Solved Duplicate User Folders

[alienfluke]

Hi, This is a problem i have never come across before and have found pretty much nothing that would help online, i have seen similar problems but not quite like this, let me explain.

installed windows 7 ultimate 64bit on a HDD leaving one of my other HDD's with the original XP install and then installed easyBCD to create a boot manager so i could have the choice as some programs i have and need are in the XP install.

Things seemed fine and no issues for at least a month and at that time i no longer needed the XP drive to run as a bootable partition so i removed it from easyBCD, reset the boot command line to what it should be and then removed easyBCD.

noticing after a few weeks that my F: drive (one previously used for XP) has its own documents and settings folder with a duplicate of the windows 7 user folder from the main C: partition so i figured its just a duplicate and i will remove it, so to test it was safe to delete i went into the desktop folder in the duplicate user profile folder in F:\Documents and Settings and deleted one item, this is where it gets weird because it deleted the file off the desktop meaning that the user profile folder in C:\Users and F:\Documents and settings are not just copies but act like they are both the main user folder, doesnt matter which you delete from, it will remove that item from both folders, i really need to kill the duplicate and sever the link to the F: drive.

I have hunted through the registry and have been unable to find any link to this folder and i also created a new user profile and that still creates a duplicate on the F: drive.

i have never seen an issue like this.

any help would be greatly appreciated, any suggestions at all.

 

[rraod]

Go through the wiki article NTFS junction point for NTFS file systems.

Windows 7 has created a junction to C:\Users on the F: drive where you had windows XP. You have to delete the junction point (Top folder only) in F: and not delete file by file as this will cause you to lose the files in C:\Users also.

Read this post Very strange issue for more information on this topic.

To locate the junction point open a command prompt window and do a DIR command in F: drive. You will see <Junction> for a junction point whereas for normal folders you will see <DIR>. Do not use DEL command in the Command Prompt window to delete the Junction. Locate the Junction and then delete that folder in Windows Explorer.

 

[alienfluke]

rraod, thankyou, i have very minimal experience with junctions and didnt even think of that option, i kicked myself as soon as i read your reply.

its now removed via rmdir in cmd

thankyou again