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uniquesaa's avatar
uniquesaa
New Novice
9 days ago

Game Won't Download To External Hard Drive

I have been trying to download The Sims 4 game to my external hard drive, but it isn’t working. The download proceeds without issues on my main hard drive, but when I attempt to download it to the external drive, it gets stuck at 2% and shows "preparing." I’ve given it plenty of time—about two hours—but that didn’t help. I also tried downloading it to my main drive first and then moving it to the external drive, but that didn’t work either. Unfortunately, my main drive doesn’t have enough space for that. I’ve followed all the troubleshooting steps provided on the EA help website, but nothing has solved the issue. Is there any other way I can fix this?

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  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    7 days ago

    uniquesaa  Try formatting the drive as NTFS.  This will erase everything on it at the moment.  If that's a problem, you can instead partition the drive, setting aside some extra space for the exFAT partition and allocating the rest as NTFS.  This will let the drive act as two drives in software, with the NTFS partition working just as well as it would were the entire drive formatted as NTFS.

    You can partition and/or format the drive through Disk Management.

  • Falcons1000Super's avatar
    Falcons1000Super
    Seasoned Newcomer
    7 days ago

    The same thing is happening to me! It gets stuck at 2% and then says "error" after a little bit. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the EA app and a bunch of other things but it hasn't worked. Ill try to download it on my main drive without my add-ons and see if its a storage problem, and I'll get back to you with if it works or not. But if you figure out the issue before please let me know how you resolved it!!

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    9 days ago

    uniquesaa  What is the exact location you're downloading to?  If you're trying to install on the root level of the drive, for example D:\ with nothing else, try creating a folder on the drive first.  It's also worth creating a new, differently-named folder if you're already trying to install into a folder and it isn't working.

    If that doesn't help or isn't the issue, please let me know how the drive is formatted.  You can check by clicking Windows key-X and selecting Disk Management, with the drive plugged in of course.

    • uniquesaa's avatar
      uniquesaa
      New Novice
      8 days ago

      I'm trying to download it to the D:/Games. I know there should be a folder there, but it isn't working even when I create the folder myself. I've also attempted the download multiple times. The disk format is Simple-Basic-ExFAT.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    7 days ago

    uniquesaa  Try formatting the drive as NTFS.  This will erase everything on it at the moment.  If that's a problem, you can instead partition the drive, setting aside some extra space for the exFAT partition and allocating the rest as NTFS.  This will let the drive act as two drives in software, with the NTFS partition working just as well as it would were the entire drive formatted as NTFS.

    You can partition and/or format the drive through Disk Management.

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