Folder Redirection Dilemma

Win7 was originally installed on Disk 3 (265GB SSD) and I redirected the location of the document, pictures, music, video, downloads, and desktop folders to Disk 1 to save space. Before I upgraded to Win10, and later did a clean install on a new SSD, I created an image of the both Disk 3 and Disk 1. Since I did not want to dual boot, I wiped both disks, installed the new lager SSD (500GB SSD) and again redirected the data folder to Disk 1 and reinstalled the data.

Earlier today I restored the saved image of Win7 to its original location on Disk 3 but unfortunately it is seeing the data folders on Disk 1. So I have two OSs, Win10 and Win7, both looking at Disk 1 for their data folders. This is a situation that I do not want. I would like to restore the image of the data folders for Win 7 to Disk 2 but I’m not sure how to reconfigure Win7 stop looking at Disk 1 for its data folders and use Disk 2. Is it as easy as restoring the image of the data folders for Win7 to Disk 2 and then changing the drive names and letters in Win7? I assume that the drive names and letters are mapped by each OS and work independently of each other but I’d like to be sure this will work before I try it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. BTW, Happy Holidays to everyone.

Barman58 said:

Right click on one of the "special" folders click properties then location then Restore Default - this will return the folder to the OS drive Users folder if prompted to move files to new location answer Yes

You can then use the same process to move to the required new location

Repeat for the other folders ...

You may need to create the folders and fill them with your required content on the required drive before moving the links, the minimum I would recommend is the back up the current folder contents to an external storage before you start. I've performed then type of thing fo many years without any issues leading to lost data but bett safe than sorry

Hi Nigel and thank you very much for the quick reply. That's a great idea. Since the destination drive (SSD) is a bit cramped, I'll just move most of the folders contents to temporary folders then after the restore/new redirection I can replace them. Very excited to get this sorted out. Now I just have to wait until Acronis completes the restoration of the Win7 data folders. Acronis is really slow since I have 157GB of data being restored from my NAS. Oh well, this is a good day to kick back and relax! again thanks for your help and have a great Christmas.