Organising Files and Folders Module 1

Task 1 – Folder Structure Organising folders to store your work is a key factor to success. Organising folders to store your work is a key factor to success. If we put all files in one place, as the number of files increase, it will be difficult to find what we want quickly and efficiently. If we put all files in one place, as the number of files increase, it will be difficult to find what we want quickly and efficiently. We should organise files in some sort of structure – like you may do in a filing cabinet. We should organise files in some sort of structure – like you may do in a filing cabinet.

In addition to your hard drive, a computer has a number of different drives for storing files.

The main hard drive is inside the system case and provides the largest amount of data storage.

The floppy drive uses a floppy disk for storing small amounts of information, and there’s usually a drive for CDs and DVDs.

Drives can also be removable, like some ‘zip’ drives, and plug into your PC. It is a good idea to make regular backups to a removable drive to secure your work.

Your computer gives each drive a label. A hard drive is often labelled C, a floppy drive A, and a CD/DVD drive D.

Most of the time, you save your work on the computer’s hard disk, often called the C: Drive.

The hard disk can hold vast amounts of data, so you need to keep it organised so you can find your data easily.

On the C: drive is the folder ‘My Documents’, which is useful for storing all of your files and folders.

All folders can contain other folders called subfolders. Here, My Music and My Letters are subfolders of the My Documents folder.

And inside these subfolders are individual files. This organisational structure is called a hierarchy.

A computer organises your files and folders pretty much in the same way a filing cabinet does. You can put files into different folders so you know where you can find them quickly and easily.

In My Documents you can create a new folder going to the File menu, going down to New and then across to Folder.

It is automatically given the name ‘New Folder’, but you can rename it by simply typing in a more meaningful name into the highlighted box. Don’t worry if you click out of the folder before renaming it. You can simply right click and go to rename at any time.

Once you have renamed your folder, double click to open it. Inside your main folder, you can create subfolders for the different modules you are going to complete. This will ensure that the different modules do not get mixed up.

Inside your module folders, you can create more subfolders for the different tasks you are going to complete. This will ensure that all of your work is easy to find for future reference.

Ensure you take screen shots of your folder structure to PROVE you have given your folders and files suitable names and saved them in suitable locations.