Question About MY DOCUMENTS

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Guitarrasdeamor

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Apr 5, 2008
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I have 2x500gb HDDs in my PC (same type)...I was thinking of doing RAID0, but really, I don't have my motherboard manual, and I am lost when I look at the one online...

I want to move MY DOCUMENTS to the second one for storage, while keeping the first one for installed programs and such...

Is there a way to do this without screwing up things such as my music libraries?

Also, if anyone knows any guides on doing RAID0 for the AB9 QuadGT Motherboard, I would really appreciated it, as I would rather do RAID0 if I could truthfully.
 
my docs is a system folder you cant move it. all you can do is make a duplicate and copy stuff over, or make a folder on the other drive and use it as an active mydocs folder.
 
I guess I could just use RAID0 then.
Does anyone know of a guide (or someone that can tell me) how to do it on my board? It is an INTEL controller.
 
Right click on the My Documents menuitem in the start menu, then click properties. On the property dialog enter the new location for your my documents directory into the "Target" entryfield. Click the move button to, um, move the stuff over. Click ok and you're done.
 
Alright, thank you. This means my music library and similar stuff will NOT get screwed up, right? And all my programs, such as FireFox and Utorrent will download to the other drive instead?
 
Rogue71 said:
my docs is a system folder you cant move it. all you can do is make a duplicate and copy stuff over, or make a folder on the other drive and use it as an active mydocs folder.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid you're wrong.

You can 'move' it easily in Vista, and in previous versions of Windows it could be done with a little registry magic (or TweakUI/Powertools).
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
Nice...but will it mess up my game saves or anything of that nature..?
Click to expand...

As long as they use the %mydocs% variable in the save path rather than hard coding it to the C: drive then it shouldn't be a problem. Utorrent you'll have to manually change since you have to define an absolute path in the settings.
 
Okay...hmmm....I think I just might re-format and do RAID0...

Thanks for all the information.

If anybody can help with RAID I would appreciate it!
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
Okay...hmmm....I think I just might re-format and do RAID0...

Thanks for all the information.

If anybody can help with RAID I would appreciate it!
Click to expand...

It should be outlined in your motherboard manual. If you don't have it this should take you to their site to download it.
 
I know. I looked at that, but am confused really. I thought RAID had to be configured before I install Windows and such, and am I supposed to use the INTEL driver or Jmicron....:confused:
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
I know. I looked at that, but am confused really. I thought RAID had to be configured before I install Windows and such, and am I supposed to use the INTEL driver or Jmicron....:confused:
Click to expand...

as far as I know, Jmicron is an IDE chip added on to allow those types of drives to be used on Intel's latest ICH's. So if you're using SATA drives you'd use the Intel driver. There should be a BIOS setting called "SATA mode" or something similar. You have to set it to RAID to enable the BIOS extension for the RAID controller. Once you reboot you should see a prompt pop up telling you what keys to hit to enter the RAID configuration. From there you just tell it what drives you want to use, what RAID level, and the stripe size (64k tends to be the norm).
 
So basically, I enable it in the BIOS (Sata mode), it reboots, I tell it to run RAID0, the two 500gb drives, and 64k (if that is correct.), and I am set? Then I just install Vista and go?
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
So basically, I enable it in the BIOS (Sata mode), it reboots, I tell it to run RAID0, the two 500gb drives, and 64k (if that is correct.), and I am set? Then I just install Vista and go?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. You may have to install the Intel drivers before Vista will see the array though. It'll see both drives as a single large one, even in device manager.
 
MyDocs can be easily moved in 2000, XP and Vista without any registry hacks or TweakUI, just right clic, choose Move and put in the new location.

RAID0....why do you want to do that?
Make sure you have a backup of all your files for when the raid0 fails
 
I want to RAID0 because I want all my information on 1 drive...much easier to manage...however, I might just have 1 500gb for storage and 1 for installed programs...

HALP me decide please! RAID0 doesn't fail that often does it? I have a 500gb external.
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
Could I just move my whole USERS folder over there and have it be the same??! That might be easier....
Click to expand...

No, Windows keeps tracks of those "special" folder in the registry. If you just move the folder, they'll either just be recreated in the original location, or you'll have problems logging in and saving files.
 
"I want to RAID0 because I want all my information on 1 drive"

Raid0 is 2 drives, twice the chance of a failure...best, easiest thing for you to do is keep everything in MyDocs and place that on another drive
 
dbwillis said:
"I want to RAID0 because I want all my information on 1 drive"

Raid0 is 2 drives, twice the chance of a failure...best, easiest thing for you to do is keep everything in MyDocs and place that on another drive
Click to expand...

That's not what he meant by a single drive. And it doesn't matter if you lose a drive in RAID0 or single drive mode. You still won't be able to access the data. So you still need a good backup strategy in either case. I just went from RAID0 to a single drive mysefl because of a drive failure, but I didn't lose any data because I had a recent backup.
 
Well, I just changed the location of MY DOCUMENTS over, and it didn't work (Zune software couldn't find music). So I am moving it back... (3 hours...WTF!!?!?!?),

You guys lied!
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
Well, I just changed the location of MY DOCUMENTS over, and it didn't work (Zune software couldn't find music). So I am moving it back... (3 hours...WTF!!?!?!?),

You guys lied!
Click to expand...

The Zune software was probably looking for music in 'My Music' which is considered a seperate 'system' folder and you would have to have had to change the location in the same exact way you did for 'My Documents'. (Actually in Vista the folder is simply called 'Music')
 
Blue Falcon said:
The Zune software was probably looking for music in 'My Music' which is considered a seperate 'system' folder and you would have to have had to change the location in the same exact way you did for 'My Documents'. (Actually in Vista the folder is simply called 'Music')
Click to expand...

I believe the OP is using XP since he specifically called it "My Documents". If so, then "My Music" is a sub-folder of "My Docs" and would have been moved in the latter's relocation. Mostly likely, the Zune software is looking for music in \Documents and Settings\%username%\My Documents\My Music. Microsoft is sometimes the worst at following their own conventions when writing software for their operating systems :D

Hell, Vista has a shit ton of junctions in place to redirect these stupid hardcoded applications to where the new folders are located.
 
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