Make it very obvious to the new people that the Bitcoin Core program first needs to be installed and run on the “C” drive. #28268

1. 
   Rlavington commented at 5:06 am on August 14, 2023: none

   Issues, reports or feature requests related to the GUI should be opened directly on the GUI repo

   • I still think this issue should be opened here

   Report

   Hello developers,

   I know that you probably think that this is so obvious and basic but it needs to be said.

   When a new person wants to run a full BTC node on their computer for the first time can you make it very obvious to that person that the Bitcoin Core program needs to be downloaded and installed onto their “C” drive of their computer first.

   Then that person will have the ability to sync up and store the BTC blockchain to what every drive they intend, whether that be the “D” drive of their computer or an external HDD or SSD so that they can carry around the node with them.

   The problem i had was that i had downloaded and installed the Bitcoin Core program onto an external HDD, then i plugged that external HDD into my laptop thinking that it would just carry on syncing up, it did not because the Bitcoin Core program needs to be already installed on to the C drive of the laptop first, then i would need to point the program as to where it needs to sync up the data to (in this case my external HDD or that I’m not using up all of the space on the laptop).

   Thanks !

2. Rlavington added the label GUI on Aug 14, 2023
3. 
   samyan commented at 8:34 am on August 14, 2023: none

   Anyways you can install the program in C and put the node database in other drive.
4. 
   MarcoFalke commented at 8:53 am on August 14, 2023: member

   Usually the issue tracker is used to track technical issues related to the Bitcoin Core code base. General bitcoin questions and/or support requests are best directed to the Bitcoin StackExchange or the #bitcoin IRC channel on Libera Chat.
5. MarcoFalke removed the label GUI on Aug 14, 2023
6. MarcoFalke added the label Docs on Aug 14, 2023
7. MarcoFalke added the label Questions and Help on Aug 14, 2023
8. 
   Rlavington commented at 9:13 am on August 14, 2023: none

   Anyways you can install the program in C and put the node database in other drive.

   That’s exactly what I do. Because I don’t want to use up all of the space on my computer’s hard drive.

   Untill the price of SSDs come down, I will upgrade.

9. 
   MarcoFalke commented at 9:18 am on August 14, 2023: member

   I guess your issue is about the GUI choose-direcory dialog? If yes, mind creating an issue in the GUI repo? Or even better, a pull request with your suggested changes?
10. 
    hebasto commented at 4:15 pm on August 14, 2023: member

    I guess your issue is about the GUI choose-direcory dialog?

    FWIW, this dialog is enabled by default during the first run of the Bitcoin Core GUI.

11. 
    Rlavington commented at 0:17 am on August 15, 2023: none

    I guess your issue is about the GUI choose-direcory dialog?

    FWIW, this dialog is enabled by default during the first run of the Bitcoin Core GUI.

    Yes, it does. However, I made the mistake of having the Bitcoin core Program on the portable HDD itself.

    When it should have been on the “C” drive of the computer, along with the OS as well.

    Then I have the option of syncing the Bitcoin Blocks onto another drive so that I’m not using up all of the space on the “C” drive.

    Until i get a bigger “C” (like a 1 terabyte SSD), then I will not have this problem of having to store the Blocks in a different place.

    Thanks for your help.

12. 
    russeree commented at 0:59 am on August 15, 2023: contributor

    Yes, it does. However, I made the mistake of having the Bitcoin core Program on the portable HDD itself.

    Bitcoin Core was still able to run from your external HDD/SSD correct?

13. 
    Rlavington commented at 2:34 am on August 15, 2023: none

    Yes, it does. However, I made the mistake of having the Bitcoin core Program on the portable HDD itself.

    Bitcoin Core was still able to run from your external HDD/SSD correct?

    It was able to run yes.

    However, it kept on wanting to re-sync up again from 0.0%

    Even when the full block file of 530gb was already on the HDD.

    It was as if it wasn’t detecting that the full Bitcoin Blockchain was already there on the HDD.

    But when I installed the Bitcoin Core program on to the “C” drive. Then told it where it should write the new Bitcoin Data it then started at 95% synced, and followed further with 100% synced.

    Problems solved.

14. 
    russeree commented at 2:50 am on August 15, 2023: contributor

    So the issue originates with the default search location for the bitcoin.conf file. That file likely didn’t contain the datadir flag when it was first installed to the external drive. By reinstalling to C: you triggered the prompt that requests location of the datadir and then writes that to bitcoin.conf after the confirm. As such after completing the dialog the location of your blocks was stored.

    See this wiki about the bitcoin data directory

    As a test could you reinstall to the external drive in a fresh directory and let me know if the data directory popup shows on the first launch?

15. 
    willcl-ark commented at 3:51 pm on September 21, 2023: contributor

    Your issue seems out of scope for the bitcoin core codebase, see StackExchange for help with usage.
16. willcl-ark closed this on Sep 21, 2023

    ---

Contributors
Rlavington samyan MarcoFalke hebasto russeree willcl-ark

Labels
Docs Questions and Help