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Understanding A, B, C, and D Drives: What They Mean and How They’re Used
Hey there, it's Theresa here 👋. You might see me around the Community, popping into different threads and joining conversations and I often notice users looking for the best ways to manage their storage effectively 🚀. By default, Dropbox saves files on your computer’s internal drive, typically the C: drive 👨💻. But sometimes, you need a little extra space, and the D: drive can be a great alternative. It helps free up valuable room on your primary drive while still giving you seamless access to your important files. If you want to learn more about setting up Dropbox on an external drive, check out this guide. But what about those other drives? The ones labeled A: and B:? Why don’t modern computers use them? And what exactly does the C: drive do? Let’s take a nostalgic and practical dive into the world of drive letters and what they mean in computing 💻. A: and B: Drives Ah, the A: and B: drives - ancient relics of computing! Back in the day, these drives were the VIP section for floppy disks, the original storage superheroes of the 80s and 90s. For those lucky enough to have never experienced floppy disks, let me explain: they were small, portable, and could hold a whopping 1.44 MB to 2.88 MB of data. That’s right, an entire three documents …if you were lucky 💾. Modern computers no longer come with A: or B: drives, as the floppy disk has been banished to the land of obsolete tech alongside VHS tapes and Blockbuster memberships 📼. However, those letters are still reserved for these iconic disks, almost like a tribute to the O.G’s of storage - here, computers have to pay their respects to the ancestors too. C: Drive The C: drive is the most important and commonly used drive in a computer system. It is typically the main hard drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) that contains the operating system (like Windows), applications, and most of your files 💻. In modern Windows systems, the C: drive is like your default "everything" space. It’s where the system stores its most prized possessions, from system files to personal documents to that folder full of memes you forgot about. Installing Dropbox on your C: drive is a great way to store your cloud files locally on your computer while keeping them synced across all your devices. So, think of the C: drive as the top drawer of your desk: it holds all the stuff you need every day, the stuff you’ll probably need soon, and the stuff you just threw in there to deal with later. Keep it clean…or don’t - but either way, the C: drive is where it all goes down 👩💻. D: Drive The D: drive is the unsung hero stepping in when you need a little extra space. It’s like the spare room in your house, or that second closet where you shove everything when company’s coming over 🙊. The D: drive is typically assigned to secondary storage devices. This could be a second hard drive, an optical drive (AKA CD/DVD drives ..remember those?), or even a partition on the same physical hard drive as the C: drive. And let’s not forget its role as the go-to for removable storage like USB flash drives or external hard drives. (Hint: Set up Dropbox on you D: Drive for those "I’ll definitely organise this later" files) 👨💻. So, whether you're optimizing storage, decluttering your digital space, or just taking a trip down memory lane, it’s always good to know what’s going on behind the scenes 😉. And hey, if you ever need help managing your files, you know where to find me 👩💻. I’ll be around the Community, diving into conversations and helping out wherever I can. Got any storage tricks, you or even fun computer nostalgia to share 💾💿📼? Drop them in the comments.. I’d love to hear them!
Logged in to my account after 2 years and my files are missing
Good day, can someone help me? I has my drop box account for years, mostly using it when I was studding, now I have not been on my Dropbox for over 2 years, and when I logged in today everything was missing. I keep receiving emails that my dropbox is full, so I did not expect it to be empty when I logged in today. What happend? can Dropbox delete everything if you have not been on your account for a while? I am baffled. I do not have another account, only the one that I have been using for years. Please help.
Online-only not working in Surface Pro 11 (Snapdragon version)
Recently I went back to Dropbox having read that it now works with Snapdragon Windows versions, but currently I have a significant issue. I cannot have any online-only file in my SP11, thus I cannot have all Dropbox files in my device. I have this in the main DP screen: Then I go to "Manage hard disk space", select folders and make online-only. In less than a second I get the message they are online-only, but they aren't. Any idea how to solve this? Thanks in advance.
Updated iPad to latest OS version and can't access my files now
I updated my ipad to the latest iOS and now I can't access any files on my dropbox on my ipad. The list of files in the folders updates, but none of the files will open. I occasionally get an SSL error message, but not always, but I have no other internet issues, so I think it's a server issue?
I downloaded one of my folders months ago and now I can't unzip it as it throws an error.
Hi! I downloaded a folder full of pictures and then deleted from dropbox. I didn't checked the files right after and a couple months later when i wanted to unzip i realized that there went something wrong since there was a 0 byte foldername.zip and a normal size foldername.n3QcyulW.zip.part among the downloads. Sadly I couldn't open that and the error message told that the destination path of the file includes caracters blocking the unzip. Anyone has an idea if it is possible to repair the file or somehow reach the files? It is a couple gigabyte so there should be something zipped. Thanks
One of my files vanished and it's not in deleted files
Hi, I had a couple of files I was working on for a client that was stored on Dropbox. I'm the only one with access to the Dropbox account and the only one who had access to the files. I worked on it on my Mac desktop yesterday, then synced it to Dropbox and swapped to my laptop after dinner. When I was done for the day, I closed the files, made sure both files synced to Dropbox, then closed out my laptop for the night. This morning, when I got on my desktop to start work on the files again, one of the files is missing from the folder. At first, I thought I accidentally deleted it, so I got out the laptop and have been searching in my trash folder. No file. I looked in the deleted files on Dropbox. No file. (Though I did find where Dropbox deleted another important file of mine two minutes before I looked in that folder--I know I hadn't done it, because I hadn't messed with the files in that particular folder in the past two minutes. I restored it.) I cannot find this file anywhere. In Finder on my Mac, when I right-click in the folder and select "Get Info," it indicates there are two files in the folder. There's only one visible. I have NO idea what's going on. I've never run into anything like this before. I don't have yesterday's work backed up on my backup drive--my backup drive failed earlier this week and I have a new one on the way to me that isn't supposed to be here until next week. I don't want to have to redo an entire day's worth of work, so I'm looking for some help locating this file that Dropbox has apparently decided it'd rather hide from me than let me actually view/open. Thanks for any help you can give me!
Can't find photos I uploaded between 2015-2017
Good day, All - Between approximately 2015 and 2017, I uploaded about 75-100 photos from my Apple Photos folder on my MacBook Pro. I can't remember if I upIoaded them via the dropbox app or the website by browser. I signed into Dropbox today and I cannot find those photos. I know I did not delete them. How can I access these? TIA for any help you can give.Full filepath for file
Dear team Searching for files (e.g. by name) on the iOS app is very quick and good. However, once found, it would be great if we could see the full filepath of that resulting folder or file (e.g. C:\Dropbox\.... ) so that it can be quickly found on my laptop or desktop machine. Can you add this feature please? (Under the iOS app, you can select 'Show in Folder' via the three dots next to the file, but this still doesn't give visability of the full path.) Thanks if you can help.
