Moving Photoshop from HDD to SSD

[Pooua]

I have Classic Photoshop 6 Suite installed on a partition on one of my hard drives. I recently bought and installed a new NVMe SSD and cloned my HDD boot partition onto my SSD. Now, I would like to move my Adobe software onto my SSD, too. As it stands, Photoshop is completely broken on my system when I boot from my SSD. The files on C: point to the wrong drive when I try to launch PS, and when I try launching PS directly from their installed folder, PS thinks I'm running a trial version. Any suggestions?

Message was edited by: Sahil Chawla

[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi there,

That sounds like s strange issue, let's make it right.

As you're using Photoshop CS6, could you please let us know if you're on the Admin user account?

Also, try setting up the correct scratch disk in Photoshop by following the steps mentioned here: Set up scratch disks in Photoshop

Regards,
Sahil

[Pooua]

Hello Sahil,

As running in Administrator mode compromises security, I usually don't run as Administrator on my PC. However, I can log in as Administrator if I need to do so.

I am unable to change the scratch disk settings because I cannot get Photoshop to launch at all.

I usually divide my physical drives into several partitions. I try to keep my boot partition free of anything except the OS and OS-related utilities. I put all of my document production software into its own partition, and I store data files in their own partitions (or, even their own dedicated drives). In the old days, this reduced fragmentation and also improved data reliability.

When I moved my System Reserved and Boot partitions onto my SSD using Macrium Reflect, I was able to boot from my SSD, but Adobe Photoshop stopped working. Of course, the shortcuts needed to be adjusted to point to the correct drives, but even when I did that, Photoshop launches into a screen that asks me to sign into my trial version of Photoshop. Note that I did not move my Photoshop software installation, other than the files that were installed with the OS and the Registry.

When I try signing into Adobe, it brings up a screen asking me if I want to turn on mobile device notifications. I do not want to have any notifications on my mobile device, but that option doesn't work on the Adobe screen. Clicking on the option to decline the offer does nothing.

I've tried using Macrium Reflect to clone the Adobe Photoshop partition, but when I try to restore that partition to the SSD, Reflect says that it needs to launch Windows PE and run the restore in Windows PE. I'm nervous that it's going overwrite the boot partition, even though I didn't tell it to copy the boot partition. Why does it need to run the restore in Windows PE?

[Peru Bob]

See if this helps:

https://www.tenforums.com/backup-restore/124587-macrium-reflect-error-while-cloning-disks.html

[Pooua]

The conversation confirms my fear that Reflect is trying to overwrite my boot partition. I have (or had) an empty 600 GB partition that I wanted it to use for the restore. I don't want it overwriting my boot partition. Just take my H: and put it on my E:. No Windows PE necessary!

[Pooua]

I did a simple file copy using Windows Explorer to copy all of my files from my H: to my E:. I figured this might work because it's just the registry that requires specific disk allocation. Then, I adjusted the Photoshop shortcuts to point to E:. At this point, Photoshop says that I have a 30-day free trial. So, I logged into my Adobe account and found my registered products. I copied my registered product number from my account and used it to re-activate Photoshop on my SSD. Adobe has always made it nice and easy for me to re-register my software, unlike the ordeal I had to go through to activate Microsoft Windows 10 when I moved it to my new SSD.

Sahil, that page you linked has a wrong path for setting the location of the scratch files in Adobe Photoshop CS6. The correct path is Edit > Preferences > Performance .

[D Fosse]

You can't "clone" or "move" an application like Photoshop. For one thing, it breaks activation as you discovered. And it's not just program files - it's also registry entries that need to be updated in the system. It's a whole hidden ecosystem.

In short - deactivate the old one, then reinstall the application on the new drive.

I've changed system drives numerous times, but I wouldn't dream of anything other than a full reinstall of everything. While cloning may sound like a simple solution, it's always risky.

[Guest]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/D+Fosse  wrote

I've changed system drives numerous times, but I wouldn't dream of anything other than a full reinstall of everything. While cloning may sound like a simple solution, it's always risky.

Any time I change a system drive I always create an image backup using Macrium Reflect, then it's just a matter of installing the new drive and restoring the image from the backup, works every time and no reinstalling to do, restore only takes about 10 minutes

[D Fosse]

OK, people always keep telling me I'm conservative... (...not politically, mind you, but when it comes to computers I tend to err on the cautious side).