Moving User Folders/Main registry.

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BackInBlack

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Hey CAG.

I recently bought a 128 gb ssd to replace my 40 gb ssd boot drive. My secondary is a 1 TB hdd. I am looking to do a clean install of my OS on the new drive and even reformatting my secondary 1 TB hdd.

My question is what is the best way to set up my drives on a new install? I didn't make any adjustments to my first install having my 40 gb ssd being the boot drive, and just used my 1 TB as secondary.

I'd like to have all my main files/folders to default to my secondary drive from a clean install. Any one have an idea/experience how to do this?

Thanks for the help!
 
disconnect the 1tb when you do a clean install, windows 7 for some stupid reason will default the boot sector to a traditional HDD always first. I have most of my programs on my 96gb SSD. Steam folder is on my caviar black.
 
What do you mean by main files and folders? If you mean game related files, or game saves specifically, then the control is mostly out of your hands. You can install most games wherever you want during the installation. Sometimes you have to do an 'advanced' install, but it's not that hard. One of my hard drives is called "Games" for this reason and I just install all of my games there. In the case of Steam, you just have to install Steam on the drive you want and all games will install there. In the case of GFWL, it's a bit tricker and there are many more settings, but it's very possible to configure where they download and where they install. However, games are configured differently and often game configs and save files are placed wherever the game desires.
 
Everything here is of course optional:

http://www.lancelhoff.com/tweak-to-optimize-ssd-performance/
http://www.intowindows.com/change-default-installation-directory-in-windows-7-vista/
- Be sure to follow Jay's comment (#8) after performing such actions and backup the registry before you do this by exporting it. So you can restore/import it back if you can't figure it out.
http://www.windows7hacker.com/index...delete-in-windows-7-free-up-hard-drive-space/


And probably the one you'll have most issues with is:

http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/2009/05/18/how-to-move-your-windows-user-profile-to-another-drive/

If you do mklink/symbolic link (generally not recommended) and it's causing issues where you keep getting temporary profiles when rebooting, then delete the symbolic link by clicking on it and deleting it while in another profile and move your shit back over. Then you can just use the folders location setting instead (and probably what you should go with to begin with).
 
Hmmm, I didn't know there was a registry spot for moving your users folder as well. That may be a better choice than the last link I gave unless you want to just do the location setting.

Just keep in mind that you'll want to do backups of the particular partition that you put the Program Files/User folder on. That way should that particular hard drive fail, you don't need to do a complete reformat. Same with the SSD drive as well that houses your C: partition. Of course Raid 1 would be a suitable choice as well.
 
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