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Hard Drive Secrets
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How should you organize your hard drive or system of drives? First, be aware the default settings that most programs use are really bad. I am almost convinced the programmers tested these to see which ones can drive a person insane faster or cause a machine to crash more often, and that's what they chose! An example is the whacky way these turkeys have with the Start menu. Ugh! Here's my Start menu. To keep you from having to wait a week to download the image, I chopped it and shrunk it. You have to squint, but the information is there. Notice I got rid of the MS-Office crap, set up a "key programs" folder for the stuff I use the most, and a folder for "housekeeping." Do you see how intuitive this is? I labeled (more or less) each menu folder by the type of function I want to do. This computer is loaded with tons of programs, and I'm not about to try to remember all their names. If I want to communicate, I open that folder and find a bunch of browsers, fax utilities, etc. I also copy shortcuts to multiple places, so I don't have to try to remember which place has which shortcut. Let's move on down past this, and I'll show you hard drive organization.
Here, you'll see my C:drive has programs, only. Some of these have a real grudge against you if you don't allow them to locate in a default directory. FrontPage, for example, insists on having a Front Page Webs folder. So I have it there, but all my webs go on E:drive. I name them e:\webxxxx, e:\webyyyy, e:\webzzzz, and so on. I keep the names to 8 characters or less, because when you go beyond 8 characters, computer resources required to process the name increase dramatically.
On D drive, my folders are 00 (at the top of the list, this way--these are the files I access most often), 0download, 0profiles (I moved all of Windows profiles information here, and shortened the path names considerably. So, if C ever fails, I won't have to rebuild my desktop, preferences, etc. You can back your 0profiles folder to some sequentially-numbered floppies or a removable drive, if you want. I use a tape backup.), 1CompanyX (a client-- name isn't really CompanyX), 1CompanyY (you know the drill), Archives (old stuff I just can't bring myself to nuke), Images and videos (I broke the filename length rule, so sue me), OrganizationX, OrganizationY (deja vu--it's that company thing again!), templates (I refuse to leave my templates where I cannot easily get to them and back them up), utl (utilities), and--here's that lovin' feeling again--webX and webY. Actually, I have more than two companies and two organizations, but you get the idea. I do have only two websites, there. These are personal websites, and I keep them separate from the rest of my websites. I do so many websites, that I have a whole drive devoted to them. That is drive E, but you're not surprised, I'll bet. For the websites, I put all of my authoring software (except FrontPage--it really has this thing for C drive) and web utilities there. Plus, all my files. This violates the programs on one drive, files on the other rule, but I just wanted to be able to back all of my website stuff (excluding Frontpage) onto a single tape backup. And nothing but website stuff is on this drive. Drive F is for temp files. This way, I don't have as much file fragmentation. Nor will my drive just fill up. I can delete the whole contents of Drive F without batting an eye. Drive G is for my pagefile. Nothing else goes on this drive. |
Computer Resource Quicklinks
Working the Windows DesktopThe whole desktop approach ignores the fact that a computer's hard drive(s) are the electronic version of a paper filing cabinet. It also ignores the fact that people store a huge amount of files in that system. And it ignores a few dozen other facts relevant to using a computer. It's just a bad approach. The desktop assumes you don't care what files you actually work on. It opens apps, not files, and this is the pathway to problems. You can inadvertently be revising the wrong thing, if you can even find it in the first place. What you should do instead is use Windows Explorer. Microsoft tends to hide this, but it should be your standard interface with your computer, unless you don't mind working blind. You can always right mouse click the Start button to invoke it, but you should add Windows Explorer to your Quick Launch bar and several other menus in Windows. The default settings for Windows Explorer defy logic. Change these so you can actually see what files you are looking at. Enable it to show you the file extensions (unclick the insane "Hide extensions" box that is, stupidly enough, checked by default though actually there is never any reason to ever check this box). Select the option to show details. Now, you will be able to see your file size, file date, and other useful information. If you right click around a bit, you can find quite a bit of functionality in Windows Explorer. If you haven't been using this interface previously, make a point of using it now. If you always open files from within Windows Explorer, you will always be able to see all available files and select the right one. Use Windows Explorer to set up your filing system as if it's a paper filing cabinet. Save all files either on the data drive (dual hard drive machine) or in a folder on a single hard drive machine. Do NOT save files to the default locations. These never make any sense. They are typically within your applications, which is a dumb place to save them. That's how you end up with corrupted data files and it also makes file backups difficult. For single-drive users, an easy solution is to create a folder called 0files as your top-level data folder. The zero means it will show up at the top of your file list, making things easy for you. Below this folder, create you filing structure. Never store anything at the root of this folder. Think of it as the shell of a five-drawer filing cabinet and don't toss stuff in the bottom. Always put files in folders that are in drawers. With a good filing structure in place, you will always be able to find your files by simply clicking right to them. So think this out as you go and follow a good taxonomy. It's a much more effective way to work than how the zombies at Microsoft envision people working.
Recovering hard drive spaceEven with today's huge drives, people sometimes run out of hard drive space. The steps below can recover wasted space.
There are other steps you can take, but if, at this point, you are still low on disk space you really need to add another hard drive or upgrade one that's in your system. Or, another very cool option, is to add a My Ditto system. See our Review of the Dane my Ditto network server. |