While I'm sure I did this on purpose somehow at some point, and probably to save space on my C: drive... this is my issue:
MY ISSUE:
I just realized or re-discovered that a portion of "My Documents" are being stored on an external hard drive, and at the moment, I don't think this is a good idea!
MY QUESTION:
How can I determine what is causing this, how it happened, etc. and most importantly, how to change this back to "normal" and really have my documents stored on my C: drive? (...and then just back that up somewhere, regularly).
(..and I realize that at least at the moment, I probably don't even have room on my C:\ drive to physically store all of the stuff that's pointing to my S: drive)
I see that I currently only have 16.9GB free on my 1.8TB C: drive at the moment, so I likely did this at some point as at least a temporary way to save space on my C: drive. But I don't remember. And now I don't think it was a good idea.
It looks like at least "My Videos" and "My Pictures" are being stored on my "S:" external hard drive. But it is set up to sync, somehow, or to at least LOOK like the files are located on the C: drive.
DETAILS:
I discovered this by doing a duplicate file cleanup on my External S: hard drive.
The duplicate file cleanup results showed a video file duplicated on that drive in these locations:
S:\Documents\My Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
S:\#VID\IN-CANON XA20 VIDCAM\Data Import Utility-VIDEOS\20150407\20150407202134.mts
I then did an "Everything" search across all of my drives for this file and got the following results:
C:\Users\Steve\Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
S:\#VID\IN-CANON XA20 VIDCAM\Data Import Utility-VIDEOS\20150407\20150407202134.mts
V:\#VID\IN-CANON XA20 VIDCAM\Data Import Utility-VIDEOS\20150407\20150407202134.mts
I thought that was mysterious, as the "Everything" search didn't give me both S: drive paths given by the duplicate file finder.
I then experimentally deleted the file from this location:
S:\Documents\My Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
When I did so, the file on the C: drive disappeared from the "Everything" search from this location:
C:\Users\Steve\Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
From the above, and a bit more experimenting, I've determined that at least the "My Videos" and "My Pictures" folders from my basic Windows "My Documents" (or "Documents") are being placed on my S: drive but the computer still sees them as connected to my standard documents folder(s) on my C: drive.
I haven't tried this yet, but from the above, it seems like if I disconnect my external S: drive, I won't have access to "My Pictures" and "My Videos" windows documents folders! Yikes.
This is confusing to me, so if you're confused by my description, please ask and I'll try to explain better.
MY ISSUE:
I just realized or re-discovered that a portion of "My Documents" are being stored on an external hard drive, and at the moment, I don't think this is a good idea!
MY QUESTION:
How can I determine what is causing this, how it happened, etc. and most importantly, how to change this back to "normal" and really have my documents stored on my C: drive? (...and then just back that up somewhere, regularly).
(..and I realize that at least at the moment, I probably don't even have room on my C:\ drive to physically store all of the stuff that's pointing to my S: drive)
I see that I currently only have 16.9GB free on my 1.8TB C: drive at the moment, so I likely did this at some point as at least a temporary way to save space on my C: drive. But I don't remember. And now I don't think it was a good idea.
It looks like at least "My Videos" and "My Pictures" are being stored on my "S:" external hard drive. But it is set up to sync, somehow, or to at least LOOK like the files are located on the C: drive.
DETAILS:
I discovered this by doing a duplicate file cleanup on my External S: hard drive.
The duplicate file cleanup results showed a video file duplicated on that drive in these locations:
S:\Documents\My Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
S:\#VID\IN-CANON XA20 VIDCAM\Data Import Utility-VIDEOS\20150407\20150407202134.mts
I then did an "Everything" search across all of my drives for this file and got the following results:
C:\Users\Steve\Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
S:\#VID\IN-CANON XA20 VIDCAM\Data Import Utility-VIDEOS\20150407\20150407202134.mts
V:\#VID\IN-CANON XA20 VIDCAM\Data Import Utility-VIDEOS\20150407\20150407202134.mts
I thought that was mysterious, as the "Everything" search didn't give me both S: drive paths given by the duplicate file finder.
I then experimentally deleted the file from this location:
S:\Documents\My Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
When I did so, the file on the C: drive disappeared from the "Everything" search from this location:
C:\Users\Steve\Videos\Data Import Utility\20150407\20150407202134.mts
From the above, and a bit more experimenting, I've determined that at least the "My Videos" and "My Pictures" folders from my basic Windows "My Documents" (or "Documents") are being placed on my S: drive but the computer still sees them as connected to my standard documents folder(s) on my C: drive.
I haven't tried this yet, but from the above, it seems like if I disconnect my external S: drive, I won't have access to "My Pictures" and "My Videos" windows documents folders! Yikes.
This is confusing to me, so if you're confused by my description, please ask and I'll try to explain better.