i tried to "cut" and then paste "my documents" file to an external
hard drive.  i do not see the individual folders on the external drive
but just a >swp file.  from the size of the memoryy, it appears to
have the folders.  how do i open/ this file to access the folders.

.swp files are, well, swap files. They are temporary files used in
operations that require large memory usage.

Normally, they are erased when the operation is completed. In your
case, since the copying didn't complete and you ended up with a swap
file, I'd guess probably a disconnection with the external drive
occured while copying. Or perhaps some other fault in windows.

Just delete the swap file and copy again.

This answer might be sorta right, but here's the thing.

A swp file by itself is strange. They were used pre-windows xp/2k by
FAT drives to describe a "file" that is basically used only by windows
to store information for the virtual memory swap file.

It is possible that the swp file was copied there by accident.
Removing it should be safe.

I'd like to address not the recovery of the files but some related issues. 

1) "My Documents" is not REALLY a physical location on a hard drive,
but a "link" to the real location, which will vary depending on who is
logged into the system. Let's say you're logged in as, ahem, gruumsh.
The real location of the documents would then be...

c:\documents and settings\gruumsh\My Documents

2) Cut and paste of files between hard drives is not really a good
idea. COPY and paste is safer. Then, when you're 100% sure that the
files are on the other drive, go ahead and delete.

3) Click and drag. When you've got your Folders panel open, notice the
default behavior when you click & drag files to a new location... (a)
when the files' destination is on the same hard drive, they are moved,
and (b) when the files desitination is a DIFFERENT drive (floppy, USB
flash memory card, etc) the files are copied, not moved. (And you can
do the opposite of the default behavior by holding down the [CTRL] key
during the click & drag operation, FYI.)

Yeah I know, 20-20 hindsight.

Actually, gruumsh, it's not quite correct that CTRL gives you the
opposite behaviour. Instead, CTRL forces a copy and SHIFT forces a
move. So when you want to do the non-default behaviour you have a
choice between (a) trying to remember which key does what, or (b)
trying one key, and if it doesn't work trying the other one. By
contrast, the Mac gets it right: hold SHIFT and you get the
non-default action.