Hey guys,

I need to do a repartition of my hard drive on my Macbook Pro.

Since the hardware is not changing (hence the ID not changing), can I just move my sample library to an external, repartition the drive, then move the library back? The drive names will stay the same, I just want to redo how much space is on each drive.

Any help would be great, thanks!

Hi Ralph,

I have recently reformatted 3 times, due to a HD failure, followed by a bad replacement HD, then finally a 3rd (hopefully working HD). In every case, I have re-installed the complete VDL package and re-registed through the NI service center with no issues. I have re-installed multiple NI based libraries from scratch with no issues.

NI appear to have removed the de-authorize function that was there in the past and officially still only support 2 registered instances. To me, it looks like the old registration is simply over written.

Regards

Derek

Hi Ralph - as Derek pointed out, you should be safe in relocating your library, then moving it back. System ID's and authorizations are stored in certain preference files rather than the library itself. If for some reason you have a problem with the System ID changing, and your authorization failing, I would recommend you re-run the authorization from Service Center and it should work fine. Worst case scenario is that you'd have to just reinstall the library. Other than downloading and running the library maintenance updates, this doesn't take all the much more time than a drive swap.

While NI doesn't make you jump through the de-authorization hoops any more, the number of authorizations and System ID information is still maintained and monitored. So to avoid any potential holdups, it's advisable not to do this every week if you can help it. ;)

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm just thinking of ALL THE SOFTWARE I would have to reinstall from disks, then update, then get my preferences up again (VDL, Sib, Logic, Office, Photoshop...ugh...).

Thanks again!

This may be a bit overkill, but whenever I format my drive I make a backup of the following...

System -> Library -> application support
    ";      ->    ";      -> Preferences

User -> Library -> application support
  ";    ->    ";      -> Preferences

Then I scroll around and make sure my favorite programs don't have any other folders in the Libraries either. This has saved my tail quite a number of times since applications tend to store weird stuff in the library. For example, your IM program may store your conversations in the documents folder, but Mail stores your e-mails in the library.