Understanding Your File System (Where did my files go?) Part 1

I find many users don’t understand where their photos go when they download them from their camera. Most users tend to think that the photos are in their photo management software, (picasa, kodak, sony picture manager, etc) but this is not the case.

I feel the best way to explain how things work is to relate it to filing cabinet. First it will define a few terms I will be using throughout this lesson.

Hard Drive – A physical piece of hardware inside your computer.

Partitions – This is your C:\ Drive. If you have other Hard Drives installed you may see additional letters like D:\ or E:\.

Folders & Files – Just like a paper filing system, we keep Files in Folders for organization.

If we directly compare a computer storage system to a paper storage system it would go like this;

My Computer = The room that holds the filing cabinet

Hard Drive = Entire filing cabinet

Partition = Each drawer of the filing cabinet

Folder = The container in which you store your files

Files = The paper files with relevant information printed on it

Lets say we wanted to access a photo stored on our computer. We will assume that the photo is stored in “My Pictures” as they usually are. In this case, Windows has already provided easy links directly to My Pictures but we are going to do it manually so you see how this all really works.

Open My Computer, here you see the partitions listed. Double click on C:\ to view the folders within the partition.

More to come, ran outta time to write more