I'm trying to open The Sims 4 (Which I have downloaded via Steam) through my external drive, but whenever I try to open the game, it defaults to an Electronic Arts folder in the C drive. I have tried moving the folder to the external drive, deleting the C drive folder and restarting (which just leads to another Electronic Arts folder being created in the C drive) and I'm stuck on what to do. I've tried following tutorials on moving EA games over to other drives but they seem to not have Steam involved so it's different I'd assume.

@RattInsomniac The location of the Sims 4 user folder, with your saves and other user content, is independent of the location of the game's program files. If you'd like the user folder to be on the external drive, you'll need to create a symbolic link. Here's how: https://crinrict.com/blog/2020/02/moving-windows-documents-folder-to-external-drive-via-symbolic-link.html The folder can be almost anywhere on the external, but please do NOT combine it with the program files, as doing so can and will create a variety of problems. If you need further help with this process, please post a screenshot of the Command Prompt window showing the command you're using and the result.

EA App Creates Electronic Arts Folder in the wrong drive

6 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
7 months ago
@RattInsomniac The location of the Sims 4 user folder, with your saves and other user content, is independent of the location of the game's program files. If you'd like the user folder to be on the external drive, you'll need to create a symbolic link. Here's how:

https://crinrict.com/blog/2020/02/moving-windows-documents-folder-to-external-drive-via-symbolic-link.html

The folder can be almost anywhere on the external, but please do NOT combine it with the program files, as doing so can and will create a variety of problems.

If you need further help with this process, please post a screenshot of the Command Prompt window showing the command you're using and the result.
RattInsomniac
7 months ago
I've tried multiple variations of the name of the external drive and none of them have been able to be picked up. I'm sure there's probably a right way to word the name of the drive, but I am unaware of it.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
7 months ago
@RattInsomniac The drive name doesn't matter, only the letter. Is it labeled E or something else?

Separately, there needs to be a "The Sims 4" folder directly on E (or whatever the drive letter is), AND there needs to be an "Electronic Arts" folder here:

C:\Users\your username\Documents

AND there cannot be a "The Sims 4" folder inside this version of the Electronic Arts folder. (If there were, you'd get a "file already exists" error, but I'm mentioning it anyway.) If OneDrive is in the mix, and your user folder is landing there, then there won't be an Electronic Arts folder in the version of Documents above because it will be here instead:

C:\Users\your username\OneDrive\Documents

To make sure you're viewing each of these locations, open a File Explorer window, click This PC in the left panel, double-click the C drive (you may need to scroll down a bit), then open Users > your username and proceed from there.

I can help get rid of OneDrive if it comes to that, but it shouldn't be necessary in most circumstances.
RattInsomniac
7 months ago
The drive is the letter E, there is an empty Electronic Arts folder in my username's documents tab, a The Sims 4 folder in the external, and I checked the OneDrive documents and nothing is in it. The Users folder for the account I'm currently on does not match up with the name in the settings homepage, I'm not sure if that means anything though.
EDIT: If Junction is the same thing, It worked! The issue was I was running cmd prompt with admin, then I did it without running it as admin and it worked.
Edit part 2: I tried opening The Sims and am still getting the low on disk space pop up.
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
7 months ago
@RattInsomniac The command looks fine, but it really should have worked with the admin version of Command Prompt too. Still, it's not a problem as long as you got the result you wanted.

For the low disk space error, please post a screenshot of the error itself. Please also run a dxdiag and attach it to your reply.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
RattInsomniac
7 months ago
I haven't had any issues despite getting the low disk space popup on startup, it asks if I want to continue so I do. I'm assuming it's just reading the space of the C disk despite the game coming from the external. Before I switched over it would tell me in game that I had low space, but now it does not. Thank you so much for all of the help.