File Hiearchy.Any Tips?

Links etc?

I have taken possession of a new XP machine
and things seem a little different from my last XP
that crashed and burned.

I am trying to organise my file hierarchy with something like
500,000 images in say 1000 folders.

I have them in My Documents, but oft times windows explorer
ends up in a mirror folder tree under C:\ drive
It feels awkward and troubling,
any ideas how to set up a stable file tree in xp please?
Should I move these files to the root drive C:\ only?
Thanks very much in advance.