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Question

Windows 10, I lost all my profiles and can't log on

May 16, 2017 4:34PM PDT

I recently added a new ssd to help with space from my original. Already inside my computer was a normal hdd that was also getting full. When I first put the computer together and installed windows I tried to move my "users" directory to the hdd. I don't remember what I did, but "appdata" never moved correctly, so I had 2 profiles, sort of, but all under the same profile name.

Now, when I started up my windows disk, to do this the right way, I opened cmd prompt and entered the following:
Robocopy /copyall /mir /xj C:\users A:\users
Rmdir /s /q C:\users
Mklink /j C:\users A:\users

Then I remember the other files on D: so I did the same thing again. I now realize that /mir removes the destination folder/files and replaces everything in there with the new contents. Now, I have lost my default admin account and all other ways to access my account. I cannot get into regedit, and I did not make a backup of my profile folder. I was running windows 10, but I have reinstalled windows 7. I can still get to all my files if I need to restart, but I'm not ready to do that yet.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Robocopy? RMDIR? Mklink?
May 16, 2017 5:51PM PDT

I've never moved a profile like that. You need to get to the site that wrote how to do this and see why they wrote all that when there are ways noted by Microsoft that don't use any of those.

Example at tenforums: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1964-move-users-folder-location-windows-10-a.html
Notice the WARNING "Do not proceed before creating a system image!"

This is not optional.

Similar method at http://winaero.com/blog/move-the-users-folder-in-windows-10-windows-8-and-windows-7/ but does not use your tools. All native.

Then we have this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2876597/error-installing-windows-because-users-or-program-files-folder-redirected-to-another-partition This is why I never move the profiles.

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Answer
Probably Not What You Want To Hear...
May 16, 2017 7:39PM PDT

When such issues occur here, we start over. Make backups of all your important files and programs, then wipe the drive and reinstall Windows 10, plus drivers, plus all the programs and files.

The difficulty of re-positioning all profiles, files, system files, etc. after such a gaff makes any steps shakyt at best.. In addition, if you're wanting to move the main Users directory to a second hard drive, you'll want it done during the initial operating system install.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/949977/relocation-of-the-users-directory-and-the-programdata-directory-to-a-drive-other-than-the-drive-that-contains-the-windows-directory

Hope this helps.

Grif