How Do I transfer installed files?

Question Right now I have two hard drives one Kingston 120 SSD and one Hp Pavillion 500 GB hard drive. All of my files are installed on the SSD and it takes up about 50 GB. Since it's slowing down due to the several programs adding up. I want to transfer the larger installed files to the other hard drive. Is that possible? If it isn't I already made a back up file and system image on the 500 GB hard drive. Option two is to format the ssd and install the back up and the system image. Is that also possible. I don't want to start from scratch just yet. So what is my best course of action?

 

The OS is Windows 7 Home Premium

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who helps!  

Yes ! It is possible. You can copy/move your files from your SSD to whatever drive you choose, then create a J-Link (junction link a.k.a. hard link) at the previous location pointing to your new location.

You can do this simply with a program called Junction Link Magic (http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm).

Learning about j-links can give you freedoms in file management in Windoze that you never had before. A perfect example use of this is Google Earth. Google does not (or at least didn't) allow you to choose a location to install it. G.E. takes up a lot of space which you either may not have or may not want to use on your SSD. The solution  is to install it as normal, move the installation folder to whatever drive (and location on that drive) that you want, then create a j-link in the former location with the same name as the folder, pointing to the new location you moved it to.


I have used this many times when changing my computer or drive setup. If you are interested, I have used j-links in conjunction with a program called Folder Drive which allows you to create virtual drives from any folders that you want.