Restore missing Downloads folder due to missing link

I originally had the Downloads folder in my user profile redirected to a folder on a hard drive which went bad. So I removed the hard drive, but now the Downloads folder is gone altogether. How do I restore this folder and point it back to my original C: drive?

Note: Googling for this revealed nothing useful. I found some links that suggested typing "shell:downloads" in the Start prompt, but that doesn't do anything for me.

Solution 1:

See this article : How to Restore a Missing Personal User Folder in Vista.

Go through all the steps described in the above article, although I expect that the one you're looking for is Option three sub-option 4. This requires that the Download directory exist in its customary place : C:\Users\$user-name$\Downloads .