Course File Management

How a disk drive is organized

  Folders provide that organizational structure to a disk drive, just as they do in a file cabinet.  First, you will put labeled folders into your cabinet/drive.  Each folder will have a name.  When you view the contents of a disk drive, folders are normally listed in alphabetical order. 

  Inside the folder, you will put your documents.  In order to be able to find your documents later within an overstuffed folder, you will give each document a name.  On a PC, it is wise to use the following naming conventions for both folders and files: 

• A file name is made up of two parts: (1) the name of the document and (2) the file extension.  You may name a file anything you wish, but it is preferable to name a file something you are likely to remember later.
• File names should be no longer than 8 characters.  Although Windows (and Macs) allow longer file names, you will be in for some nasty surprises if you use longer file names.
• The second part of a file name is the extension.  The extension can only be 3 characters long. In the file text.doc, the word text is the file name and the .doc is the extension.  A period always separates the two.  The extension identifies what kind of a document you have.  Some examples of file extensions are:
  • .doc - Microsoft Word Document
  • .htm or .html - Web document 
  • .gif - image
  • .jpg - image
  • .png - image
  • .bmp - image
  • .ppt - PowerPoint Presentation

Let's take a look at folders and files

View the following working demonstration which will show you how to view the folders and files on your hard drive.  Notice that you can view them either as icons (pictures) or in a list (words).  We'll go back to "My Computer" for now.  Later, we'll learn another way to view folders and files.

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