Documents on 2 HDs (C: mirrors E:)

[someotherguy]

A while back my HDD died so I bought a new one and restored from back up. It turned out that I had messed something up and the HDD was not dead (don't ask because I don't remember what I did). I put the old HDD back in and made it the boot disc. I kept the new HDD in there and used it for some extra storage as drive E:.

Now, two months later, I decide to put the drive to better use. It was mostly untouched with all the files from the restore. Happily I didn't just do a format; as I start to delete folders I notice that when I delete files from E:\Documents and Settings\Steve\ they also get deleted from C:\Users\Steve\. I restore the deleted files and experiment. If I create a file in C:\Users\Steve\ it shows up in E:\Documents and Settings\Steve\ and vice versa. Seems that both folders are actually the same place.

If I try to view C:\Documents and Settings\ I get a message saying "Location is not available. C:\Documents and Settings\ is not accessible. Access is denied."

Questions are
1) What the heck did I do that caused that?
2) How can I remove the E: drive and not lose everything in C:\Users?

Edit: I can now see inside the C:\Documents and Settings\ folder after changing permissions. Now I see that it's not just two mirrored folders; C:\Documents and Settings\, C:\Users\ and E:\Documents and Settings\ are all the same thing.

 

[someotherguy]

After a few hours of searching around I came across http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/73624-my-documents-etc.html#post647473 which talks about Junction Links. I followed the instructions and saw that C:\Documents and Settings\ and E:\Documents and Settings\ are both linked to C:\Users\

I backed up the C: drive, powered down, unplugged the E: drive, rebooted and saw that everything was where it was supposed to be. Next I went into disk management and deleted the volume. I checked C:\Documents and Settings\ and C:\Users\ and everything was still there. Finally, I created a new volume on the former E: drive and all is well.