Moved the 'My Documents' folder over to a new hard drive, and now windows can't detect it.

PukkaJob

Commendable
Apr 4, 2016
4
0
1,510
I've just finished upgrading my PC's hardware and in doing so I installed a new 2tb hard drive in which I was planning to use as a replacement for my 2 older 300gb hard drives. One of the older hard drives was my 'H' drive, and held my 'My Documents' folder, desktop, as well as some various program folders. I copied all of the data from both my 2 older hard drives onto the new one, and then deleted the data on the 2 older drives (in hindsight this was probably not a good idea). Now when I start my PC I get this message when I try to open my documents:

"H:\ My Documents\ refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network. Check to make sure that the disk is properly inserted, or that you are connected to the Internet or your network, and then try again. If it still cannot be located, the information might have been moved to a different location."

I have also noticed bad screen tearing on some programs such as steam. I don't really know how to get Windows 7 to detect that the information it's looking for has been moved onto a different drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Solution
Welcome, PukkaJob!

I'd strongly recommend you to backup any important data from the PC somewhere off-site and start from scratch. This way you will avoid any additional confusion of the system. Just make sure you have only the primary/booting drive plugged to the motherboard when you reinstall the OS. Otherwise, you might encounter an OS confusion which would further cause you issues.
I believe that the new HDD has a new drive letter which is why the old 'H' drive is no longer available as a location.
I'd advise you to read through a couple of tutorials that might shed some light on how to reconfigure your storage:
Windows Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs
How to Relocate User Profiles to another HDD
...
Welcome, PukkaJob!

I'd strongly recommend you to backup any important data from the PC somewhere off-site and start from scratch. This way you will avoid any additional confusion of the system. Just make sure you have only the primary/booting drive plugged to the motherboard when you reinstall the OS. Otherwise, you might encounter an OS confusion which would further cause you issues.
I believe that the new HDD has a new drive letter which is why the old 'H' drive is no longer available as a location.
I'd advise you to read through a couple of tutorials that might shed some light on how to reconfigure your storage:
Windows Install & Optimization Guide for SSDs & HDDs
How to Relocate User Profiles to another HDD

Hope these help you out. Keep me posted if you have more questions!
SuperSoph_WD
 
Solution