i installed the sims onto an external drive and i can't use mods

hey, i got an external hard drive for my windows PC today as i don't have enough space to download The sims 4 on my C: drive. (because my PC didn't come with enough.) i installed the game just fine and it works as good as a falling-apart windows laptop can run it. the only issue is that since i downloaded it directly to my hard drive (by selecting the D: drive as the install location, not via moving it), there's no documents folder on my D: drive to store the mods folder in. i tried to create one on my C: drive by going to documents and making an Electronic Arts folder and making a subfolder named The Sims 4 with a mods folder inside it, and placed my mods there. i made sure the mods and CC is enabled in the game too, but it still doesn't work. i have tried symbolic links, making a mods folder inside my D: drive's sims 4 folder (as "the sims 4 → game → bin → mods") and yet it still does not work. when i installed the sims onto my D: drive, it didn't make a sims 4 folder on my C: drive's documents either, like most discussions on here say. what do i do to get this to work??? i am completely unable to download the sims onto my C: drive to move the folders as my C drive has insufficient space (even after a factory reset. believe me, i tried.)

if this makes any difference, here's some details,

OS:  windows 11 Home (64-bit)

Installation location: D:\the sims 4

external hard drive: Maxone USB 3.0 mobile hard disk