Installing addon scenery on a seperate drive?

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Thanks Wayne I'll check it out after work of course lol

[ArjenVdv 190]

Ok, I just downloaded and tried Junction Link Magic, and so far I think it works great! I had to do a bit of reading at first because I didn't entirely understand on how to use it but here's what I did:

 

In the .htm file in the JLM install folder it says that the folder you want to create a junction of (host folder), must be made completely empty, and only then it will work. But first, you've got to copy the folder you want to create a junction of, to wherever you want to have it, in my case on my other HDD (Drive E). In this case I was working with Aerosoft Approaching Innsbruck so I copied the Approaching LOWI X folder from D:/FSX/Aerosoft to E:/Addon scenery. Then I emptied the Aerosoft LOWI X folder (in the D:FSX/Aerosoft folder) but left the empty folder itself there of course. Then I fired up JLM and set the D:/FSX/Aerosoft/Approaching LOWI X as the host folder, and set E:/Addon scenery/Approaching LOWI X as the destination (target) folder. Now I checked my main FSX folder and of course I had like 500 MB more space. A small arrow icon now appeared on the D:/Approaching LOWI X folder, indicating that it works. So I fired up FSX and the scenery was there just fine. Tried with Aerosoft EHAM and also worked the same.

 

Great solution! Thanks a lot!

[dolph98 24]

The Junction in Windows 7 works like a champ. After my endeavor (related in the above mentioned link) I ended up using junctions and successfully moved myTrafficX to another drive freeing up a bunch of space. But since then I have purchased a 240GB SSD to add to my 120GB SSD so now everything is on the 240 which is dedicated to FSX, add-ons and some utils that take time to copy files such as REX.

All other utils are on a mechanical drive.

I never tried the Junction Link Magic software but I'm sure if I ever need to use junctions again, it isn't that hard and I won't need to spend money. It really isn't that scary, you don't delete the original folders (just rename them) until you're sure the move worked successfully. The method is simple:

 

To use a symbolic link to store scenery on a different drive:

1) Copy the unwanted directory from the SSD to a Hard Drive using copy and paste or the usual Windows Explorer method

2) Rename the original directory on the SSD.

3) In a DOS window, enter "mklink /J "FOLDER_NAME" "E:\FOLDER_NAME"" (Note the outside quotes are mine and not necessary)

 

To remove the symbolic link:

For links to files:

del linkName

For links to directories:

rmdir linkName

 

This works for any addon as far as I know, and FSX can find it.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Thanks Guys :drinks:

[tipitout 5]

Thanks to the OP and all the contributors. I never knew about any of this until reading this thread. Now I have just freed up a whole bunch of space by using Junction Link Magic.

 

I have two questions for those suitably knowledgeable.

 

First, I do not see any special file in the original folder (as mentioned in post #9 by J van E) after creating the junction link with JLM. What I do see is the arrow symbol on the file icon in windows explorer, and the linked files and folders when I open the original folder (which do not show here if I delete the link). I have Win 7 64 bit set up to show both hidden files and folders, and protected operating system files. Should I be seeing any special file after using JLM as opposed to the manual method? Or at all, regardless of the method?

 

Second, the following paragraph from the JLM help document has me a bit worried:

 

"If a junction point is mounted such that the target folder and host folder are on different physical disk resources, the resources must be in the same cluster group. The physical disk resource that contains the host folder should be dependent on the physical disk resource that contains the target folder. If the drive that contains the target folder does not come online, the drive that contains the host folder does not start."

 

That last sentence in particular is what I am talking about. The original folder is in my main FSX directory, which is on the same SSD drive © as Windows 7. The new destination folder is on another SSD (drive K). Does this mean that if the "K" SSD fails, then this somehow stops my "C" drive (and Windows 7) from loading? I certainly hope not.