The Hard Disk and Default Folders

Data is stored in folders and libraries on your PC’s hard drive. Windows is fully aware of these folders and looks in them first when you search for a file. You’ll go to these folders first too. Backup programs come preconfigured to back up these folders and libraries automatically as well, so if you’re saving files where you should be saving them, you’re on the right track already. If you’re saving “outside” of the normal parameters, it may take Windows longer to find what you’re looking for, and the data may not be backed up when you run your backup program. Figure 2-1 shows the Public folders, available on all Windows 7 machines.

It’s highly likely that you are using your computer for storing lots of personal files you don’t want or need. Personal data files take up a lot of space, and if you have too much data, your computer can get to a point where Windows won’t have enough free hard drive space to run as well as it should. Most of the time, the hard drive-hogging culprits are media files, including, but not limited to, videos, movies, recorded TV, duplicate files, and pictures. (The movie Avatar, on my computer, takes up over 2GB of hard drive space. Imagine if you had a collection of movies coupled with the entire series of four or five TV shows.)