[bOOzo]

I recently reformatted the HD and partitioned it to have the users on an other HD. I only read one comment on how to do it, so I followed that and changed the User path in NetInfo Manager.

So what I'm wondering now is this:

Is using the NetInfo Manager the best way to relocate the Users folder?

I put the user (max) directly on the root level of the drive, is that ok or does it have to stay in Partition/Users/Max? I tried moving it there, but then no Pref panes will load.

Please help me..

[Art Vandelay]

I've never done this myself. However, when you put partition/Users/Max as the path did you mean /Volumes/partition/Users/Max? If no, then that was your problem. The path to non-boot partitions is /Volumes/partitionname/

[barney ntd]

I have my Users on a different partition, but I didn't use netinfo. I just moved all my users to a partition called Users, and created a symbolic link at the root of my boot partition to this partition like this:

sudo cp -R /Users/* /Volumes/Users
sudo rm -R /Users
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users /Users

then run repair disk permissions (just in case!)
Everything works, and I've never had any trouble with it.

Barney.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay:
I've never done this myself. However, when you put partition/Users/Max as the path did you mean /Volumes/partition/Users/Max? If no, then that was your problem. The path to non-boot partitions is /Volumes/partitionname/

No, I just said that to clarify where I put it, but I guess I just made you confused instead..
I'm really a Terminal newbie, I can only follow instructions and check the top command.

I'll try the tip with the symlink and see if my pref panes will load again.

[bOOzo]

I got it to work.

I reverted my Netinfo Manager settings. Then I used SymbolicLinker 1.1 (a context menu) to make a sym link of my home directory and I placed it in my Users folder using Root.
My prefpanes would still not load though, so I just moved them out of the prefpane folder and back in again and they worked.

The problem that I thought might be fixed still exists though - Icy Juice crashes when it loads my user settings. I will try to revert to a previous version instead.

Thanks for the help.

[wadesworld]

Originally posted by barney ntd:
I have my Users on a different partition, but I didn't use netinfo. I just moved all my users to a partition called Users, and created a symbolic link at the root of my boot partition to this partition like this:

sudo cp -R /Users/* /Volumes/Users
sudo rm -R /Users
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users /Users

then run repair disk permissions (just in case!)
Everything works, and I've never had any trouble with it.

Barney.

I did the same thing and it works great.

Wade

[Sarc]

Full instructions ...

http://www.bombich.com/mactips/homedir.html

[Millennium]

Actually, for safety's sake it's probably better to use NetInfo. Apple's own Installer technology has a reputation for clobbering symlinks, and this can lead to problems if you end up running a poorly-done installer.

Homedir performance will also be slightly faster, because the OS won't have to resolve the symlink, but chances are you won't notice the speed gain unless you do thousands of operations within your homedir over the course of a few seconds (unlikely, unless you're backing stuff up)

[PubGuy]

I've done the same thing. Works great.

Special Note for users with a space in the drive name.

I wanted to move my Users directory to a drive called "Shared Data". Notice the space in the volume name. Here's what I did.

1) Go into NetInfoMgr, authenticate, and enable the Root User.
2) Lot out of your account and log in as Root.
3) Open terminal.
4) mv /Users /Users.old (case sensitive, this just preserves a copy of your existing Users directory on the Mac OS X volume).
5) ln -s /Volumes/Shared\ Data/Users /Users (notice that to make the command work with a space in the target volume name that you must include a "\" plus the space).
6) Ensure that the symbolic link "Users" was created on your boot partition (in my case, on the Mac OS X partition).
7) Log out of root and log in as you. The symbolic link is now owned by root. If you want, you can go back into NetInfoMgr to disable the Root user.

[Simon]

Originally posted by barney ntd:
I have my Users on a different partition, but I didn't use netinfo. I just moved all my users to a partition called Users, and created a symbolic link at the root of my boot partition to this partition like this:

sudo cp -R /Users/* /Volumes/Users
sudo rm -R /Users
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users /Users

Yeikkkkkks!

DON'T DO THAT.

As long as you are sitting in front of a Mac do not use cp. It will only copy the data fork of your documents meaning that you'll loose all the resource forks and the data in them. With some newer apps and their documents this is no problem (because they only have a data fork), but with older stuff (from the pre-OS X era) this can really screw you. I learned this the hard way and had to get everything from a backup drive manually when I screwed this up.

You can use the exact same technique, just use a

sudo ditto -rsrcFork -v

instead of the sudo cp. If you don't want all the feedback printed to your terminal drop the -v option.

ditto was written in order to retain all the data in the resource forks that we have on our Macs. Otherwise it works exactly like cp.