Make an existing folder into a repository

I've decided that modifying files directly in notepad is probably dangerous and it was about time to have some proper source control (I am quite new to source control). I have installed VisualSVN server on my server and TortoiseSVN on my client machine. I can create new folders fine, check them our etc. However, on my server, I have an existing folder structure in place for IIS and there are links based on this location everywhere. How can I make the entire folder work with SVN without moving the files?

There is a simple solution for checking in an existing directory structure:

1. Open the repository browser of TortoiseSVN (or any other SVN client you prefer) and create a new directory for the project you want to check-in.
2. Check-out this newly created empty directory from SVN somewhere
3. Open the checked-out directory and move the contained hidden .svn directory into the root directory of your project. This enables the context menus from TortoiseSVN for all files and sub-folders.
4. Add every file and folder you want to check-in (context menu command Add...)
5. Execute SVN Commit... on the project root folder