Computer Skills:
Files Management (Page 2)

Drives & Folders

Every drive, folder, and file used by your computer must have a name.

Drive Designations

The operating system assigns drive designations for hard drives, CD-ROM drives, floppy drives, Flash Memory Drives, network drives, and so on. A drive designation consists of a single letter followed by a colon ":"

  • A: and B: are reserved for the computer’s floppy drives.
  • C: is reserved for the primary hard disk drive.
  • D: is usually assigned to the DVD drive.
  • Other letters can be used to designate external storage such as USB Flash Memory drives, USB external hard drives, SD Cards, and network drives.

Creating a Folder
Folder Structure

Most computer users organize their files in folders. The figure at the right shows an SD Card designated as Removable Disk (F:) with the following folders: ENG101, Photos, SOC101, and WEB150.

This example will use the Windows 7 operating system to create a new folder on this drive. If you are used to older versions of Windows, this is the equivalent of the “My Computer” application. The Computer application can be used to display and access the drives, files, and folders on your computer.

  1. Select the round Start Button in the lower left corner of the monitor and then select Computer.
    The mouse is pointing to the Computer application.

  2. The Computer window displays as shown below.
    The Computer application can be used to display the drives, files, and folders on your computer.

  3. To access the SD Card designated as F:, double click on the SD Card (F:) icon.


  4. The contents of the drive are displayed as shown below.

    A list of the folders on the E: drive as follows, ENG101, Photos, SOC101, WEB150.

  5. In this example, we are adding a new folder to contain files for the CIS 101 class.
    To add a new folder called, "CIS101", select New Folder as shown below.

    Select Organize > New Folder

  6. A folder is created with the default name of "New folder".

    New Folder
  7. Place your cursor in the textbox and type the name you want to assign to the folder, in this case "CIS101". Note: if the textbox no longer displays click once on the "New folder" text to select it and then click again to cause a textbox to re-display.

    Type the new folder name

Continue with Page 3

Page 1