to a second hard drive then reinstall Windows, should the My Documents folder still be in the second drive?
 
It would be best, to create a MY DOCUMENT folder on the New Hard drive (right click -> new-> folder). Then go into your old MY DOCUMENT folder, and select all files CTRL+A , then select COPY CTRL+C . Go back to the new drive,open the MY DOCUMENT folder and PASTE everything in there CRTL+V. Hope that helps, Let me know if that worked for you.
 
....or you could just copy the my documents folder itself. Windows creates its own My Documents folder for each and every user, moving or making a copy to a new location, does not change the actual location of where Windows thinks My Documents is. When you reinstall Windows, you will either have to right click the new My Documents folder (the one that was made for your user account after the reinstallation) and hit properties and select location, click move and direct it to the copy of your old My Documents folder, alternatively, you could just copy everything back into the new My Documents folder.
 
It would be best, to create a MY DOCUMENT folder on the New Hard drive (right click -> new-> folder). Then go into your old MY DOCUMENT folder, and select all files CTRL+A , then select COPY CTRL+C . Go back to the new drive,open the MY DOCUMENT folder and PASTE everything in there CRTL+V. Hope that helps, Let me know if that worked for you.

Yeah do this because it is better to make sure that you have a fresh folder that was created on that HD. Even though it probably would work better to be safe then sorry
 
Let's just say I dragged the folder to the second hard drive, would it still be there after I reinstalled Windows?
 
Let's just say I dragged the folder to the second hard drive, would it still be there after I reinstalled Windows?

As long as you don't format the hard drive, you my documents folder wont be deleted, even on the same drive. You just have to know where it is. Usually the My Documents folder is stored in:

For Vista and Win7:

C:\Users\[USERNAME]\documents

For XP

C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\My Documents
 
Just so you know, the second hard drive does not have Windows installed, it is just a backup drive.

The reason I am asking about this is because I did this and the folder is not showing up in the second drive. I will do a search for it and see it I can find it.

So you are saying that the folder should still be there, right?
 
Just so you know, the second hard drive does not have Windows installed, it is just a backup drive.

The reason I am asking about this is because I did this and the folder is not showing up in the second drive. I will do a search for it and see it I can find it.

So you are saying that the folder should still be there, right?

As long as you do not reformat anything then Windows XP does not delete anything, it doesn't even delete your old profile from the previous installation. Your files should still be there.
 
I did not realize that. But I did format before I installed Windows.

So does that mean that even though I dragged the My Documents folder onto the second hard drive, that it will not be there since I formatted the Windows drive?
 
Drag and drop defaults to copying when it is between two different drives. If somehow you made a mistake and drag and dropped it between two folders on the same drive, it just moves it.
 
I did not know that. I Learn something new everyday.

I thought the folder would be gone because the My Documents folder is part of Windows. So when I reformatted and reinstalled Windows, I thought it took the folder with it.

I will have to do a search for that folder and hopefully I can find it.

Thanks for your help.
 
FYI....

You can automatically move "my documents" folder to any drive you want to by doing this...

Right click on "my documents" click on properties, and change target location to whatever drive you need. I do this everytime I build a system for someone, partition the drive into 2 separate drives and then change target to data partition instead of system partition.
 
FYI....

You can automatically move "my documents" folder to any drive you want to by doing this...

Right click on "my documents" click on properties, and change target location to whatever drive you need. I do this everytime I build a system for someone, partition the drive into 2 separate drives and then change target to data partition instead of system partition.

that's what i do. i think it makes the system run better if you just leave your system drive to run the system and programs
 
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