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Problems loading software onto HDD with SSD

W

Western

Weaksauce
Joined
May 10, 2007
Messages
87
I have my OS on my SSD, (finally figured out how to get my pc to load my HHD and get it listed as a drive (E:))

When I try to install a game, it try's to install to the SSD (C:), It never gives me the option of which drive to install to like on my old XP system
I have searched the net and it seems it should work?

I have added it and formatted it in "Disk management", that is how I got it to show up in bios and on "my computer" as a drive

Asus V PRO /GEN3

SSD Crucial m4 128gb
HHD, Hitachi 1tb
OS, Win 7

Thanks for any help
 
Depends on the game, but you'd have to do an "advanced" installation for most of them. By default a lot of them don't give the option anymore. Also, you can install it to the SSD, and the use symbolic links to move it to the HDD later (so it will still appear to the OS as being on the HDD). That makes it easy to move back tot he SSD later if you decide you want to. I use Link Shell Extension but there are other programs as well.
 
What is "symbolic links? I guess I may have looked at it all wrong . I just assumed I could load the OS, then everything else on the HDD.
In Disk management:
My SSD has Healthy (Primary Partition)
MY HHD has healthy ( Active Primary Partition)
Normal??

Just went through the "Bootmgr missing" ordeal, that was fun..
 
Heres a snip of my "Disk Management" screen, See anything out of the ordinary?


Capture.png
 
I read the links you guys posted, to be honest, that is WAY over my head. so frustrating
 
There is nothing wrong. Just look closely when installing software, you should always have the option of location, even free games of a couple of megs allow it.
 
What happens if you just copy the game from C to E and then change the shortcut you use to launch the game?

Or are these Steam games?
 
jwcalla said:
What happens if you just copy the game from C to E and then change the shortcut you use to launch the game?

Or are these Steam games?
Click to expand...

Normally won't work because the game drops installation location information into the registry. Games may be getting better at this (although I doubt it), but it certainly isn't fool-proof.

Steam games are easy to move using Steam Mover, or any of the other Steam game moving applications (Steam is pretty location agnostic).
 
On windows7 forum, one of them ( THeog) said I need to change my HDD that reads "Active, Primary Partition" to just Primary Partition, he supplied a link so I will try that this evening.

I installed "Company of Heroes" and it actually let me choose after I expanded one of the install screens.
 
Western said:
On windows7 forum, one of them ( THeog) said I need to change my HDD that reads "Active, Primary Partition" to just Primary Partition, he supplied a link so I will try that this evening.

I installed "Company of Heroes" and it actually let me choose after I expanded one of the install screens.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't do that, as you've already solved your problem and you're not gonna fix it by messing with partitions.

Always choose advanced installation when installing games.

Install Steam on the secondary drive, not the primary.

Problem solved.
 
I had changed it to "active" ,so I had 2 active drives. Don't know what that means though.

I will check "steam" out too
Thanks
 
drescherjm said:
You can create a link from any folder on the SSD to point to any folder on the hard drive and software will not know that it is not installed on the SSD. The term for this is an ntfs junction point. There are several tools that can be used for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point
Click to expand...

yeah, unfortunately this might be the best solution, and IIRC it requires pro editions.

But every game I've ever seen on disk gives you an install path option. You must be referring to steam games, and the best plan there is just to install steam on the spinning drive, then all the programs will default to steam's directory which is on D.

There's also a registry hack, but this might break some programs, so Its only really advisable if you're on a brand new install:
http://www.intowindows.com/change-default-installation-directory-in-windows-7-vista/

So yeah, OP, tl;dr:
A) make an NTFS junction. Arguably this is the cleanest solution as its completely invisible to the applications themselves.
B) hack the registry, as per the above link.
C) install steam to D, then presumably all your games later installed will be on D as well. This is what I do.
 
Western said:
On windows7 forum, one of them ( THeog) said I need to change my HDD that reads "Active, Primary Partition" to just Primary Partition, he supplied a link so I will try that this evening.

I installed "Company of Heroes" and it actually let me choose after I expanded one of the install screens.
Click to expand...

If you do that and you bootloader was there, then your system would not boot anymore => bad idea, and not at all linked to your problem.
 
Western said:
I read the links you guys posted, to be honest, that is WAY over my head. so frustrating
Click to expand...

There's nothing complicated about it, you're just suffering from info overload IMO. A symbolic link is like a shortcut that's transparent to the OS, it sort of fools it into thinking a file is elsewhere so everything that relies on said file/directory keeps working.

Say you have a game already installed on the SSD, you manually move it's directory to your HDD and you then create a symbolic link or junction point that tells the OS that it's still on the SSD where it originally resided... That's all, everything keeps working as if it were on the SSD.

You can try something like Steam Mover to simplify the process so you don't have to mess with the command line or even manually creating the links yourself. As the name implies, it's meant for moving Steam games around but you can use it for other stuff.

Obviously if you don't want ANY games on the SSD then the simplest solution is to never install them there to begin with... But you can easily move games from the SSD to the HDD on the fly with something like sym links or Steam Mover (or vice versa if you want to take advantage of the SSD's performance with a certain game).
 
MrWizard6600 said:
But every game I've ever seen on disk gives you an install path option. You must be referring to steam games, and the best plan there is just to install steam on the spinning drive, then all the programs will default to steam's directory which is on D.
QUOTE]

I have always had the option on any other PC, but since this is my 1st ever build, I figured I have not correctly set up the Drives. Not Steam games, I don't think, I have just heard of :steam" in the past few day's.

Aesma said:
If you do that and you bootloader was there, then your system would not boot anymore => bad idea, and not at all linked to your problem.
Click to expand...

Your right, that was a seperate problem I caused trying to figure out why my HDD wasnt showing up on the install paths. I activated it, then in hast, reformatted it. got "BOOTMGR MISSING" so, used my OS CD to repair.
Click to expand...
 
Not Steam games, I have never played online before, just something to do at night when I'm off so I can stay in the night shift routine.
 
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