Weird issue post format

So I formatted my PC after three years and reinstalled Win7 64x Ultimate and because my C: drive is limited in space (only 30GB) I opted to move the "My Documents" folder to my larger drive using the 'right click -> properties -> location' option and set it to D:

Now, when I look inside my C:\users\<user> folder, I see all the proper things, however "My Documents" is no longer there (I thought it would leave a shortcut or something) and something else... I now see an icon of my D: drive. In fact, it is my D: drive. I can open it, I can view its properties.. I cant delete the icon, I can't do anything that would make it go away. However, if I create a shortcut to my user folder and open that, the D: drive isn't there. Which is fine and dandy, but more often then not, I go into my user folder from the start menu; which isn't a shortcut and therefor shows the D: drive.



wait, I think I know what happened..

if I right click on D in my computer, it acts like a folder.. and I can change its location.. if I set it to default, it goes to C:\users\My Documents

So now I'm afraid to set it back to default.. in case it moves my entire D drive.. which I cant let happen.

('My Documents' is now on the D: drive where it's supposed to be.)

If you need a picture of what I am trying to explain, just ask :)

Thanks

TurboGFF said:

So I formatted my PC after three years and reinstalled Win7 64x Ultimate and because my C: drive is limited in space (only 30GB) I opted to move the "My Documents" folder to my larger drive using the 'right click -> properties -> location' option and set it to D:

Now, when I look inside my C:\users\<user> folder, I see all the proper things, however "My Documents" is no longer there (I thought it would leave a shortcut or something) and something else... I now see an icon of my D: drive. In fact, it is my D: drive. I can open it, I can view its properties.. I cant delete the icon, I can't do anything that would make it go away. However, if I create a shortcut to my user folder and open that, the D: drive isn't there. Which is fine and dandy, but more often then not, I go into my user folder from the start menu; which isn't a shortcut and therefor shows the D: drive.



wait, I think I know what happened..

if I right click on D in my computer, it acts like a folder.. and I can change its location.. if I set it to default, it goes to C:\users\My Documents

So now I'm afraid to set it back to default.. in case it moves my entire D drive.. which I cant let happen.

('My Documents' is now on the D: drive where it's supposed to be.)

If you need a picture of what I am trying to explain, just ask :)

Thanks

I have no idea whether or not this will work (and could make things worse, because it involves editing the registry, and I've never personally tried this), but it's worth a go:

1. Press <WINDOWS_KEY>+<R> to open the Run dialog
2. Type "cmd" (withut quotes) and press <ENTER>. The command prompt should open into your C:.
3. Type "CD\" (without quotes) and press <ENTER>
4. Type "MD Documents" (without quotes) and press <ENTER>
5. Type "CD Documents" (without quotes) and press <ENTER>
6. Type "COPY D:\Desktop.ini" (without quotes) and press <ENTER>
7. Type "exit" (without quotes) and press <ENTER> to close the command prompt
8. Press <WINDOWS_KEY>+<R> to open the Run dialog
9. Type "regedit" (without quotes) and press <ENTER> to open the registry editor
10. Navigate to the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" key (See item 1 in screenshot)
11. Double-click Personal and modify it's value to to "C:\Documents" (without quotes). Click "OK" (See item 2 in screenshot)
12. Close the Registry Editor
13. Reboot Windows
14. Check to see if your "Documents" folder is correctly pointing to C:\Documents". If it is, then you can proceed further:
15. Create a new folder in your D:, and name it "Documents"
16. Change the location of your user "Documents" to D:\Documents
17. Manually cut-and-paste relevant files and folder to D:\Documents

And please, next time you change user folder locations, make sure you select a folder, and not a drive, ok?

TurboGFF said:

Yeah that's what happened. Instead of pointing the location to D:\My Documents, I just pointed it to D: I fixed the issue

Did my instructions work? I was in all honesty worried that I might not have been clear enough on how to do so...

Either way, I'm glad the problem was sorted out.

This is a classic mistake. Never move the location to a partition or drive, always move to a predefined folder. The folder can have any name because the system is going to change it anyhow when you do the move. But it must be a folder.