Important docs in same folder on C drive

[jmt356]

Is it not safe to keep all of my important documents in the same folder in My Documents? For example, in case a hard drive goes bad, isn't it better to have them spread around in different folders so that they aren't all located in the specific sectors that may go bad?

[HansV]

Windows does not store all files in a folder together - they will probably be spread over (the used part of) the hard disk. Files don't have a fixed location either - they may be moved to another part of the hard disk when you save them.

Making backups frequently is the best guarantee that your files will still be available if your hard disk goes partly or entirely bad.

[Leif]

My opinion is that the location is one thing, it is having a back-up that is most important.

Personally, I avoid using 'My documents' like the plague. If your profile becomes corrupted, you may lose access to the 'My documents' folder, despite the data in there being OK.

My preference is to keep important documents on a drive other than that which has the operating system - which allows a system re-install and format without anything to worry about - and regular and verified back-ups.

[viking33]

My opinion is that the location is one thing, it is having a back-up that is most important.

Personally, I avoid using 'My documents' like the plague. If your profile becomes corrupted, you may lose access to the 'My documents' folder, despite the data in there being OK.

My preference is to keep important documents on a drive other than that which has the operating system - which allows a system re-install and format without anything to worry about - and regular and verified back-ups.

You are spot on about that, Leif.
If you lack another separate drive to put your important docs in, you might at least create a new, separate partition for these items.
That way you can still reformat and reinstall your OS without touching the other partition.

[jmt356]

What are these D drive partitions that all these new laptops are coming with these days? Are these the files that one would need to boot up a computer if the hard drive crashes (i.e., the same files contained on a recovery cd)? If so, is it true that this partition is only good when the computer can be booted up? If so, why would you ever use that partition? I mean, if you could log into your computer, why would you ever need a recover disk? Is it for when you can get onto the computer but something is gravely wrong and you want to restore the computer to factory settings?

My feeling towards these partitions is similar to my feeling towards Java: they take up space and confusion and don't seem to do anything useful (Java is constantly sending me pop-ups and reminders and askign me to install new updates and trying to get my attention and taking space in my icon tray and I still can't figure out if it does anything useful).

[HansV]

Many computers that have Windows pre-installed come with a hidden partition that contains the installation files for Windows. So if you want to change your Windows configuration (add or remove Windows components) or repair your Windows installation, you won't have to insert a Windows CD/DVD.

You still need to create a recovery disk to use if your computer won't boot from hard disk anymore.

[jmt356]

Is that the case of my HP G62? I have a C drive with all my personal files on it, a D drive (13 GB total size; 1.84 GB free) with recovery files on it; and an E drive with 89.6 MB of 99.3 MB free that has BIOS, BIOSUpdate, and SystemDiags folders in it. I assume it is the D drive that has Windows 7 on it?

[HansV]

I don't know, I don't have an HP.