C:\Users Junction to other Disc, cannot login anymore

[SilentStorm]

As I didnt want any User specific Data on my System Drive, after installing Windows 7 back then I was looking to move the Users Folder to a different Drive.

I thought symlinks would be perfect for the task and so I copied C:\Users over to E:\Users, deleted C:\Users and made C:\Users a Junction to E:\Users.

Everything seemed to be working perfectly until today when I was reverting the System to a Restore Point created a few hours ago.

Now after the reboot everything seems to be gone and Hell is open... When I tried to login with my Account I use for daily Operation it said "Preparing Desktop" at which Point I knew something terrible happened. As I had already guessed I had an empty default Desktop and all my Stuff, Settings and so on was not there. Additionally a Popup appeared notifing me that I was using a temporary Profile.
So I tried to login using the built in Administrator Account, but that too was a temporary Account as the Balloon Tip showed me. I quickly checked E:\Users\ and everything is still there its just not getting loaded for some weird reason.

My Question now is what the hell went wrong all the sudden and more importantly how do I manage to login to my regular Profile again with everything back in its place?

 

[seavixen32]

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

I would imagine that you've broken the symbolic link between between the legacy My Documents folder and the Users folder.

To be honest, I haven't a clue how you're going to get back to square one without a re-install of Windows 7 so I'm hoping someone else will have some ideas.

 

[Britton30]

Hello, can you undo the restore you did?

 

[MacGyvr]

Try System Restore to go back before you changed it, but I doubt that's going to help. I think you'll be needing to reinstall Windows.

 

[seavixen32]

I think the OP tried a system restore and that's when the sh** hit the fan.

Looks like a Windows re-install is the only way out.

 

[Miranova23]

(Provided this is anything like when I turned up a temp profile, a couple times...)

Whoah whoah whoah, NO. You don't have to reinstall Windows. Your profile stuff is still there somewhere. It's just no longer properly directed to where your user folder is. Can you navigate to E:\Users & confirm that it is still there? A system restore shouldn't have deleted actual files.

Here's the tutorial for the time being: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html
You should probably run through that and re-setup your symlinks. Again, I believe your files must still be on E:\.
Also might be helpful: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/135858-user-profile-error-logged-temporary-profile.html (User Profile Error Logged Temp Profile.)

 

[FliGi7]

Did you try re-creating the symlinks?

 

[SilentStorm]

Firstly thanks for all the replies so far

Hello, can you undo the restore you did?

No, unfortunately I could not.

I think the OP tried a system restore and that's when the sh** hit the fan.

Yes the system restore actually started the problems...

I would imagine that you've broken the symbolic link between between the legacy My Documents folder and the Users folder.

According to dir /a the symlinks are pointing to the correct locations where all the stuff is still there.

Whoah whoah whoah, NO. You don't have to reinstall Windows. Your profile stuff is still there somewhere. It's just no longer properly directed to where your user folder is. Can you navigate to E:\Users & confirm that it is still there? A system restore shouldn't have deleted actual files.

First good news I heard all day
And yes all the Files are still there and intact on E:\Users\myuser as I already stated in the first post. However windows cannot or does not load them. Curious thing is that newly created User Accounts are NOT temporary and working as supposed to just any already existing ones wont load and are temporary.

Did you try re-creating the symlinks?

Yes, I did delete C:\Users and recreated it. No change...


In the meantime I tried and finding more information on the net upon them the links posted by Miranova and deleted the Registry Key for the already existing Accounts in Safe Mode logging into the User I deleted the Key for... (one by one of course)
That (and prolly the previous recreation of the symlink) somewhat worked as the Profiles are no longer temporary BUT all the Windows Settings are gone (like Desktop Backgrounds, Icon Setup, Pinned Taskbar Items etc.) So I thought I would copy over the previous (old & broken) Profile over the newly created one that was working. I did this in Safe Mode again just to be sure nothing would be in use.

even though I was using the built in Administrator Account to do this I ran into a Permission Problem on some files inside AppData (about 10 randomly named .TMP Files)... I just skipped them.
When I logged back in the Account afterwards Desktop Background, Desktop Icons were back however the Icon Width, Spacing etc. Settings are still gone as are Pinned Taskbar Icons, aswell as the Startmenu last used applications. Application's Settings are gone aswell (Outlook Mail Accounts as an example). When I repinned the Applications the Pinned Icons on the Taskbar when hovered have (2) appended to the Applications name and the Links to said Applications appear twice inside the QuickLaunch Folder, so Windows is obviously not just using the Links inside that Folder but using a list from somewhere which Links to display on the Taskbar.

Since there is no way of telling how many Applications are affected by this kind of "memory loss" I would prefer to get all the Settings back aswell if there is some way. I had thought Registry is stored in the ntuser.dat File(s) inside the profile directory which I copied over, but apparently it was not enough :/

I would appriciate any ideas you might have to get those Settings back aswell.

Sorry for the long post btw.

 

[Britton30]

I'm unsure whether this wil help, but you may try it.

How to Restore the Default Libraries in Windows 7​

 

[SilentStorm]

Doesnt appear to have anything to do with it.
As I said all my files are there, just Settings & Application Configurations are missing (partially at least)

 

[FliGi7]

I'd just to a repair install and redo the symlinks again.

 

[SilentStorm]

In that case it would be easier to just re(pair)-install and (re)configure the applications whoms Settings are missing... which as it seems will be unavoidable

 

[Miranova23]

Is your AppData folder still there? It is hidden by default. That is where your app settings are stored. If the symlink is recreated successfully, it should just pick up the settings from that folder again... no? :huh:

 

[Britton30]

Any good/bad news?

 

[MacGyvr]

It was a month ago, who cares?

 

[Britton30]

Well, me for one, Mac

 

[UTAmaverick]

Hi... I'm new to the forum, been using windows since ver 3.11.

Now I'm just trying to keep track of all my files, programs and other data.

I also just made the jump to a SSD drive that I'm running in an older PC, which has improved it quite a bit, but now that I'm installing a new Windows 7 OS on the PC I'd like to keep the SSD clean for just the OS, and maybe a few other files that can benefit from SSD speed.

I'm aware that moving the programs and users files to another drive can cause an issue at some point as mentioned here, BUT is a there a hybrid approach (like leaving the ADMINISTRATOR account on the SSD) that entails moving ONLY some user accounts to a larger drive. I can't emagine that the admin account will grow larger if I'm using my own user account(s) for all the data, media, music, docs and other items so it could remain on the SSD. That way if my user links were severed or my SSD loaded a bit to fast for the HDD one day that the system will have the admin and default accounts and hopefully won't go crazy since it can use one of those to startup. It also won't leave me locked out of the system or attempt to recreate new default accounts.

So my question is can I redirect or link just inside the USERS folder not the whole folder itself and thus avoid problems down the road? Since my SSD is only 60GB, and almost half full now with clean OS and OFFICE. I would just relocate users as required, for example the account "Student".

What about doing these links as a safer alternative:


robocopy "C:\Users\Student" "F:\Users\Student" /COPYALL /MIR /XJ
robocopy "C:\Program Files" "F:\Program Files" /COPYALL /MIR /XJ
robocopy "C:\Program Files (x86)" "F:\Program Files (x86)" /COPYALL /MIR /XJ
robocopy "C:\ProgramData" "F:\ProgramData" /COPYALL /MIR /XJ

rmdir "C:\Users\Student" /S /Q
rmdir "C:\Program Files" /S /Q
rmdir "C:\Program Files (x86)" /S /Q
rmdir "C:\ProgramData" /S /Q

mklink "C:\Users\Student" "F:\Users\Student" /J
mklink "C:\Program Files" "F:\Program Files" /J
mklink "C:\Program Files (x86)" "F:\Program Files (x86)" /J
mklink "C:\ProgramData" "F:\ProgramData" /J

In another post somewhere I saw a comment that the AppData account needs to be copied but from what I can see it's part of each user account folder so it will be copied anyway not sure why it was pointed out as a separte item. Maybe it's different in Vista or the non X64 version?

Any issues seen with only taking part of the accounts to a new drive and leaving the other default and admin users intact for emergency or maintenance reasons?

Did I include everything that is required when entering data at the command line level in the recovery console?

Other insights and comments?

Henry