On ebay you can find a device I like called a disk drive 'rack' or carrier. You put it in like a floppy drive, on the other 1/2 you put in any disk drive. Then you can plug in the disk like a floppy and run it anytime you want to look at the drive. This could be something for $14 that would help you to move files from old , hard drive, to a new one $60 for 750gb on amazon. JDMADERA has the disk racks for serial (SATA or parallel) or you can use an external hard drive, or any drive with an external adapter $14. I personally like the reasoning of buying a new drive to put all my files on it. I get a new drive, I copy my old files and test the new drive for a while before I commit to it , and have the chance to sell my old drive while having a backup. Another idea: If many files are text based then zip or RAR them and mail them to yourself. Many mail sites accept 2mb up to 20mb mail attachments. That might handle most of your documents and that way you have them backed up. It's a secondary backup.. you should still have them somewhere else but one site I use has been good to me for 5 years, for free, holding 40mb of stuff. I apoligize if I didn't answer your Q excactly. I'm in a hurry and tried to offer what I could to what I thought I saw in your post.. in a 30 second quick read. Andre

I think you're thinking too much about it, it should be very simple. -Start Windows Explorer -Put the copies of the files you want on the CD into one (perhaps new?) folder on your hard drive if they're not already together. -Go to that folder and highlight the files. To highlight multiple files, hold down the CTRL key as you click. -Just under the menu bar you should see the word "Burn" -Click Burn and follow the remaining instructions. EDIT I'm assuming you're creating data disks and not audio disks to play in audio devices. Come back if it's the second one, the steps may be different (I do audio disks with other software, not with windows. I'm not sure if windows gives the option of data or audio formats) This post was edited by snidely on Tue, Feb 18, 14 at 12:45

Bob - Good Grief is right. But it's probably not as bad as it sounds. One of the problems is that before I found this forum a year ago (and had some sense of saving files to the appropriate place), not only did my husband and I just save files (with no regard to where they were being placed) - we also had 2 different computer guys help at various times - and I've discovered that one of them took it upon himself to set up some folders and put items there (he set up a Lynn's documents) when he transferred data from one computer to another. Now I can see why he set up my own folder (since my husband and I shared a computer in those days) - but he never told me he was doing that- so lo and behold - I have an entire Lynn's documents folder that I never use but contains some of my older files. yeah - I guess it's a lot to sort. Personally, your method makes sense to me - just set up folders in the C drive for the categories I'm interested in. I'm now the only one on my computer - so I don't think I need a "my documents" folder (and certainly not a separate "Lynn's documents" folder). I am so glad to have found this forum and decided to get mastery and comprehension of my computer. Having professionals set things up - but not bother telling you what and why they did things - just complicates everything. And the pictures are also a mess bc. this helpful computer guy put picasa on my pc - which grabbed every picture - so that many pictures appear in picasa and elsewhere. It's the picture finding and organizing that seems the most daunting. Videos and music I've done myself in the past year - no one else has touched it but me. Word files are manageable too. BP - my question about the Tivo files is that I want to sit in my living room, have Tivo search my computer to see what's on it. That's what I'm thinking has to be in the Tivo desktop program. When I'm at my computer, I think I can find the videos anywhere - I'm just thinking that no matter where they came from (Tivo desktop, hulu, my camcorder, edited in Videoredo), that I might somehow have to move them all to My Tivo Recordings folder in order to access it using the Tivo and watching tv. Do I have that right? Jemdandy - that's one interesting way to approach the 2 drives - one for programs and one for data files. But then I'd be backing up data files to yet another place. I have a 500GB hard drive and am thinking of adding a second 1TB hard drive. So both drives have lots of room. Except for video files, I would think my c drive could easily handle my programs and data files (music, documents and pictures) - and the software and those files could be on the c drive and backed up to the second internal drive. Is there a reason - in terms of improved performance, etc - to use the c drive only for software? Does that add an extra step if I want to use one of my software programs (say photo editing) and have to go to the other drive to get the actual photos to work on? Or is it just as quick to run a program on one drive and get the data from the other? [Okay - good grief, it is]. Thanks everyone. Lynn.

My guess is "Personal Preference"? I quit using the Windows "My Document" folder long ago because I got the feeling it wasn't really "My(mine)" at all. For instance, when I navigate to my Win7 "Documents" I find it's pretty much trashed and I haven't even used it very much. There's a folder named "Adobe", which I didn't put there, nor would I have. A folder called "Alcohol 120%", which I didn't put there. There's a "Games" folder, which I don't play, and didn't put there. There's links to "My Music", which I don't use, "My Pictures", which I don't use, "My Videos", which I don't use. There's a "OneNote Notebooks" folder, which I don't use, forgot it was even installed. A "Stream Transport" folder containing a settings file, don't ask me. :) And a few other things that I wouldn't want cluttering up my documents folder if it was really mine. So it's not. Personally, I always partition a drive just for data and create my own folders for documents, music, video, etc. That way it doesn't get trashed up... unless it's by me. I do make use of my Desktop though. Usually not for long term storage, but for anything I'm working on, need to do more work someday, or want right there in front of me because I use it often. I identify with your predecessor but truthfully, I would say there's no right place, no wrong place, put them where you're used to having them, and can find them quickly and easily. Make them "YOUR" documents. Unless of course your boss says otherwise. :) Just my opinion though, based on my personal quirks. Edit: Is sharing involved? If so... scratch my opinion, I completely misunderstood. :)