user account

[wombil]

Hello All,
I have a PC running XP home with two hard drives.
Hard drive C: 20 Gig with the operating system installed.
Hard drive E: 20 Gig no operating system installed, just for storage.
I have two user accounts on the C drive both with administration priveliges.One is password protected.This drive is getting filled up.
What I want to do is move the password protected account to drive E in the simplest way.Can this be done in one move?Can it be done at all? I can move all the files and folders ok but not the whole account.
Thanks for any advice,
Wombil.

[Erik]

What do you mean by move the whole account? Some part of it will always be linked to the OS, and thus need to be on the same drive as the OS.

What usually takes up the most space is the My Documents folder, which is easily moved. Just right click on it, and change the target folder. You can just browse to the other drive and let it move everything there.

[Sylvander]

See post #6 HERE (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?p=345473#post345473) where Paul Komski explains how to move the whole of a Windows user profile to another drive/partition and edit the registry to suit.

I routinely keep all my data files off the Windows partition [C:] so as to keep C: small, which has definite advantages.
What's more I keep all personal data files separated [from the other data files on E: & F:] on a small 1 GB D: partition and "Synchronise" that [from the "source" D: to a 2nd "destination" copy on a 1 GB "Flash Drive" H:] using the FREE copy of "SyncBack".
This kind of thing could be extremely useful.
e.g. Say you wanted to move between different PC's and apply your profile[s] and personal data [emails, address book etc] on these various PC's.
Plus the obvious advantage of having an up-to-date 2nd copy of your personal data that could be used at any time to restore accidentally deleted or corrupted primary copies.

[Erik]

There will always be something of the user profile on the C:\Documents and Settings folder. Even when doing a network setup that uses folder redirection and roaming profiles. There will always be something on the local PC in that directory.

As far as wanting to move everything to a different drive there are easier ways to do it. The Power Toys toolkit from MS comes to mind. But as I mentioned the biggest part is the My Documents. Everything else is just some basic application settings stuff which should be small on a healthy PC.

[wombil]

Thanks fellers,I should be able to work it out from that.I have a new problem now.After updating driver for logitech web cam my usb ports have stopped working.The printer and cam have stopped.I have uninstalled and reinstalled the cam software and after restart when I connect the cam a message says "an error occurred installing your hardware and it may not work correctly." A further message when I try another usb outlet says my usb equipment is faulty.This occurs with the cam as the only usb thing connected. The webcam works perfectly on another machine.
When I go into Device manager to see what's going on,the page in device manager is blank.When i click on "hidden items" a line appears,
"Device manager in local computer".This makes me think it is a software problem.Everything else seems to be working ok.
Maybe it is a hardware problem.Any ideas anyone?
I might try that no reformat nondestruct total-rebuild option.
Thanks heaps,
Wombil.
System is MSI KM 400-8235
Main circuit board MS-6753 {from belarc advisor].
AMD Athlon 1800+

[Sylvander]

1. Do you have any means to make the software "jump back" to the way it was when all was well?

e.g.
a. An image backup of the Windows Partition [C:]?

b. A suitable Restore Point?

2. As your PC moves forward from day to day, and changes are made, perhaps to the hardware, but most likely to the software...
Eventually some change[s] will take place that are not for the better, but for the worse.
When that happens [as now] you need to be able to undo that software change by going back to a known good setup.
You could then try to move forward again, but this time forewarned and forearmed.

3. To demonstrate that there's nothing wrong with the hardware you could load Knoppix from a "Knoppix Linux Live CD", and if that runs just fine, you know the hardware's OK, and it's a problem with the Windows software environment.

4. If you have no way to restore a backup of a good software setup, then unless you can find the specific cause, a "repair" of Windows is the next best thing I can think of.

[Paul Komski]

There will always be something of the user profile on the C:\Documents and Settings folder
Not if you move the whole of the user profile. The same folders that should normally open up in Explorer when/if you enter %UserProfile% into the run box.

Since that user's profile contains all its own registry data that user must be logged off and another admin account used to make the migration. Once migrated the user can use the new location and nothing specific to that user should appear under C:\Documents and Settings.

The best time to do this is when the account is first created but existing profiles can also be so migrated. As long as applications use the format %UserProfile% and not the absolute path C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\ nothing should have cause to reappear in the original location and all Application Data (eg Firefox settings) should still be found by the relevant Appllications.

[wombil]

Thanks everyone,been away for a while,
I think I got that ok. I bit the bullet and clean installed XP on to another 120 gig hdd.I have partitioned it with the XP on c, 5 Gig and the rest on d.Which everyone here advises.
Everything ,[programs ,etc ] seem to end up on the small c: drive.I must have done something wrong here.
I also have an exclamation mark ! in front of "Universal serial bus [usb] in device manager.Up grade driver tells me that,"The file usbehci.sys on windows 9x usb 2.0 [ehcu]driver disk for via universal serial bus [usb] controller is needed."
Trying to get this but everythihg works ok without it.
Thanks for all the help.Maybe I should start another thread.
Cheers,
Wombil.

[Sylvander]

"installed XP on to another 120 gig hdd.I have partitioned it with the XP on c, 5 Gig and the rest on d.Which everyone here advises...Everything ,[programs ,etc ] seem to end up on the small c: drive.I must have done something wrong here"
1. I think it's good to keep on C:...Windows, Programs, configuration files, hibernation file.
That needs about 10 GB for XP methinks.
[I'm using 4 GB of 5 GB C: partition for Win2000Pro and Programs etc]

2. Reasons for:
a. Keeping C: small:
Image files are small [less storage] and can be made and restored more quickly. This might be done weekly/fortnightly.
b. Keeping personal data files on a small [D:] partition:
These files [in my case] change the most and need the most frequent "synchronisation" [I do this at least every day][also keep a few images, made when C: is imaged {matched to C:}].
c. Keeping other data files on separate partitions according to type/size of file:
Large files can be stored on large FAT[32] partitions that use large cluster sizes to increase efficiency & decrease "slack".
On my PC these types of data files change least often, so synchronisation or backup can be done most infrequently.

3. Where would you store backups & synchronisations of internal partitions [C: D: E: F:]?
G: holds my internal backups of internal partitions C: D: E: F:
H: [external USB Flash Drive] holds my synchronisation of D:
N: [external USB HDD] holds my synchronisations and image backups of C: E: F:

"The file usbehci.sys on windows 9x usb 2.0 [ehcu]driver disk for via universal serial bus [usb] controller is needed"
That driver file is in use by my Win2000Pro OS for "VIA PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller".
It is located at "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\usbehci.sys".
It was probably supplied by the [Win98/ME] driver CD supplied with my "VIA Tech PCI to USB 2.0 Universal Host Controller Card" and installed when I had Win98SE, then retained when updated to win2000Pro.