Importing My Documents from External Hard Drive - XP to Win 7

Microsoft is hardly to blame for this. I feel like this is becoming an epidemic...people blaming Microsoft for their own system issues.

Anyway, hopefully it sunk in that you don't have to format. You also don't need to spend a dime. A simple 5 minute fix, and you can be back up and running....using good usage/operating practices.

Yes, it is to blame. I had XP on my old computer. It worked well and I was happy. However, the computer was 6 years old. I wanted a new one. Unfortunately, the new one had win 7 preloaded. I didn't ask for it, did I? I made sure to backup on an external hard drive but when I imported into the new computer, everything went weird on me. My documents are also in my music folder. The path to my files all changed. Ah, I could go on but why?

I know the Microsoft guys have to keep creating new things to sell new stuff. It would be nice to be able to have a choice when buying a new computer. I really don't need this. I'm a head-hunter and I don't have time to dick around with computers. If I don't work I don't make money.

So lose the attitude.

rikkidegraz said:

Thank you. I've looked at other partition programs but they all want money. I figure why spend more money when Microsoft is to blame for this screwup. Had they kept some things well enough alone, I would'nt be in this predicament.

Partition Wizard is free and many of us have used it successfully, which is why I gave you link to use it.

If you are so anti-Microsoft, ditch your computer and buy a Mac, but ranting on here about Microsoft just puts people off from helping you.

We've offered you a solution that is easy and cost-free, but if you choose not to use it, that's your choice.

Telling people to lose the attitude when they blatently haven't got one seems counter-productive to me.

We are unpaid helpers trying to help, but you're not making it very easy for us with your carping attitude.

rikkidegraz said:

So lose the attitude.

I'm not the one with the attitude and misguided anger. You bought the new computer, correct? If so, you chose Windows 7. If you really didn't want Windows 7, you could have bought one with downgrade rights, or built your own computer, using whatever OS you wanted.

Second, you didn't follow good computing habits in the first place, by using the "my folders" and also by linking documents outside of Outlook. That's always a recipe for trouble...even when switching from computers of the same OS. It's the same principle behind using Excel links to bring data from various external files stored in various locations. I've been in I.T. for 15 years now, from desktop support to Director...and those usage habits have caused issues during that entire time span.

I understand your frustration that things didn't work smoothly, but if you buy a new car and never change the oil....is it the manufacturer's fault? If you buy a subcompact car, and expect to tow a boat with it...is it the manufacturer's fault when you can't?

My apologies to one and all. I did not mean to offend.

I downloaded the minitool. Just to be safe, should I screw up as I am technically challenged, do I have a recourse?

I was brought up to believe that a gracious apology should always be accepted, so accepted it is. :)

As for recourse, of course you have it, the tutorial is well-written and should help you to solve the problem, but if there is anything you are not sure of, please ask.

It may not always be the same person who answers due to time-zone differences, but we will help you all we can.

Accepted as well, so let's get back to the issue at hand. You don't really have an undo, so to speak, but the software does show you the final results before you actually apply them. It is never a bad idea to have all of those important documents backed up off of the system anyway, but Partition Wizard has been very reliable for me. You first shrink your system volume, and once that is done and applied, you can then use Windows Disk Management to create the new, data partition from the free space.

So after I make these partitions do I just drag and drop my files and folders into them? This computer was already somewhat partitioned in that it has 3 partitions. Of course, the biggest one being C. What do I do with the Libraries? I've attached a screen shot.

I think there is a limit of 4 primary partitions on a drive.

I'll let Seavixen and Deacon comment on this, but I think you'd probably want to create an "extended partition" from the space generated when you shrink C. Then create any desired number of "logical drives" within the extended partition. An extended partition is unusable until you make logical drives within it.

Then format the logical drives and store your data on them in a normal manner.


Partition Wizard is a good tool to do all of this.

If you are going to give up on libraries (I have), you can configure Windows 7 to pretty much get them to disappear. See the tutorials on this site. Likewise, you can avoid the entire "user" heirarchy. The idea is to save directly to the final destination folder (e.g. D:\MP3\Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line.mp3 or whatever)