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Thread: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

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    Question Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Hey,

    I've installed all my games onto a different hard drive, and was intending on taking it with me for a year abroad, however, I will be buying a new laptop.
    I've tried in the past to use a separate hard drive and then restored Windows fresh to find I had to re-install the games.

    Is there a way to get a new laptop to play games which have been pre-installed onto a separate hard drive?

    Thanks

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    If it's a steam install it is easy (just install steam on laptop and point it to your install drive)

    If not then you will missing VC / direct x files & depending on the games, you will not have registry entries or games settings files (some are hidden in the user folders & not within the game folder)

    For the amount of work trying to get them to work it might just be easier to reinstall.
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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by aramil View Post
    If it's a steam install it is easy (just install steam on laptop and point it to your install drive)

    If not then you will missing VC / direct x files & depending on the games, you will not have registry entries or games settings files (some are hidden in the user folders & not within the game folder)

    For the amount of work trying to get them to work it might just be easier to reinstall.
    Will it not matter that I've installed Steam on that hard drive too?

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    When a game installs it doesn't just copy itself to your second hard drive. It actually makes all sorts of changes such as to your registry on your computer. This is why when your reinstall your operating system you need to reinstall your games. This is also why just plugging in your separate hard drive into your laptop will not work. You will need to reinstall them to get everything working.

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by andalus View Post
    When a game installs it doesn't just copy itself to your second hard drive. It actually makes all sorts of changes such as to your registry on your computer. This is why when your reinstall your operating system you need to reinstall your games. This is also why just plugging in your separate hard drive into your laptop will not work. You will need to reinstall them to get everything working.
    Thats not technically true, not every game makes changes to the registry and not every game needs to be reinstalled as you suggest.
    Jon

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by Jonj1611 View Post
    Thats not technically true, not every game makes changes to the registry and not every game needs to be reinstalled as you suggest.
    Just to be safe, I'll just create ISOs of my games and store them on the hard drive, so that I can install them when ever.

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by NanoMan View Post
    Just to be safe, I'll just create ISOs of my games and store them on the hard drive, so that I can install them when ever.
    Why don't you just use the original discs?

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    Why don't you just use the original discs?
    Because I don't want them to get damaged/broken whilst I'm abroad.

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    As others have said - most games make changes to the registry and install other programs, or updates to other programs they're dependant on. So this is rarely gonna work smoothly. But as others have also said - game clients like Steam will make things much easier for you. You can install Steam on whatever drive you like. Just point it to the directory with your games on and it'll take care of the rest You may be able to do this with other clients as well. I know Origin has a repair install option. It might work the same..

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Your right, but how many modern games can be moved around and not be reinstalled? I'm not aware of any.

    I have a few old games which are standalone, but I'm not aware that any modern games can be moved around in the same way, they all need to be installed, and know where dlls are etc.

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    World Of Warcraft is one pal. Just saying better to get your facts right from the start.
    Jon

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    well in my experience of having games on a separate drive and reinstalling windows this is what I do...

    before reinstalling, make a copy of my documents/my games. these contain the 'extra' files that the setup.exe places on c: drive whether you want it to or not. things like .cfg files, save directories and things.
    some games can recreate these if you just run them, most cannot.

    just copy it to the new my documents.


    most of the games I have, all I needed to do was find the .exe file for the game in windows explorer and double click it.
    with the 'my documents' being there it thought it was already installed and just launched, it also seems to recreate the reg entries aswell.

    some games though, you reinstall on-top of the original.
    it doesn't reinstall all the data because that's already there. it just recreates the missing reg entries and extras

    others need a fresh install and all the patches putting back on.

    I know that 'company of heroes' the patches that it downloads are in the 'my documents' folder, so that just whizzes through after a reinstall. it shouldn't need to re-download anything.



    for steam:

    click the steam.exe file and that should reinstall itself.
    then I think you go through each of the games in windows explorer and double click the games 'start.exe', this should reactivate it (im not sure on this bit.) they should all be in the steamapps\common or steamapps\'your username'


    no idea about origin, not reinstalled windows since I signed up to it.



    hope that lot makes sense, it has been 3 years since I had to do it, plus im not good at explaining things in detail


    just a thought: will steam work if you are in a different country (IP address range) than the one you signed up for it in?
    have a read of http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=3096692
    looks like you need to contact steam support to tell them your moving, so they don't lock your account because they think you've been hacked.
    might have to do that with origin/any mmo's aswell.
    Last edited by stevie lee; 27-08-2013 at 11:19 PM.

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Thanks Stevie Lee, I had not thought of contacting Steam about that and thanks for the info about the My Documents folder.

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    I was trying to do this a while ago but i could not find anything on how to do it

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by capa06 View Post
    try no cd patch
    Whats that got to do with this conversation?
    Jon

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    Re: Installed Games on a separate hard drive

    Quote Originally Posted by Jonj1611 View Post
    Whats that got to do with this conversation?
    An excellent question.

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