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I have a question regarding windows setup:
- I have a win xp installed like this:
one disk drive with two partitions C: - system data, etc. D: - all user data (user accounts)
- now I bought an SSD drive and would like to use it in paralell with the old drive. move only the system part of windows on it like this:
C; I cloned the old windows system partition "C:" to the new SSD drive. I made the old partition that I cloned invisible (with a partition manager) D: stays where it is (on the old disk drive)
- I changed the boot order, so that the laptop is now booting from the new SSD drive. Windows is booting, but then gets stuck when the log on screen with the users appears. There are no users to choose from, nor any button for closing/rebooting windows.
It seems that windows, when started from the new SSD drive, does not understand where the user files are. On the original disk, they were in D:, but now it does not find them there... It could be that windows is not looking in the right place (perhaps it looks after disk numbers (0)/partition(1) and (0)/partition(2) and not after C: and D:
Could anyone help me with an opinion?
I think this could be a generally interesting matter, as a lot of people buy SSD-s, which are generally smaller then the HDDs in use. Also, because of some worries about data security on SSDs, some will prefer, like me, to keep the user data on a HDD, and use just the system and programs on the SSD (for faster access and booting).
Horia
Posted 2013-01-13T18:26:47.767
Reputation: 21
Moving the Users folder is always a spiny issue. Windows doesn't exactly support it fully. Especially if you move your Windows installation, which isn't exactly supported either. If you can, identify where Windows is looking for the folder and create a symbolic link to the actual folder there. You might have to try various places. And you might never be able to fix it. For one, migrating a partition is meh and can cause issues. Imagine when your installation was spanned over two volumes. The recommended course of action is to reinstall and try not to confuse the OS too much. – Ariane – 2013-01-13T18:30:46.673
Oh wait. But does Windows Xp even support symbolic links? It's a really old version of Windows, and I think I read somewhere that symbolic link support in Windows is relatively recent. I'm not even sure. If it doesn't, you're quite busted, and I see little other options than reinstalling. xD – Ariane – 2013-01-13T18:34:32.910
@Ariane: See Symbolic links for Windows XP which can be used separately from the Link Shell Extension.
– martineau – 2013-01-13T23:53:52.663@martineau Good to know, even though I don't ever plan on using this. I very much dislike Windows Xp. – Ariane – 2013-01-14T00:00:22.877
@Ariane: thank you for your suggestions and comments! I will try again to migrate, after a thorough backup of my data, and I will put here my results. I am a bit too lazy to install everything again, even if, obviously, thinking and reading about this migration takes in the meantime more time than reinstalling... :) – Horia – 2013-01-15T18:26:41.840
@martineau: thanks for the symbolic win xp links! – Horia – 2013-01-15T18:27:05.820
Heh. I indeed think that sometimes, efforts to find the simplest solution end up being more complicated than the normal solution. – Ariane – 2013-01-15T19:59:32.547