I’m trying to move the cache for Opera and Chrome off or C: to Y: my temp partition.

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I’m trying to make a symbolic link and nothing seems to work. I’ve tried with the folder already on Y: and without. If it isn’t there I get an error message “The system cannot find the path specified.” if the folder is there I get “Cannot create a file when that file already exists.” I even get the Cannot create message when the folder isn’t there. The second jpg shows the Y:Temp with any Opera folder.

What am I doing wrong?

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You’ve got the link and target the wrong way round

try mklink /D y:newlinkname c:existingfoldername

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This is what I tried for an exist folder:

mklink /D “C:UsersMarcAppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataDefaultCache
” “Y:ChromeCache”

You suggested that I change it to:

mklink /D “Y:ChromeCache” “Y:ChromeCacheC:UsersMarcAppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataDefaultCache”

I get the “Cannot create a file” message.

When I try it with no folder:

mklink /D “C:UsersMarcAppDataLocalOpera SoftwareOpera Stable” “Y:Opera_cacheOpera Stable”

You suggested that I change it to:

mklink /D “Y:Opera_cacheOpera Stable” “C:UsersMarcAppDataLocalOpera SoftwareOpera Stable”

I still get “The system cannot find path” message.

46614-Symbloic-Link-Error_4

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This is what I tried for an exist folder:

mklink /D “C:UsersMarcAppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataDefaultCache
” “Y:ChromeCache”

Doesn’t C:UsersMarcAppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataDefaultCache already exist?

That’s where you’re trying to put the link, so you get “Cannot create … already exists”.

So delete the Cache subfolder first. (Move contents to Y:ChromeCache?)

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I also got it the wrong way round 😮

BruceR has it right.

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So I moved the files to “Y:” and deleted then from “C:”. On “Y: I have Y:Opera_CacheOpera StableCache” and “Media Cache” and on “C:” I’m down to “C:UsersMarcAppDataLocalOpera Software” and I still get the “Cannot create a file” message.

46615-Symbloic-Link-Error_5

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As far as I can see, Browni is right in #2. The first directory mentioned is the new link, the second is where it’s linking to. So to create a link to y:chromecache from the c:appdata folder, y:chromecache needs to be before c:appdata. Obviously, if you’re creating a link to the appdata folder then they need to be swapped. But the first folder mustn’t exist.

See mklink help. You could Google mklink for other explanations and examples – it isn’t particularly intuitive!

Just to test I’ve tried it and it works fine, this is the command I used

Code:

mklink /D C:UsersfolderOneDrivephotos2016-10_750_0014 “E:folderPicturesCameraNikonNikon_7502016-10_750_0014”

This has created C:UsersfolderOneDrivephotos2016-10_750_0014 and the contents using the dir command are the contents of E:folderPicturesCameraNikonNikon_7502016-10_750_0014 as expected

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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The first directory mentioned is the new link, the second is where it’s linking to. So to create a link to y:chromecache from the c:appdata folder, y:chromecache needs to be before c:appdata.

If the second is where it’s linking TO, then to create a link TO y:chromecache it needs to be second.

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Sorry Bruce, I’m explaining badly. The first parameter needs to be the new link, the second is what it’s connected to. In my example, e:/folder etc already exists. C:usersfolder etc doesn’t. What I’m not sure about is which way Chec Mark is going; does y: exist or C:? In his attachment in #1, C: should be the link, and it shouldn’t exist, Y: should exist. But is this what he wanted?

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I also see that there aren’t any quotation marks around the first link eg Y:Opera_cacheOpera Stable, Y:ChromeCache.

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I removed the quotation marks from the first expression and it worked.

Thanks

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