You may remember my last post about finding your lost downloads. Well I decided there should be a follow up post about drive hierarchy and how Windows organizes files and directories (now called folders) in your PC.
First let’s start by imagining all these drives together as being one big expandable file cabinet. Each drawer represents a drive. And this cabinet can have anywhere from 2 to 26 drawers depending on the system and the drawers can be very, very deep. The drawer’s width will depend on the size of the drive, the larger the drive, the wider the drawer, and more rows of files and folders it can have.
Now let’s imagine the (directories) folders are not standard folders, they have super expandable bottoms, and they can expand quite a bit. Each folder can hold many other folders and files inside of it. And each sub-folder can hold many other sub-folders and files inside of it, and so forth. It may seem as though they can expand forever holding an unlimited amount of sub-folder and files, but there is a limit, it’s just so large that it seems like it.
Now I need to let you know that there are many possible types of drives (drawers) that could live in your PC (or file cabinet). Windows organizes the drives by assigning each drive a letter. And they usually go something like this:
A:\ The old Floppy Drive, or even an old Zip Drive, or an old Tape Drive.
B: \ Second Floppy Drive (Whether there is a physical second floppy drive or not)
C: \ The primary Hard-Drive (The main drive that holds windows and your personal files)
D: \ Secondary Hard-Drive (Usually just additional storage, if none, then it be assigned to the Optical Drive)
E: \ The Optical Drive (CD-Rom/DVD-Rom, Readers or Writers)
F: \ Second Optical Drive, External USB Hard-Drive, or USB Flash Drive, and so forth.
G:\ And so on, and so on…
The drive letters can go all the way up to Z, although you will probably never see that many drives in one system. Today’s computers generally do not have floppy, zip or tape drives anymore, so you really don’t need to worry about the A and B drives anymore.
Now if you were to open the “My Computer” Icon, Windows will display a list of the drives currently installed in the computer. When you first open one of the drives (well say C) it will show you what we call the “Root” of the drive. For the use of our analogy of the file cabinet, imagine when you first open the C: drawer. Now, each folder you see when you first open a drive represents a new row in our very wide cabinet drawer. If you see any files setting there not inside of a folder, just imagine that they are sitting in a slot front of all the rows. We try not to keep files there, other wise it might become very messy. When you first buy a computer, you will see some files there, they have to remain there. They are important files that the computer needs to run properly, and sometimes some other programs may stick some files there as well, but for the most part you should only see a few.
They folders and files you see there will be listed in alphabetical order. On a new computer you should see “Documents and Settings”, “Program Files”, and “Windows”. There are also some special Hidden (invisible) files and folders that you should not mess with. In reverse order, the “Windows” folder is where the majority of the system files are that windows uses to run the computer. The “Program Files” folder is where all of the programs you install will put there folders and files they need to run. The “Documents and Settings” folder is where all your Personal Files and Personal Settings are kept.
For the most part, you can get to most of your personal files my clicking on the “My Documents” icon in the start menu, and to most of your personal settings by going to the control panel.
Now when it comes to downloads from the internet, most of the time they will download to the “My Documents” folder, or to a sub-folder inside of the “My Documents” folder sometimes called “Downloads”. My self I have a secondary hard-drive in my system that I keep all of my downloads on. I created a folder on the root of the D drive called “Downloads”. I organize this folder and all of the files by making use of sub-folders, and sub-sub-folders. For instance, I have a sub-folder inside the “Downloads” folder called “Games”. I have another sub-folder inside the “Games” folder called “Puzzle Games”, and I have yet another sub-folder inside the “Puzzle Games” folder called “Chuzzle”. I have another folder next to the “Chuzzle” folder named “Bejewelled”, And so forth. Now if I want to install the puzzle game named Chuzzle and I have already downloaded it, then I will find it using the following method:
1) Click on the “My Computer” Icon.
2) Click on the “D” Drive
3) Click on the “Downloads” Folder
4) Click on the “Games” Folder
5) Click on the “Puzzle Games” Folder
6) Click on the “Chuzzle” Folder
7) Click on the “Chuzzle Installer” File (Icon)
It would then open up and begin to install Chuzzle for me.
You can organize you Personal Documents in much the same way. As a matter a fact, Windows has already begun the process for you. If you click on the “My Documents” icon in the “Start Menu” or on the Desktop, it will open the “My Documents” Folder for you. You should notice some sub-folders already in place. The “My Music”, “My Pictures”, and “My Videos” folder were created by windows just for you. There use is obvious. Now, a lot of the programs you use will want to save your files directly in to the “My documents” folder without any sub-folders, depending on the program.
Let’s say for instance you use Microsoft Word a lot. You use it to create resumes for friends and family. Well, they do tend to change and alter over time right, and the resume needs to be a little different depending on the field of work you are applying for. So then you should have a sub-folder inside the “My Documents” folder called “Resumes”. Now if all you had were just a couple, you could jut same them all right there in the “Resumes” folder, no further organization needed. If you had quite a few, then you may want to categorize, maybe by name of the person. So then you would have some sub-folders with people’s names. So maybe you have a sub-folder named “Dave Smith” and another called “Jody Belkawitz” and another “Larry Foster”. Now let’s say that Larry is very versed in a number of fields. You may want to sub categorize his folder sub folders by trade name. So then you may have sub-folders inside the “Larry Foster” folder called “Sales”, “Management”, and “Training”.
So if Larry came over and asked you to print out some of his Sales Resumes, you would find it by using the following method:
1) Click on the “My Document” icon
2) Click on the “Resumes” folder
3) Click on the “Larry Foster” folder
4) Click on the “Management” folder
Now choose the appropriate resume file and open it up to print it out for him.
Now you have a few different ways to organize. You can do it after the fact, or on the fly.
Using the resumes example, let’s say that you have accumulated 20 or so resumes in your “Resumes” folder and have not organized them as of yet. So with the “Resume” folder open, click on the “File” menu button on the top of the window, then choose “New” then choose “Folder”. It will instantly create a new folder inside the “Resume” folder ready for you to name it “Dave Smith” or what ever. Now you can click and drag each one of Dave’s resumes onto the “Dave Smith” folder to move his resumes into it.
Now lets say that you have done that and that’s it right this second. But you still have Jodies resume open and have not yet saved it. Go back to your Microsoft Word program and click on the File menu button on the top of the window and choose “Save As”. Now when it comes up to save the file it should already be open to the “My Documents” folder wanting to save it there. Click on the “Resumes” folder, now since your in the middle of organizing the “Resumes folder, you don’t want to just drop it there, instead you click on the little icon on the top of the “Save As” box called “Create New Folder” and it will instantly create a new folder ready for you to name it, so call it “Jody Belkawitz” then hit the enter key for it to save the folder name and open the folder for you, then you can change the name of the file to match what you need it to be, then click on the “Save” button.
Now you have learned the basics of Drive Hierarchy, how to find and organize your files and folders. I hope this helps at least a little.
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