HELP!! I tried to move my Cakewalk to my D Drive! But now nothing works!!

[Alicia Anthony]

I'm a DAW newbie. I was doing really well, though, with Cakewalk until I started running out of space on my C drive (SSD, configured with only 125G of space). I've been struggling with space for a while and then today I couldn't even download a track so I could upload it to Cakewalk.

I had initially put everything on my D drive because my C drive was so small. But apparently some things in Cakewalk go to my C drive by default. I carefully copied the Cakewalk folder and put it in my D drive.  I also copied it to my external hard drive. I thought I'd be protected if I deleted it from my C drive. Apparently not! I also apparently deleted the Cakewalk shortcut from my desktop. So, of course, Cakewalk now won't open.

The folder is just as I copied it in two places, but not on my C drive. I tried to copy it back to my C drive, but the 1G+ I received by deleting it is now gone! So I don't have enough space to put the folder back!

Can this be fixed? What I would like to do is put EVERYTHING  on another drive so I can continue with my projects with my co-writers. Is that possible? I don't see how I can get enough space on my C drive to move the file back.

I'm afraid I've lost all of my tracks and vocals stems. Please help! Thanks!

A. Anthony

[Colin Nicholls]

Take a deep breath. Most likely your project files are intact.

By default, you would have had:

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\*
C:\Cakewalk Content\*
C:\Cakewalk Projects\*

Did you copy all three folders? Did you delete the originals? Could they still be in your recycle bin?

[John Vere]

If it were me I would simply reinstall Cakewalk to your C drive which is were it belongs. Once you have that sorted make sure you store your projects on the other drive. 
You should be fine as long as you don’t store any data to the C drive. Just use it for the Software. 

[Alicia Anthony]

9 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Take a deep breath. Most likely your project files are intact.

By default, you would have had:

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\*
C:\Cakewalk Content\*
C:\Cakewalk Projects\*

Did you copy all three folders? Did you delete the originals? Could they still be in your recycle bin?

Thank you, Colin! Ok, breathing deeply.

1. The folder I believe I copied was C:\ProgramFiles\Cakewalk\*. It was the only folder I saw on the C drive. (It was in the ProgramFiles folder.) It was around 1.5g, so I was trying to move it to the D drive.

2.  Oh, yes! C:\Cakewalk Content\* is still there! Guess I was just focused on the ProgramFiles folder to make more room..

3. C:\CakewalkProjects\* is on my D drive with most of my Cakewalk stuff. Oddly, it's empty. Maybe because of what I deleted?

So I still have all three folders. I just don't have the ProgramFiles/Cakewalk folder on my C drive. I have two copies on my D drive and on my external hard drive.

When I try to open Cakewalk from the Bandlab assistant, it now doesn't work.

Note: I also have the Adobe Creative Suite and that takes up so much of the 117g I had available on my C drive/SSD.

My available space after deleting the #1 folder was about 1.3g. I'm now down to 197g even after cleaning out temp, %temp%, and prefetch yet again. So I can't move the #1 folder back to my C drive.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Alicia

 

[Alicia Anthony]

4 hours ago, John Vere said:

If it were me I would simply reinstall Cakewalk to your C drive which is were it belongs. Once you have that sorted make sure you store your projects on the other drive. 
You should be fine as long as you don’t store any data to the C drive. Just use it for the Software. 

Thanks so much, John! I thought about that. I was afraid I would lose my projects. But now I can't reinstall it because I am back to where I started when I tried to make space--I'm currently down to 197mb. (I initially had about 1.3g after deleting the folder.) So I don't have enough space for anything.

I wouldn't have done what I did if I had known I wouldn't gain any extra space from Ccleaner.  My ProgramFiles/Cakewalk folder was at least 1.5g, so I had been looking at it re: what I could do to make more space.

I have a Dell Alienware and have zero problems except re: space. I took it to a service place last week and the estimate was about $500 to give me a 1tb SSD C drive. (This was my first time with an SSD and I didn't realize until too late to return the system that I had a tiny C drive. I always struggle for space, but now things aren't working. I can't even open Photoshop and Illustrator, forget about updates.) I don't have the money now, so I was trying to buy some time. Today I couldn't even download a track from my co-writer. That's what precipitated this wrong move.

Argh!

Alicia

[Xoo]

2 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

your windows user folders (documents, music, videos, etc) also default to c drive, you might make more space moving those to d drive:

Good idea: and Windows does this "natively" (within File Explorer), so no need to go fiddling around with command prompt or similar.

[Alicia Anthony]

4 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

your windows user folders (documents, music, videos, etc) also default to c drive, you might make more space moving those to d drive:

 

good luck!

Thanks, Pwalpwal! Yes, as soon as I realized the problem, I put everything I could on my D drive including My Documents Adobe CC, videos, etc. So pretty much the only things that go to my C drive are the things that go automatically. That's the only way I could have survived almost 4 years with only 117g actual space.

So now I just don't know what's safe to delete considering there's so little movable there.

Alicia

[John Vere]

I know this is sort of obvious but I have done this myself-- Make sure to empty your recycle bin. Until you do you don't gain any space. 

My Wife's laptop has a 120 GB drive and we are forever moving stuff, in her case it's always pictures and movies. You really get a performance hit if your maxing out capacity. You want a 120 GB drive at below 80 GB , 60 would be ideal. 

Cakewalk software doesn't take up much room. But if the sample libraries end up in C drive they are the biggest part of the storage. I just checked and my Cakewalk Content folder is 4.4 GB mostly this looks like it's Rapture Pro which I never got around to moving. 

I would consider getting a bigger drive put in there for sure. 

You can even do this yourself and start a thread here in the computer sub forum and we can guide you through the steps. It's actually easy to do on a laptop. The time consuming part is re installing software but if you don't have a lot of apps this is no big deal. I rebuilt 3 computer over the last year or so. What's cool now is Windows 10 uses a computer ID system so you don't even need a windows key anymore. It automatically activates on it's own.  

 

[Xoo]

And also run Disk Cleanup tool - there's quite likely gigabytes of Windows updates lurking around (cleanmgr).  For what it's worth, my C drive partition is only 64GB, and I currently have over 40GB free on it.  That's by ensuring I have large libraries, documents, samples etc on other drives/partitions (I can't be bothered to move a library of a few megabytes!) and keeping temp folders and the like clean.

One of the biggest disk space suckers is C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download which doesn't seem to get cleaned up by the Disk Cleanup tool (my work machine has 600MB in it, and I've seen it have several GB after a Windows update).

[Alicia Anthony]

30 minutes ago, John Vere said:

I know this is sort of obvious but I have done this myself-- Make sure to empty your recycle bin. Until you do you don't gain any space. 

My Wife's laptop has a 120 GB drive and we are forever moving stuff, in her case it's always pictures and movies. You really get a performance hit if your maxing out capacity. You want a 120 GB drive at below 80 GB , 60 would be ideal. 

Cakewalk software doesn't take up much room. But if the sample libraries end up in C drive they are the biggest part of the storage. I just checked and my Cakewalk Content folder is 4.4 GB mostly this looks like it's Rapture Pro which I never got around to moving. 

I would consider getting a bigger drive put in there for sure. 

You can even do this yourself and start a thread here in the computer sub forum and we can guide you through the steps. It's actually easy to do on a laptop. The time consuming part is re installing software but if you don't have a lot of apps this is no big deal. I rebuilt 3 computer over the last year or so. What's cool now is Windows 10 uses a computer ID system so you don't even need a windows key anymore. It automatically activates on it's own.  

 

Thanks a lot, John! Yes! I keep my Recycle Bin clean. LOL! And when I do Disk Cleanup, I usually only gain a some megabytes. Frustrating! I've been cleaning out my temp, %temp%, and prefetch several times per day in order to try to keep things working. But lately it's just not enough. Things don't work too badly if I have between 600mb-1g. But I don't think I'm getting Windows updates now. And I definitely can't use Adobe stuff.

Wow! Your wife and I are in the same boat! But I have none of those things on my C drive. I think it's Adobe taking up all of the space even though I have as much Adobe on my D drive as possible. I can't even open Photoshop because it says the scratch disks are full--and even though I had changed the scratch disks to my D drive a while ago.

You know, I looked in my C drive this morning and now I have all three folders you mentioned. Maybe the one I moved started being regenerated? Instead of 1.5g, it's just about 40mb. That gave me a glimmer of hope though. But I don't know. When I tried again to open Cakewalk through the BandLab assistant, I get this message:

"Access Error: BandLab assistant can not open C:\ProgramFiles\Cakewalk/Cakewalk Core\Cakewalk.exe. Try to run app as an administrator."

So I'm wondering if there's something I can do here.

But, yes, I know I need a bigger drive. The $500 estimate for service and a 1T SSD was the drawback. So I was hoping I'd get a big space boost after the next Windows update. But I don't think Windows can even update now.

Really? That's great! Thanks so much! I was a little scared to try to do it myself. I actually bought a 1T hard drive for my C drive when I didn't realize my C drive was an SSD. I still have it, but figured it wouldn't work after I saw the C was an SSD.

So I'll call Dell and find out what SSD to get and how much it will cost. Then hopefully I can also ask how to get Cakewalk working again. I'm not sure just moving the folder back will take care of things.

Thanks again, John! I'll definitely need the help! And, yeah, reinstalling software is scary.

Alicia

[Alicia Anthony]

26 minutes ago, Kevin Perry said:

And also run Disk Cleanup tool - there's quite likely gigabytes of Windows updates lurking around (cleanmgr).  For what it's worth, my C drive partition is only 64GB, and I currently have over 40GB free on it.  That's by ensuring I have large libraries, documents, samples etc on other drives/partitions (I can't be bothered to move a library of a few megabytes!) and keeping temp folders and the like clean.

One of the biggest disk space suckers is C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download which doesn't seem to get cleaned up by the Disk Cleanup tool (my work machine has 600MB in it, and I've seen it have several GB after a Windows update).

Thanks, Kevin! Yep, ran Disk Cleanup yesterday. Don't even think I gained 100mb and that's the way it's been for a while. Gone are the days when I'd get rid of 1G or more.

Wow! I don't know how you do it! But really I think it's Adobe CC. No matter how much I have on my D drive, some stuff just automatically goes to my C drive. And I'm not sure what I can safely delete.

Yeah, I noticed I'd get a boost after a Windows update! Hopefully there will be enough space for an update to go through soon. I got a message that the update couldn't happen.

Thanks again! I think I'm going to have to do as John says and then ask you all for guidance.

Alicia

[Alicia Anthony]

UPDATE: I just found some directions re: how to safely uninstall some older versions of Adobe CC apps! I tried it with a few things I don't use much: old Media Encoder and old After Effects. I actually gained about 1G!

So now I've moved the folder I deleted back to my C Drive! OMG! My Cakewalk is back!!!!

Thanks so much to all who replied! This helped me figure out some options!

I know this is just a short-term fix, but it looks like all of my tracks are back and everything!

I'll definitely post again when I get my bigger SSD C drive and look forward to your help installing it and reinstalling the software!

Thanks again!

Alicia

[scook]

The best way to move programs is reinstall. Most programs (especially ones with installers) write into the registry. Cakewalk is no exception. There are numerous entries containing paths. Moving the program without updating the registry causes the program to fail because the paths in the registry are all wrong.

There is a clean install process for Cakewalk that will allow you to reinstall the program and, if desired, install it in an alternate location.

This does not affect projects.

Of course, for the uninstall process to work, the program must be where it was originally installed.

 

If you prefer, you can try directory junctions.

After disk cleanup they are your best friend when it comes to freeing up space on a drive.

They allow you to move folders to different drive but the OS and programs still believe they are in their original location.

Read up on the DOS utility mklink with switch /j

I can help with specifics if necessary.

WRT Cakewalk. while I would not move the program folder, it should be possible.

Try using directory junctions to create the links back on the system drive. For example, if the "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk" folder was moved to "D:\Program Files\Cakewalk" open a command window as administrator and type

mklink /j "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk" "D:\Program Files\Cakewalk"

 

[Xoo]

7 minutes ago, Alicia Anthony said:

Thanks, Kevin! Yep, ran Disk Cleanup yesterday. Don't even think I gained 100mb and that's the way it's been for a while. Gone are the days when I'd get rid of 1G or more.

Wow! I don't know how you do it! But really I think it's Adobe CC. No matter how much I have on my D drive, some stuff just automatically goes to my C drive. And I'm not sure what I can safely delete.

Yeah, I noticed I'd get a boost after a Windows update! Hopefully there will be enough space for an update to go through soon. I got a message that the update couldn't happen.

Thanks again! I think I'm going to have to do as John says and then ask you all for guidance.

Alicia

Did you get it to "Clean up system files" too?  It often shows more to clean than it actually does end up cleaning (I have no idea why - it lied to me about 340MB just now ?), but it seems to be in "system files" that the big disk gobblers live, if anywhere.

The other suggestion is to use junctions to move things you can't move (like Adobe CC) - I use a tool that integrates into explorer (https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html) but there are command line tools in Windows that can do the same.

- Find the big bad folder on C drive (let's say it's C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC

- Create the same folder on D drive - D:\Adobe CC

- Copy the contents of C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC to ?\Adobe CC

- Delete C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC

- Assuming you're using that tool, right click on D:\Adobe CC, and "Pick Link Source"

- Go to C:\ProgramData

- Right click and "Drop As..." - I usually use Symbolic Link rather than Junction, but both should be fine

[John Vere]

https://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-Internal-MZ-77E500B-AM-Version/dp/B08QBMD6P4/ref=asc_df_B08QBMD6P4/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459592838100&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2550236935566703888&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1001901&hvtargid=pla-1148927274600&psc=1

A 500 GB SSD drive is well under $100 these days. All you need is a small screw driver. Swapping out the drive is pretty easy. The $500 must have included complete back up and cloning etc. 

 

[Alicia Anthony]

On 6/22/2021 at 12:12 PM, scook said:

The best way to move programs is reinstall. Most programs (especially ones with installers) write into the registry. Cakewalk is no exception. There are numerous entries containing paths. Moving the program without updating the registry causes the program to fail because the paths in the registry are all wrong.

There is a clean install process for Cakewalk that will allow you to reinstall the program and, if desired, install it in an alternate location.

This does not affect projects.

Of course, for the uninstall process to work, the program must be where it was originally installed.

 

If you prefer, you can try directory junctions.

After disk cleanup they are your best friend when it comes to freeing up space on a drive.

They allow you to move folders to different drive but the OS and programs still believe they are in their original location.

Read up on the DOS utility mklink with switch /j

I can help with specifics if necessary.

WRT Cakewalk. while I would not move the program folder, it should be possible.

Try using directory junctions to create the links back on the system drive. For example, if the "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk" folder was moved to "D:\Program Files\Cakewalk" open a command window as administrator and type

mklink /j "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk" "D:\Program Files\Cakewalk"

 

Thanks so much, Scook! I'll look into this.

Alicia

[Alicia Anthony]

On 6/22/2021 at 12:16 PM, Kevin Perry said:

Did you get it to "Clean up system files" too?  It often shows more to clean than it actually does end up cleaning (I have no idea why - it lied to me about 340MB just now ?), but it seems to be in "system files" that the big disk gobblers live, if anywhere.

The other suggestion is to use junctions to move things you can't move (like Adobe CC) - I use a tool that integrates into explorer (https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html) but there are command line tools in Windows that can do the same.

- Find the big bad folder on C drive (let's say it's C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC

- Create the same folder on D drive - D:\Adobe CC

- Copy the contents of C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC to ?\Adobe CC

- Delete C:\ProgramData\Adobe CC

- Assuming you're using that tool, right click on D:\Adobe CC, and "Pick Link Source"

- Go to C:\ProgramData

- Right click and "Drop As..." - I usually use Symbolic Link rather than Junction, but both should be fine

Thanks, Kevin! I have to try this! You guys are great! I didn't know any of this extra stuff.

Alicia

[Alicia Anthony]

On 6/22/2021 at 12:22 PM, pwalpwal said:

i suspect you have shares in directory junctions  ?

Thanks a lot, Pwalpwal! I knew nothing about directory junctions. I've searched YT for years re: how to deep clean out my C drive and never heard of this.

Alicia

[Alicia Anthony]

23 hours ago, John Vere said:

https://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-Internal-MZ-77E500B-AM-Version/dp/B08QBMD6P4/ref=asc_df_B08QBMD6P4/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459592838100&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2550236935566703888&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1001901&hvtargid=pla-1148927274600&psc=1

A 500 GB SSD drive is well under $100 these days. All you need is a small screw driver. Swapping out the drive is pretty easy. The $500 must have included complete back up and cloning etc. 

 

Thanks, John! Well, the guy said that Alienware stuff was mIore expensive. But, yeah, that included service fees. I was desperate, so I would've gladly paid it if I had it. But I'm glad waited until I was even more desperate and found you all!

I'll see how long I can go now before getting a new one. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Alicia