# [SOLVED] Installing Games on External Hard Drives



## zahnib (Apr 27, 2009)

Hey everyone, 
okay so I know you can install games onto an external hard drive (I've done this for pretty much all my games:wink but there seems to be a problem with this. When I try and patch or update a game, it will always come up with an error along the lines of the patcher could not locate the game. I have no trouble updating my games on Steam though, bu unfortunately the majority of my games aren't on Steam.
Also if I try and install a expansion, say Dawn of War: Winter Assault, it will say that I don't have Dawn of War installed:4-thatsba (Dawn of War is on my external drive). I've looked everywhere for a way to change the install path for patches but can't find an answer anywhere.
Of course I can install a game onto my internal drive in a folder, update it, then move it onto my external drive, but for multilayer games that have frequent updates, this is a problem. Also if a game is installed onto my external drive, then moved to my internal, the patcher will still say to can't locate the game.

If anyone could help, I'd be ever so happy:wave:


----------



## rossva (Dec 24, 2009)

*Re: Installing Games on External Hard Drives*

Hi and welcome to TSF;

I'm afraid there isn't an all resolving solution here.

Let's assume that your external HDU is F:

When you are installing _Game X_, you will more than like be presented with a default install directory of eg _C:\Program Files\Acme Games\Game X_, but get the option to change it, so you are changing this to _F:\Game X_ ?

If so, you're doing everything right, and assuming you are following the patch installation instructions correctly (check them - it may require ad-hoc changes if you have changed the default directory), then unfortunately this is poor coding of the patch and nothing you can really do about it; i.e. the patch isn't checking for the INI file or registry entry created at install time.

Got to admit, this is unlikely though, 1 or 2 instances OK fair enough, but if this is happening frequently then there has to be another answer... Firstly, can you confirm you are changing the default install destination in the setup wizard, or are you dragging over the files manually afterwards in explorer? If so - then you would absolutely be getting these issues.



zahnib said:


> Of course I can install a game onto my internal drive in a folder, update it, then move it onto my external drive, but for multilayer games that have frequent updates, this is a problem. Also if a game is installed onto my external drive, then moved to my internal, the patcher will still say to can't locate the game.


...Not a recommended course of action, as there's going to be registry entries pointing in the wrong place. To be honest, you've been real lucky so far if this method has been sometimes working.


----------



## zahnib (Apr 27, 2009)

*Re: Installing Games on External Hard Drives*

Hey, thanks for the help ray:



> When you are installing Game X, you will more than like be presented with a default install directory of eg C:\Program Files\Acme Games\Game X, but get the option to change it, so you are changing this to F:\Game X ?


Yeah with the games that I installed onto the external hard drive, I did it by changing the install path. The games that I've installed into a folder in my external drive and then patched/upgraded have been working fine, although I don't know wether if I were to try and play the game on another computer (by plugging in my external) it wold work as I think some files may be keeped on the internal.


----------



## rossva (Dec 24, 2009)

*Re: Installing Games on External Hard Drives*

Hi Zahnib, yeah you're right. Simply taking the external hdu and plugging into another machine then trying to run the game off there won't work for a huge majority of games. Like you say some files are indeed kept on the internal i.e. certain DLLs need to go into the system path and most games written in the last 10 years or so will be writing config info to the registry, which is in it's most simplistic form a database of all configuration of your local PC... this is stored on the 'internal' disk.


----------



## zahnib (Apr 27, 2009)

*Re: Installing Games on External Hard Drives*

Oh well, guess I'll just having to upgrade my internal drive! It's more practical anyway

Thanks for your help though man.


----------



## rossva (Dec 24, 2009)

*Re: Installing Games on External Hard Drives*

You're welcome cuzzie, please mark this thread as [solved]


----------

