This is driving me NUTS!
I downloaded the sims 3 onto my hard drive. When I first booted it up and played it, it was fine. Perfectly fine. Now, the EA launcher says my game doesn't even exist. What gives?! Now I cant play the game because the launcher doesn't think it exists. I can boot it up, but there is always an error. I can see the game myself. All its files are RIGHT THERE? What am I doing wrong?
j7mziwxckgwn Is it possible that the drive had a different letter assigned when you first installed the game? For external devices, Windows assigns drive letters in the order the devices are connected, and that resets each time you reboot the computer. And if the letter doesn't match what the EA App expects, it can think the game isn't installed at all.
A relatively easy way to try to fix this is to "install" the game into the same location where it already is. The App may simply verify the existing files and finish the install process.
The "error during startup" is typically related to missing (or mismatched, or corrupt) registry entries, which would also go along with the theme here. If reinstalling the game doesn't help, I would suggest a clean uninstall and reinstall, as described in this post:
[Read First] Running Sims 3 in Windows | EA Forums - 8323446
