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I have a Samsung Slate 7 tablet with (now) Windows 8 on it. This machine has a 64 Gb SSD and I have a 64 Gb MicroSD card in it. I also have a Skydrive on my main Microsoft ID that contains about 45 Gb of content. With Windows and some development stuff installed, my Skydrive will not fit on the main drive of the tablet. (Besides, my idea was to keep data on the memory card anyway, to make it easier to repave the machine without data loss if need be.)

My problem should now be clear: I want to install the Skydrive desktop app to sync my Skydrive to the MicroSD card. This is not possible, as Skydrive does not allow syncing files to removable drives.

I have tried a number of things already, but none of them worked:

  1. Use the mklink command line tool to create a directory link/junction from a folder name on SSD to a folder on the MicroSD and then try to install Skydrive sync to the SSD link folder. Skydrive however still recognizes this as something it does not want to sync onto.

  2. The various different filter drivers mentioned on Agnipulse (including the Hitachi one) that should make windows see some or all of the removable drives in the system as fixed drives do not seem work on (64-bit) Windows 8: they either can't be installed, do nothing and/or cause Windows 8 to go into Automatic Repair mode when rebooting.

  3. The Lexar BootIt app seems to be meant to flip the relevant bit in the on-board drive controller of supported USB pen drives, but I tried it anyway. Of course it did nothing to how the MicroSD card was seen.

I have now run out of ideas, it seems, and I was wondering if anyone here has a solution to let Windows 8 see the MicroSD memory card in my tablet as a fixed drive instead of removable drive, or some other way of getting the Skydrive desktop to sync my Skydrive data to that MicroSD card.

Off topic extra information, not of real relevance to this question: another solution could be the selective sync functionality that the Skydrive desktop app has gotten since I asked this question: then I might sync everything to my tablet but my image and music folders which take up the most space and also be done with it. The original question still stands, though.

And to be complete: this is not a duplicate question of this or this as those ask about getting USB drives multiple partitions to work on Windows XP. This question is specific about getting desktop Skydrive to sync to MicroSD card in Windows 8, which seems to be a question I have not seen on superuser so far.

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  • It does work for dropbox on windows 8
    – user168181
    Oct 27, 2012 at 12:04

1 Answer 1

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I'm pleased to mention that @sstranger supplied me with the miracle cure:

  1. Format the MicroSD card as NTFS (otherwise this method will not work).
  2. Create a D:\Skydrive folder on the MicroSD.
  3. Create a mount point for the MicroSD drive to C:\Data on the fixed drive.
  4. Install Skydrive Desktop and supply C:\Data\Skydrive as the skydrive folder.
  5. Watch Skydrive "fill both folders" with you Skydrive cloud data.
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  • It seems that, while this works with Skydrive (at the moment), it doesn't with Dropbox (which will still complain that the entered folder is on removable media).
    – peSHIr
    Sep 10, 2012 at 14:49
  • Also, Skydrive on Windows 8.1 seems to do selective syncing (making content available only online or also offline). I need to investigate, but this might negate my whole reason for asking this. If true, I could just let Skydrive do it's thing on my C: drive and free the D: space completely. No more hoops to jump through on a space limited Windows 8.1 Pro tablet with ony 64 Gb on the main C: drive.
    – peSHIr
    Oct 19, 2013 at 10:21
  • Unfortunately, the "smart file" synching in Windows 8.1 OneDrive (new SkyDrive name) seems not to be doing what it promises. Even though all files are set to "online only", my approximately 46 Gb OneDrive data takes 46 Gb on my C: drive, making it almost impossible to use the tablet. No more sync options to exclude large folders I don't need there. This sucks. Still need to try out the "Move folder" option. Hope it works to removable D: drive, but right now fear it won't...
    – peSHIr
    Apr 28, 2014 at 9:53
  • Move folder worked on my Windows 8.1 to move it all to SD card, als One Drive Business works fine with this solution.
    – SergeS
    May 8, 2014 at 10:55
  • +1 for step #1. A lot of online guides don't mention NTFS. With FAT32 I received 'This location cannot be indexed. Please choose a different location'
    – Rob
    Dec 29, 2014 at 18:19

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