Should I keep My Documents on C and Videos, Music etc on D ?

Brink said:

The only problem about moving your user folders is that whatever partition or drive you move them to will now be considered a system drive, and would need to be included in any system image to avoid issues.

I disagree. The D drive will be considered a system drive if you move the whole user folder itself (Users\Adrien\) because it contains the hidden system folder AppData. Therefore indeed an image software would need you to back up the whole D drive too, just because of that folder.

If you move only the Pictures folder though, or the Music, Videos etc, these are not system folders. They're just normal folders. They have specific nicknames ("My Documents" for example, while the real name is Documents), but that doesn't make them system folders.
I've moved these on mine, and the D parition is not considered a system parition at all.

I see it the same way as Brink.
I have been using Libraries for 5+ years...since I first learned about them with Win 7.

Macrium and Acronis imaging programs can backup and restore per partition.
I abandoned the W7 built-in utility 5+ years ago because it decided what to include in an image - not my decision!

I have multi-boot PCs so imaging and backup is very important to me.

I want to keep images smaller, be able to restore any single OS, without losing any User data.
Macrium and Acronis do this for me, with my data stored on a "Data partition" using Libraries.

[QUOTE=whs;2986858]

Brink said:

If you move a user folder (ex: Music, Videos, etc..) to D and try to create a system image, you'll notice that D will be included in the image and cannot be unselected. At least, that's what it does for me.

Because you use the crummy Windows imaging, LOL. And maybe you have system generated folders on the spinner.

I agree, Macrium does that very well, simply because there are no system folders on D when you move Pictures, Videos and so on on it. They are just simple folders and don't include any hidden system data or anything.
I don't know what is the theoretical definition of a system folder though, but in real life these are not system folders.

DavidE said:

I want to keep images smaller, be able to restore any single OS, without losing any User data.
Macrium and Acronis do this for me, with my data stored on a "Data partition" using Libraries.

I'll ask you the same question. What do you do with the files on your desktop ?
You store on the Data partition your data minus the desktop data ? :)

Nice that you also give your way of doing, i learn from all of you. thanks.

Go put that back in order in case of crash, if you have several backups wih different dates.
Having some data on C and some on D isn't good.

So what. You make images either all at the same time or when required. If nothing changes in the partition for 2 weeks, then there is no need to make a new image. If a lot of things change every day, then you may want to make a new image every day. And the frequency of changes on the system partition may be different then the data partition. Just be practical. I don't see where the confusion is.

Btw - it is not a good practice to keep permanent folders on the desktop. I keep only temporary folders there.

There is no confusion, it's not practical, i find, to have to backup the whole C just because some files changed on the desktop. While all the other data is on D. And yes, I agree it's not good practice to save on desktop.. but why actually ? If you do like me and move it to D, then you can use it as a king. Who does not save some stuff on desktop now and then ?

You say the frequency of backup of C and D may be different. Yes, but not in case their content are logically linked. How else can I say that ? it's hard to explain.. Anyway. I got the advices i was looking for. Libraries is the safest way it seems. For me only "My Documents" had to stay on C. All others can move in my experience without any problem.

I don't store data on the desktop, I store data on my [D] drive "Data" partition.
Any changes I store on my desktop will be lost if/when I restore that [C] OS image.

I even use a custom toolbar (on my [D] drive) rather than "Quick Launch" so I don't lose any of those changes if I do restore the [C] OS partition...
I have a lot of shortcuts in my toolbar, I'd rather they break so I know what to fix ...