Desktop wont appear on prior windows drive

Question

I recently installed Windows 11 since my previous install of windows 10 did not appreciate my hardware upgrade. My previous windows 10 as well as an even older windows 10 install are plugged in on separate drives and are accessible.
On my oldest drive I have full access and can view the desktop at G:\Users_XXXX_\Desktop however on my recent install H:\Users\YYYYY\Desktop does not exist/appear.
I am able to view everything in H:\Users\YYYYY including downloads, AppData and the like however the desktop icon does not exist.
I have tried viewing hidden items in File Explorer however that did not help.
I tried to boot from the older drives however bios did not recognize either as boot drives, and I am not keen on fighting for that.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Open Command Prompt as Admin and run the following command:

cd /d H:\Users\YYYYY

List all folders, including hidden ones:

dir /a

Check if the Desktop folder is listed here.

You may create a New User Profile to resolve the issue.

Answer 2

Hello Ember,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

Maybe you have redirected the desktop folder. You could right click Desktop and check the location of its folder:

I hope the information above is helpful.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,

Daisy Zhou

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