Changed 'my documents' folder to D: drive, cant find after reinstall

[Lagrange]

Hi,

I have the OS on an ssd drive and placed the 'my documents' folder on another drive.

I recently made a clean install of windows on the ssd, and now i cant find the pictures from the previous installation (stupid not to think of this in advance, i know ) on the D: drive.

Is there any way to recover the link to the old ' my documents'?

 

[Brink]

Hello Lagrange, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You have a couple of options:

1) Just copy the contents of the folder on D: into your C: Documents folder, then delete the D: folder.

OR

2) Move the C: Documents folder to select and be the D: Documents folder again.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html
​

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Lagrange]

Thanks Brink, been lurking for a while when in need of answers but i didnt find an answer to my question this time.

I think i was unclear:

I cant see the files any more, they are not shown in the D: drive. I figured that the path to them is gone since the old installation was removed.

 

[Brink]

Odd. Unless D: was formatted with the clean install the folder should still be there on the separate D: drive.

You might check to see if the D: folder may have been hidden by setting windows to show hidden files.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/394-hidden-files-folders-show-hide.html
​

If not, then you might see if the free program Recuva may be able to recover them from the D: drive.

 

[Lagrange]

Thanks for the advice, i tried recuva and another recovery program but they did not find the files.

I also unhid all folders but still cant see the pictures and documents.

I dont understand the way that Users work in windows so well:
I made this folder as a 'my documents' folder in my previous installation. I formatted the OS installation drive, but not the drive with this folder. Am i supposed to be able to see the folder in this case (after unhiding and whatnot)? Or is it the case that there is no path to these files any more so i cant access them?

 

[Ranger4]

Was your D drive connected at the time of your clean reinstall of C drive. If so it is possible that in the reformatting process during install of Windows on C drive that D drive was reformatted as well. Hopefully this is not the case.
It is always best to disconnect any other drives before doing a full reinstall.

 

[Lagrange]

Yep, it was connected. Think i will call it a loss and a lesson in thinking before messing with the operating system. Thnks for the tips though!

 

[alphanumeric]

I keep my user folders Documents, Pictures, Videos etc on a separate drive or partition. I use the location tab to point windows to them so everything gets saved in them and not the original folders under my user folder. I haven't lost anything as a result of a reinstall, not yet anyway. Keep in mind that unlike Windows XP and earlier where everything was in the My Documents folder, Windows 7 has separate folders for Pictures etc that are not in the My Documents folder. Just moving your documents folder is not enough unless you actually store everything in that one folder.

 

[Brink]

I'm sorry to hear that Lagrange.

You might consider this below to be able to access the files from your libraries with the files actually located where you like instead. This way you wouldn't have to worry about breaking any links for your user profile folders, or losing them.

• Create a new folder at any location you want.
• Move any files you want into the new folder.
• Include the new folder into a library of your choice.
• If you like, you can also set the new folder to be the default "save" to location for the library as well.