How do I move and point all my data to a 2nd HDD in laptop?

[Dari]

After upgrading my laptop to Win7 a couple of months ago, I did the default install where everything is installed on one (of two) HDDs. However, I only have 15GB of free space left and the other one is completely empty. How can I move all my data and make sure everything is smooth going forward?

 

[lxskllr]

Copy/paste?

 

[incompleteunit]

If you want to use your second drive for your user data, you can copy/paste all of your C:/Users/<username>/ folders (My Documents, etc.) to the other drive. Then right click each of the above folders, click on the Location tab, and enter the new location of the folder. I recreated the folders exactly the same way on my second drive (put them all in E:\Users\<username>), so for me I just had to change the drive letter in the Location path from 'C:' to 'E:'.

 

[lxskllr]

If you want to use your second drive for your user data, you can copy/paste all of your C:/Users/<username>/ folders (My Documents, etc.) to the other drive. Then right click each of the above folders, click on the Location tab, and enter the new location of the folder. I recreated the folders exactly the same way on my second drive (put them all in E:\Users\<username>), so for me I just had to change the drive letter in the Location path from 'C:' to 'E:'.

I always leave the default directories in the O/S install as a slush file. That's where I temporarily store photos, documents, or whatever until I know I want to keep them. When I decide I want to keep them I move them over to the other drive.

My way is probably a little more work in maintenance, but it keeps my data drive from getting cluttered with crap, and I can take my time making the save decision.

 

[sivart]

Has the "Move" function for "My Documents" been removed with Windows 7? I always created a new folder on a new drive and then pointed my documents to the new folder. When it asked if I wanted to move everything, I simply said "Yes, please"

 

[Dari]

I am examining the user folders now and there is no 'Location' tab. Once I move them to the 2nd HDD a location tab will become available? Also, will this break applications? Will they have a hard time finding their folders? e.g. Outlook.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see the Location tab in the folders within the user's folder.

EDIT: How come certain folders have the Location tab and others do not? And yes, sivart, the move function is there.

 

[incompleteunit]

All of the normally visible folders should have a Location tab (I don't know about AppData - I've been leaving it where it is because I've heard about people having problems when moving it. Prevents the drive separation from being as elegant a solution as it could be though.) But once you've actually set the new location, then the tab disappears for the old folder, since the one on the new drive is now your "My Documents" folder, and a further change of location would happen from there.