Moving Vortex & game to new drive?

[IcarusShadowarsCreed]

Hello

Am i able to move both my game and vortex to my external drive and make it work without needing to reinstall anything? i've aleadry made copies of the vortex appdata folder and the game itself to specific places in it, i'm trying to save space in my main drive but the game i'm trying to run (skyrim) aleadry has like installed a thousand mods and configurations specifically through vortex, i'm trying to mantain that as in as long i run vortex with my external drive connected it would work, is it possible to do such? if it is, how?

[Rattledagger]

To move Skyrim to another disk goes something like:

 

1: On Vortex mods-tab, click "purge" and then done exit Vortex.

2: Use Steam to move Skyrim to another disk.

3: Run Skyrim launcher once to setup registry with new location.

4: Start Vortex, you'll get a message about Skyrim not located where expected. Hopefully Vortex should detect new location of Skyrim.

5: Just to be on the safe side, re-start Vortex.

6: In Vortex, under Settings - Mods, choose new location of the "Mod Staging Folder" and Vortex will move the files for you. This can take a long time.

7: Still under Vortex - Settings - Mods, make sure deployment method is "Hardlink Deployment".

8: On Vortex mods-tab, choose Deploy.

 

It's possible you'll need to update any shortcuts on Vortex Dashboard and any shortcuts outside Vortex.

 

Note, it's critical in step 6 to let Vortex move the mods for you, since if you do this outside Vortex chances are all installed mods gets duplicated and you'll lose all information about file rules etc.

[rmm200]

Before you start moving things around, Purge your mods in Vortex. That will remove all the hard links in your game directory to your mods.

The game directory is pretty much clean at that point.

Use Steam to actually move your game. That will keep the registry clean and consistent.

 

I will let someone else comment on the best way to relocate Vortex. It does not matter where it is installed and is not that big. I would leave it where it is.

 

Use Vortex to relocate your downloads and staging directories. The Staging directory (what you see on the Mods page) has to wind up on the same drive as your game,

and it has to be a valid Windows disk. No OneDrive or network attached storage. Those hard links have to work.

 

The Downloads directory can be anywhere.

[IcarusShadowarsCreed]

Before you start moving things around, Purge your mods in Vortex. That will remove all the hard links in your game directory to your mods.

The game directory is pretty much clean at that point.

Use Steam to actually move your game. That will keep the registry clean and consistent.

 

I will let someone else comment on the best way to relocate Vortex. It does not matter where it is installed and is not that big. I would leave it where it is.

 

Use Vortex to relocate your downloads and staging directories. The Staging directory (what you see on the Mods page) has to wind up on the same drive as your game,

and it has to be a valid Windows disk. No OneDrive or network attached storage. Those hard links have to work.

 

The Downloads directory can be anywhere.

a little confusing, what does the ''purge'' thing do?

and i know step 6 is crucial, but by ''mod staging folder and download moving'' you mean its gonna take that giant app data folder and move in to the external hard drive? so i dont need copy it? i need to delete it?

and it will work on a hardrive?

will await official answer, just in case.

[HadToRegister]

 

Before you start moving things around, Purge your mods in Vortex. That will remove all the hard links in your game directory to your mods.

The game directory is pretty much clean at that point.

Use Steam to actually move your game. That will keep the registry clean and consistent.

 

I will let someone else comment on the best way to relocate Vortex. It does not matter where it is installed and is not that big. I would leave it where it is.

 

Use Vortex to relocate your downloads and staging directories. The Staging directory (what you see on the Mods page) has to wind up on the same drive as your game,

and it has to be a valid Windows disk. No OneDrive or network attached storage. Those hard links have to work.

 

The Downloads directory can be anywhere.

a little confusing, what does the ''purge'' thing do?

and i know step 6 is crucial, but by ''mod staging folder and download moving'' you mean its gonna take that giant app data folder and move in to the external hard drive? so i dont need copy it? i need to delete it?

and it will work on a hardrive?

will await official answer, just in case.

 

 

 

Purge just severs the links between the Virtual Install Folder and the Data folder of your game.

Kind of like raising a drawbridge

 

 

[IcarusShadowarsCreed]

Before you start moving things around, Purge your mods in Vortex. That will remove all the hard links in your game directory to your mods.

The game directory is pretty much clean at that point.

Use Steam to actually move your game. That will keep the registry clean and consistent.

 

I will let someone else comment on the best way to relocate Vortex. It does not matter where it is installed and is not that big. I would leave it where it is.

 

Use Vortex to relocate your downloads and staging directories. The Staging directory (what you see on the Mods page) has to wind up on the same drive as your game,

and it has to be a valid Windows disk. No OneDrive or network attached storage. Those hard links have to work.

 

The Downloads directory can be anywhere.

 

 

 

Before you start moving things around, Purge your mods in Vortex. That will remove all the hard links in your game directory to your mods.

The game directory is pretty much clean at that point.

Use Steam to actually move your game. That will keep the registry clean and consistent.

 

I will let someone else comment on the best way to relocate Vortex. It does not matter where it is installed and is not that big. I would leave it where it is.

 

Use Vortex to relocate your downloads and staging directories. The Staging directory (what you see on the Mods page) has to wind up on the same drive as your game,

and it has to be a valid Windows disk. No OneDrive or network attached storage. Those hard links have to work.

 

The Downloads directory can be anywhere.

a little confusing, what does the ''purge'' thing do?

and i know step 6 is crucial, but by ''mod staging folder and download moving'' you mean its gonna take that giant app data folder and move in to the external hard drive? so i dont need copy it? i need to delete it?

and it will work on a hardrive?

will await official answer, just in case.

 

 

 

Purge just severs the links between the Virtual Install Folder and the Data folder of your game.

Kind of like raising a drawbridge

 

 

 

 

 

So i did exactly as the steps told me, once i set up the new directory it said it had no mod activate, like all of them were disabled, alright, then once i finished moving the mods folder i noticed all stuff i had in my skyrim folder that was installed by vortex was gone and it keeps like saying even fnis is missing, like my game became vanilla again and everything still disabled, do i need enable all mods i had enabled again? is there no other way than me doing it out of memory? or is this a error?

[HadToRegister]

When you used Vortex to make the new mod staging folder, vortex didn't moved the mods?