[LE] \Data folder missing vital folders

[smedjtsix]

I bought the Anniversary Upgrade for Skyrim Special Edition a few months ago, having done the occasion dabble in mod creation for a few years, but I was frustrated that I seemingly couldn't unlock achievements in-game (I'm trying to unlock every one), so decided to redownload the game without making any backups.

 

However, I come back to do some modding, and I go to the \data folder and all the useful files (like textures, meshes and lodsettings to name a few) are no longer there.

 

I then disabled the Anniversary DLC in Steam and re-redownloaded the game; however, it didn't solve anything and the data folder is still missing those folders.

 

If anyone has any help/advice on what I could do to fix it I'd be greatly appreciative (Here's a screenshot of my data folder)

 

 

[greyday01]

Use BSA Browser to unpack the BSAs like Skyrim-Meshes0.bsa. You should find all the files packed inside the various BSAs. I would recommend copying the Data folder somewhere convenient and renaming it Data Unpacked. Then unpack the BSAs and the scripts zip folder there for reference. If you need some BSAs unpacked in the real Data folder, you can copy over any needed folders.

[Hanaisse]

You don't need all the loose folders and files in your Data folder. They are safely packed in their .bsa's and run by the game.

 

If you had folders before you probably had some mod that installed loose files. Perfectly ok too.

[greyday01]

You don't need all the loose folders and files in your Data folder. They are safely packed in their .bsa's and run by the game.

 

If you had folders before you probably had some mod that installed loose files. Perfectly ok too.

They don't need to be unpacked for playing, but for making mods it's sometimes helpful to have the unpacked folders available for browsing. But not in the Data folder itself. A folder on your desktop named Skyrim Unpacked or something.