If you're like most Windows users, you have a document on your computer called My Documents that's usually located under C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\ (or C:\Users, if you are a Vista user - in either case, I'm assuming that your default Windows partition is C:\). Long-time Windows users might have spotted this ages ago. What is less apparent, however, is the fact that you can have control over where "My Documents" is physically located on your hard disk, not only to the disk partition where you'd like it to be, but right down to the exact folder under which you want it. But first, an important consideration: why would you want to change this?
Plenty of reasons, but one of the most important ones is protection of data by moving it away from the Windows partition. The Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) is not so very uncommon (see this link if you don't believe me), and many a user has gnashed his teeth in anger at having to reinstall Windows to overcome many a mysterious problem that will prove to be intractable. And, as you might know from a previous unfortunate experience, when you reinstall Windows, many system folders, like your desktop, the My Documents folder, and others, get overwritten, munching away your precious files and folders.
Besides this, there are other reasons why you might want to do this. In versions of Windows prior to Vista, you cannot resize your partitions without using specialised partition manager programs. This may mean that you might run out of disk space on your Windows partition, with data loss as a potential risk in the case of some unforeseen failure. Degraded performance would be another reason: if your data is located on the Windows partition, chances are that file fragmentation is heavy, increasing the seek / access times for certain files. So, any which way you look at it, moving your personal data to a different partition is a pretty useful idea.
Before you start, ensure that you have a disk partition that's big enough to hold your current data, and any future additions. A simple rule of thumb is to determine the current size your data folder, and ensure that the partition that should now hold your data be twice as big.
Open Windows Explorer by pressing Win+E. Navigate to the partition that you have decided should contain your data files. Create a new folder, call it something like "<your name>'s documents" or something similar. Now, open the Start Menu, right-click the "My Documents" menu option, and select Properties. Move to the "Location" tab, and click the "Move" button. Navigate to the folder created in the first step above and click the "Select folder" button. Now, click "Ok" on the Properties dialog that you opened earlier, and click "Yes" on the confirmation dialog. Once Windows copies all the files and folders (may take a lot of time depending on how much data you have stored), you're done. You can verify this by checking whether your folders and files are visible under the new folder you created in Windows Explorer. Another way to check this would be to right-click on "My Documents", selecting Properties, and seeing the target folder under the "Location" tab - it should point to your new folder.
Congratulations, you just took the first step towards data protection from a corrupt Windows installation!
