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NaamarTissue's avatar
NaamarTissue
New Rookie
2 years ago
Solved

How to Play Sims 4 off an external drive

I used to play on an sd drive and it worked really smoothly for 4 years. Sd drive started getting old so I moved everything to a usb stick. I had some problems with my sims that I had contacted ea he...
pc
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    2 years ago

    @NaamarTissue  Right, you really need to separate the game's program files from the user folder.  Not doing so is asking for trouble, and probably sooner rather than later.

    If you want to install the game elsewhere, move anything inside E:\The Sims 4 that you'd like to preserve to a new location, then uninstall the game through the EA App and reinstall it wherever you like.  This can be a folder on E, for example E:\Games; it just can't be in the same location as the user data.

    If you'd like to leave the game where it is, you can create a folder on E and redo the symlink so it points to that new location.  For example, you might create E:\Sims Data, then when you redo the symlink, the last part of the command would be "E:\Sims Data\The Sims 4" (just like that).

    Either approach is fine, but this is really important to do in one way or another.

NaamarTissue's avatar
NaamarTissue
New Rookie
2 years ago

Okay, this screenshot shows where the sims was, where I moved it to, and my command prompt window.

The bottom is "This PC\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4" Where the folder was before I moved it. EA App still looks for it there, requesting re-downloading because the folder is in the new location.

The Top is the new location where I moved the folder "SANKESU(E: ) The Sims 4" (Theres a space after the : because it becomes a smiley face if it's together like this 🙂 )

To the right is the Command Prompt. These are all the commands I've tried. The first one is to show my user. Some are a bit strange but I wanted to knock out the possibilities.

On the link that was sent, I got stuck at #7 as the command just doesn't work. Maybe i'm typing it in wrong but idk.

Thanks for the help so far 🙂

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
2 years ago

@NaamarTissue  Let's try using the exact path to the Electronic Arts folder rather than the %UserProfile% variable.  First, enter this command into Command Prompt, starting with reg query:

reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "Personal"

This will spit out the location of the Documents directory for this account, which is also the folder that Sims 4 should be using.  So for example you might get this:

C:\Users\somename\Documents

or

C:\Users\somename\OneDrive\Documents

That's going to be the first part of the command, with \Electronic Arts added to the end.  For the second half, you're going to use E:\The Sims 4 without anything extra.  So with the results above, the command in its entirety would look like this:

MKLINK /J “C:\Users\somename\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4” “E:\The Sims 4”

or

MKLINK /J “C:\Users\somename\OneDrive\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4” “E:\The Sims 4”

You will of course need to replace somename with the actual username the first Command Prompt command spits out.

Keep in mind that this command assumes that there is an Electronic Arts folder inside this particular Documents folder and that there is NOT a "The Sims 4" folder inside.  If you don't have the Electronic Arts folder in this location, start the game once to create it, quit, then open this folder and delete the Sims 4 folder so the symlink can be created in its place.

  • NaamarTissue's avatar
    NaamarTissue
    New Rookie
    2 years ago

    Hey! So sorry for the late response, been pretty busy.

    The reg query I copy and pasted into the command prompt but it gave me "The System cannot find the path specified". I tried variations of the command to see it maybe it was the format but none of them worked.

    I still tried the MKLINK command with whatever I could think of for the user part, but alas nothing. 

    I wonder if It's my computer do you think? I've never had problems with it but I don't know.

    I really appreciate the help you've provided so far.

    EDIT: I got it working nvm. When I pasted it, it put "Shell Folders" with no space, so I fixed that and it worked! Gonna finish the last few steps on the link and will update yall again if it works!

    • NaamarTissue's avatar
      NaamarTissue
      New Rookie
      2 years ago

      Okay, so it worked kinda. I had to re-download the sims but it downloaded in the proper spot because of the previous steps we took. Yippee.

      Unfortunately, it's not recognising my previous saves in the saves files. I'll do some repairing and see if I can get it working. We're so close!  

      Thanks again for the help. At the very least, I can make a new save in the meantime.

      • puzzlezaddict's avatar
        puzzlezaddict
        Hero+
        2 years ago

        @NaamarTissue  Your saves should be usable once they're placed in the correct folder, i.e. E:\The Sims 4\saves if you used the command we've been talking about.  The other question is whether the saves are named properly, which means Slot_ followed by an eight-digit hexidecimal number (digits 0 to 9, a to f) followed by .save , with no extra characters.

        I'm not sure from your description, but did you actually install Sims 4 itself on the external drive?  If so, where exactly is it installed?  You can see in your EA App game library, under Sims 4 > Manage > View properties:

        This cannot be the same location as the user folder.  If it is, you'll either need to uninstall it and reinstall elsewhere, backing up any user data currently inside this Sims 4 folder; or you'll need to delete your current symlink and create a new one pointing somewhere else.

        If you'd like help with this process, please let me know which approach you want to use as well as the current location of the game install, as seen in the App.

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