I bought a new Windows 10 desktop computer a couple of years ago, and got a 256GB SSD as the primary drive (the C: drive or the one containing Windows and most applications). I knew that wouldn’t be enough for everything, so I kept most stuff on a secondary conventional hard disk drive. I even configured Windows so that the Users folder was on the secondary drive. I figured that this would protect me if the SSD failed. However on Saturday, the secondary drive failed, so that the Users folder is not accessible any longer. (I backed up the computer on Thursday last week and also use Backblaze to back up everything all the time, so I’m not worried about losing data.)
But now when the system boots, it seems to get stuck on the fact that there’s no User folder to boot to.
I’ve ordered a replacement drive, which I expect to arrive today or tomorrow. (Actually, I ordered two identical replacement 6GB hard drives, and want to set up a mirrored RAID.) Any idea how to get into Windows and get it to boot to a point at which I can either create a new user, and then restore the data or otherwise fix this problem?
Worst case, I can reinstall Windows and the applications but am hoping to avoid that.
I’ve never had that problem, but the first thing that comes to mind: have you tried to boot into safe mode? (though to be honest, I cannot tell you on the spot how to boot into safe mode in Win 10. The boot process has changed so much with Win 10 and I really hadn’t have to boot into safe mode since Win 10. But you’ll get that from google, that’s where I’m also going now to get me informed.)
ETA: what happens now if you try to boot? Does it just stop? Is there an error message of some kind?
I just became aware that the problem shouldn’t be the boot process, but rather logging into your user profile, that of course got corrupted by losing the user folders. I have only skimmed this page, but maybe this will help.
ETA: I just see that the process on that page includes downloading a third party software. I cannot say anything about this software and cannot vouch for its safety and reliability. So use with caution and at your own risk.
I haven’t had the system on since Saturday so I don’t remember what happened when I booted. But basically, it seemed confused that it wasn’t able to find my user account. I’ll try the safe boot approach today or tomorrow.
In the future, I would not recommend having the actual Users folder on a second drive. Sure, put My Documents, My Photos, etc. on another drive, but the Users folder itself should probably stay on your C: drive. Not only does it prevent the problem you had, but it’s faster for settings to be written to the SSD. It won’t take up all that much space. And if any folder does, you can just symlink it to a folder on the other drive.
If you really want to keep the User folders on another drive, I’d recommend using symlinks. So have C:\User\AccountName link to a folder on your D drive, rather than directly pointing to the D drive. That way you can also have a single Admin account with little data that you can use if the other drive fails.
In case you’re unaware of what a symlink is, here’s a primer, including how to make them on Windows.