Has anyone tried moving their modded games to a different drive?

[leifyjai]

I looked in the forums and didn't see anyone else posting about having problems like this: I moved my games directory, and now Vortex fails to locate most of my games. I did update search path to point to my new games directory location, on the games tab of Vortex' Settings page.

 

I have a used Vortex to heavily mod Skyrim SE, then I got a new, bigger SSD and moved all my games to my new "D:\" drive. After that, Vortex was only able to find two of my many games, Morrowind and Oblivion, both of which were modded with different tools, Wyre Mash and Bash, respectively. It does not find Skyrim SE, Fallout, Witcher 3, KOTOR 2.

 

When I hit the "Search for games" button on the lower right corner of Vortex' Games page, it starts to search for about half a second, progress bar and circle start to fill in. Then it just suddenly quits searching, no message, no games.

 

Anyone else had this problem or, conversely, has anyone been able to successfully move a game that Vortex had previously "known" about, and gotten Vortex to find it again? Any help appreciated.

 

I'm using v0.15.0

 

[w3p0nlz3dkn0wI3dg3]

...

[leifyjai]

Thank you for this information.

 

But what I am trying to do is get both the game *AND* the mods off of my C: drive and onto my new SSD, together. It sounds like this would create a sym-link to the game, Skyrim SE, on the "new" D: drive, and leave all the mods on the C: drive.

 

I am able to get Vortex acknowledge the copy of Skyrim SE on my D: drive by selecting the "manually locate game" option, but then Vortex won't apply the mods until I move them to the same drive as the game, and that is where it is failing now - it is unable to transfer my mods, and doesn't appear to allow for manually transferring them.

[jamiechi]

I also use Link Shell Extension.

The following is just an example.

You may need to change the details to suit your Windows installation.

 

Note: Before doing this, Practice on a simple program that you installed on C drive (your SSD drive) and verify that you can run it using the original shortcuts made when you first installed the program.

 

Steps:

Create a new folder called D:\games\steam. (Or where you like.) (Originally steam was installed on C drive on my computer.)

Copy your files from the C drive to another location. For example: From C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam to D:\games\Steam

Rename C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam_save. This is your backup in case something goes wrong.

With Link Shell Extension installed, In File manager, navigate to D:\games and right click Steam (folder) and then select 'Pick Link Source'.

Navigate back to C:\Program Files (x86)\ in File Manager and right click on a blank area and select 'Drop as...' and then select Junction.

The new link will have the same name as the original folder name. In this case 'Steam'. (If not, you can right click the new link and rename it in the properties dialog.)

Click on your original (unmodified) shortcut to run your program(s). Everything should work as before.

[leifyjai]

As I mentioned in the thread title, this question pertains to moving a *modded* game (implied: Vortex modded). The problem with this approach is that in the second step - copying the files from c:\steam\... to d:\steam\... will cause the symbolic hardlinks in the modded game to be converted into actual files. So the game folder that ends up on the D: drive will be playable, but no longer manageable by Vortex.

 

Specifically with Skyrim, which is the game I needed to move, and some other games that Vortex can ONLY manage through hard-links, both the game folder and Vortex's mod folder for the game *MUST* reside on the same physical drive to properly maintain the hard-links between the mod files and the game folder.

 

In order to transfer a game that is modded by vortex, and keep it that way, first purge all mods from the game, and then follow the instructions given by Kamikatze13 in this thread:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/6674102-vortex-fails-to-move-mods-to-external-ssd/

 

Then re-deploy the mods once Vortex has been tricked into thinking that it transferred everything to the new location.

 

Make sure to keep a copy of the Vortex mods folder! Because this method of tricking Vortex, by using hard-linked folders from the destination drive to replace the "normal" location of both the game and the mod folders on the C: drive, allows Vortex to "copy" the mod folder to the new device, and it is likely the new mods directory on the destination drive will get messed up in the process. So keep a backup and copy it back over to the destination drive once Vortex is happy with the new drive letter associated with its mod folder.

 

Note: It really feels like this issue should be included in the pinned "Known Issues" thread, but I don't think Tannin42 considers this to be a serious or attention-worthy issue, judging by the lack of any official response to this problem.

 

 

I also use Link Shell Extension.

The following is just an example.

You may need to change the details to suit your Windows installation.

 

Note: Before doing this, Practice on a simple program that you installed on C drive (your SSD drive) and verify that you can run it using the original shortcuts made when you first installed the program.

 

Steps:

Create a new folder called D:\games\steam. (Or where you like.) (Originally steam was installed on C drive on my computer.)

Copy your files from the C drive to another location. For example: From C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam to D:\games\Steam

Rename C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam_save. This is your backup in case something goes wrong.

With Link Shell Extension installed, In File manager, navigate to D:\games and right click Steam (folder) and then select 'Pick Link Source'.

Navigate back to C:\Program Files (x86)\ in File Manager and right click on a blank area and select 'Drop as...' and then select Junction.

The new link will have the same name as the original folder name. In this case 'Steam'. (If not, you can right click the new link and rename it in the properties dialog.)

Click on your original (unmodified) shortcut to run your program(s). Everything should work as before.

[kamikatze13]

 

Note: It really feels like this issue should be included in the pinned "Known Issues" thread, but I don't think Tannin42 considers this to be a serious or attention-worthy issue, judging by the lack of any official response to this problem.

 

 

yep, had a few posts about making VO standalone and it didn't look like tannin was fond of the idea :confused: which is surprising, given that a certain mod manager of his was perfectly capable of being run standalone, even with multiple instances.