Adding a new hard drive and moving Skyrim onto it

[Drax8]

Greetings,

 

I am about to install a new hard drive (SSD) onto my computer as the current drive is just about full. I am only planning on moving Skyrim, Steam, NMM, and all mods to this drive for now.

 

I've never done something like this, my question is, is it difficult to do? How easy is it to miss something that needs to be moved over? If anyone has experience with this, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

What it comes down to is I want to move Skyrim and all associated files in mods and mod manager over and play from the new SSD.

 

Thanks in advance, happy gaming!

[fms1]

You will need to move your mods and uninstall Steam\ Skyrim from the current one. Then to be safe use CCleaner to remove all registry keys, and possibly a HDD sweeper\ cleaner to remove traces from your HDD (These are optional, but can save a lot of headaches). Then reinstall Steam\ Skyrim on the new one, and go from there. You can also get improved performance by running your OS from the SSD if it is a faster one than the previous one.

[Drax8]

Thanks for the reply, that helps quite a bit. Question, will I lose any current save games doing this?

[Tidus44]

It should not be a problem if you uninstall from one hard drive and reinstall on another, Steam and the game doesn't seem to care what the root drive letter is as far as I know (mine is K:\ not C:\).

 

I am a bit unsure about your use of the word "move" as dragging and dropping from one hard drive to another has some significant potential to cause problems for you down the road, if not immediately. There are a ton of files, registries, cabs, etc. that are set when software is installed that won't be looking to your new hard drive if you just copy/paste or drag/drop to the new hard drive.

 

I recommend you uninstall following the directions of either one of the two pages listed below, including clean the registry.

 

http://howto-uninstall.windowsuninstaller.org/how-to-uninstall-skyrim-skyrim-removal-guide/

http://uninstall-guides.specialuninstaller.com/uninstall-skyrim-remove-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/

 

Then uninstall Steam.

 

Then reinstall clean and new, Steam and the game to your new hard drive. Don't forget to defrag the new hard drive after.

[Drax8]

Thanks Tidus44, that makes perfect sense. One question I have though is regarding the NMM and all the mods I have. Do I need to uninstall/delete all of those, and reinstall them on the new HD? I do want those on the new HD as well. What it sounds like is I'm just going to have to bite the bullet, wipe everything out, and start completely over. Or am I wrong?

[fms1]

No that shouldn't be necessary if you know which files to transfer, sorry I can't be more specific here, but I haven't used NMM yet, but I do plan to very soon.

[Tidus44]

Thanks Tidus44, that makes perfect sense. One question I have though is regarding the NMM and all the mods I have. Do I need to uninstall/delete all of those, and reinstall them on the new HD? I do want those on the new HD as well. What it sounds like is I'm just going to have to bite the bullet, wipe everything out, and start completely over. Or am I wrong?

 

I don't use NMM (I'm going to have to start though to see what it does) so I'm not overly familiar with how it operates, especially with the download/install functions direct from the site. I use Wrye Bash for mods and the mods have to be present on my hard drive in a specific file folder to install them.

 

I would think you are going to have to uninstall and reinstall NMM anyway as does it not have a search function to identify games and then establish where mods are to be installed from and to?

 

To be honest, if it were me, I'd be doing a whole new clean reinstall of everything just to make sure everything was done correctly and no errors are going to occur.

[Erushiel]

I might add that if you move all the system files(that concerns your skyrim installation, mostly sound files), application files, the skyrim map that contains the save files onto a new ssd/hdd with same os and partition(From your old "C:" to your new "C:", so as to avoid possible/probable index problems). You don't really have to reinstall. (I don't know if you have to move some temporary files aswell, the guy I know who did it. Didn't have any sound when he played, but we think he just hadn't gotten all the system files he was lacking, but at least we found out that it is doable).

 

But ye, in short, reinstalling is far less of a hassle, in most cases.

[MethodMan]

hello,

 

i have a question, i moved the whole Skyrim install folder to my new PCs hard drive, i mean i just copy and pasted the folder.

but now when i try to start the game via launcher on my new PC, the launcher only shows me the option to install, "Data files" and "options" are unclickable.

i found another skyrim exe in the folder, wich just opens a small window, and the game starts in this 800x600 pixels i guess.

 

now can i somehow tell skyrim, that it is installed already? so i can choose to play from the standard launcher and change display settings to maximum..

or is there a way to get this little window from the other .exe to full screen and native resolution??

i tried it with SkyrimPrefs.ini in the install folder by changing this lines

bFull Screen=1
iSize H=1050 <- my screen
iSize W=1680

 

but it didnt worked.

the thing is i dont want to reinstall it again :(

it took long enough to copy the stuff.

 

can anyone help`?

[bben46]

Because it uses the Windows Registry and because the game is not all in one place on your hard drive :rolleyes: you cannot copy paste Skyrim. It will not work. You MUST install steam on the new computer. Then you can download Skyrim from your steam account to that computer. Check the Steam documentation for how to do that. Copying the registry from one computer to another DON'T do that. :pinch: It will probably make that computer no longer able to boot. And you will probably loose everything on that computer as the only way to fix it will be a complete reformat & reinstall of Windows.

 

As for editing the registry - unless you know exactly what you are doing - you can really screw up the computer doing that. NOT recommended for those with even moderate skills. You have been warned so don't come here whining when it crashes Windows. :whistling:

 

Now, for mods, save games and a custom ini, you can copy/paste and that is what you will have to do to get them to the new computer. :thumbsup:

 

If you use NMM, you will have to install that to the new computer also.