Clone Disk that contains Users data, but not the OS
I have a Windows 10 Pro system with 3 SSDs. The C: drive has the OS, but the Users portion of that OS has been moved to the E: drive and has worked quite well for 2+ years. However, the 500 GB E: drive is getting full fast, so I purchased a 5 TB HDD to take its place. In case you are wondering about the D: SSD - I use that for the scratch disk/virtual memory/etc.
There doesn't seem to be any instructions that I could find that addresses this procedure. I thought I did the job right and the computer restarted after the cloning process and both drives, the existing and the new, had the identical files and folders.
When I shut the computer down and removed the old E: and connected the new HDD in its place, the computer would not finish booting, giving this error:
The ProfSvc service failed the sign-in.
User profile cannot be loaded.
I shut down again and reconnected the old E: drive and I was back to normal (I had to log out, then back in again, but otherwise no prob).
Now I'm back to where I started. I s'pose I will have to reformat the new drive and clone it again, but there's a step or more that I ain't getting right. I need your help, please. It may just be the option presented to make the drive bootable or not. I chose not because it's not the OS drive I'm cloning. But that was prob'ly the wrong choice because the Users profile has to boot up with the OS drive.
Your guidance will be appreciated.


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To add to Steve's post... it is easier than running mklink to move the user data to another drive. Most of the folders under the C:\Users\<username> folder can be moved by right clicking on the folder, selecting Properties and going to the Location tab. AppData does not have a Location tab but all the others do. I have mine set up to move the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Videos, and Music to my D: drive as that's where most of the data is. If you change it, you'll be asked to move all the data so Windows takes care of it for you. Basically, Windows sets up the proper links.
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Steve Smith wrote:Jim, welcome to these user forums.I need to try to understand your scenario a little better here. If I understand what you are saying, it sounds as if you have moved your C:\Users\ folder structure to a separate SSD drive E: including the user profile registry files?
Yes, that is correct. The only thing left on C: is C:\Users\Administrator On E:, the structure is E:\Users\[Default][Default.migrated][Jim][Public] (each folder name, I put in brackets for clarity here).
I can only suggest trying to move at least the C:\Users\ structure back to your OS drive - at least that part which holds all your profile data but without all your documents, pictures etc folders which is probably where the size of the data is held.
Since the clone procedure I performed yesterday made a successful copy of all my Pictures, Documents, et al on the new HDD, I can delete the contents of each of those folders on E: before initiating the move of E:Users back to C:. Is that correct?
See webpage: move c:\users to d:\users that may be worth trying, i.e. using mklink to re-establish junctions to the new drive users folder.See also webpage: Windows 7: How do I move my user profiles back to C:\user
That second link you provided seems to address best what I need to do. Specifically, the last post in that discussion. Is that correct? Then, when Windows boots back up, I can select the Properties for C:\Users\Jim\Documents (and others) and, under the Location tab, click Find Target... and point to the appropriate folder on the new HDD. Is that correct?
Thank you and BrunoC for your replies. I'm looking forward to solving this problem. I'll wait for your confirmation or additional information before I move forward.
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Jim, thanks for clarifying the situation and what has been moved.
I would assume that you can delete the documents, pictures etc from your original E: drive now that you have this cloned on the new larger drive, so that you can reduce the size of the C:\Users\ folder structure. You will need to do this is this folder is to fit on your C: SSD drive.
I have no direct experience of doing this action of moving the users folder as I have never had a need to do this, so can only suggest that you follow the steps given in the second web article or post further questions in that forum if needed. As always I would recommend making a good backup of your C: OS drive before making any changes.
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Thank you Steve, and Bruno for your replies and support. I'm sorry I left you hangin'. My original problem, as you pointed out, was that I moved not just the user data files (Documents, Pictures, etc.), but the folders and files of C:\Users was redirected/moved to E:\Users et al. The only user left on C: was C:\Users\Administrator - I wasn't able to move that folder. That was all done several years ago on the Windows 8.1 system. When Windows 10 installed, it didn't complain. It prob'ly should have.
You've taught me that moving data folders is fine, but one should not move the Users profile folders. It's actually very easy to create a new folder/file system on a separate drive and just point each of the C:\Users\[username]\ data folders to its counterpart on the other drive. However, if you did what I did a long time ago, it becomes quite a chore to move those user profile folders back to C:.
Searching the Internet, I discovered I'm not the only foolish guy behind a keyboard. The article you linked to helped me get the profile folders moved back and doing it with empty data folders (after all, there wasn't enough room on the C: drive either). Once I finally did that, and also fixed the problem with my Outlook 2016 PST files, I have my system running pretty smooth. Of course, this resulted in an already too small C: drive to get perilously close to being full, so I put the now unused 512 GB SSD, formerly known as E:, to work as a clone of C: and used it to replace my 128 GB SSD, C:.
Sorry, I don't do well with making long stories short. ;) Thanks again for your willingness to help me out. I'm happy to be back to normal now.
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Jim, thanks for the feedback and update. Glad to hear that you are back to normal now and are running with the larger SSD drive.
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