Recently my Sims game was transferred to another hard drive, without a Documents. The game works and everything, I just don't have any of my mods or cc. I also tried to put just the Electronic Arts folder inside the hard drive and then put my sims 4 in there, but nothing worked. All my progress and everything is gone. How can I fix this or is there anything I can do to make my mods work?
@simsss4gamerrr Do you have two (or more) storage drives now, or did you replace your previous storage drive and transfer all of the contents to a new drive? I have multiple storage drives, with the Origin Games directory on one drive and a Documents directory on another drive, and everything works as intended.
Was this installed via Origin or disc? Did you do a fresh installation of the game to your new storage drive, or did you move an existing installation over to the new drive? If you moved an existing installation, did you correct the affected file paths in Windows Registry? If this was installed via Origin, is Origin still installed on the previous drive or did you manually transfer it to the new drive as well (as that could cause an additional headache or two)? Even if you can't currently use them in-game, do you still have access to your mod and custom content files (i.e. do you still have access to the previous storage drive where they were saved or did you back them up to another location)? Your savegame data isn't registering as well, correct? If not, do you still have access to your save files (i.e. do you still have access to the previous storage drive where they were saved or did you back them up to another location)?
@Cantiras So I was out of space on my original drive (my computer) and I uninstalled origin and the sims. I then connected my new hard drive and installed origin all over again. But from different sites, videos, questions I saw that I needed; Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 > Mods. My problem is that I don't have the documents folder on the new drive, all I did was download origin and just put it on the hard drive. I have mods enabled on the game and I have the mods folder inside my sims game as well. Nothing seems to be working. Do I need to have the documents folder on the new drive, if so how do I make one or how do I copy it?
@simsss4gamerrr So you have two storage drives now, correct? And you didn't change the storage location of Documents to your new drive (I'm not suggesting you do that, I'm just verifying), correct? In that case, The Sim 4 should still be using the established Documents directory on your older storage drive even though you've installed the game on your newer drive. When you look in the Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 folder on your older storage drive, are the old mods, custom content, and saves still there or were they removed when you previously uninstalled The Sims 4?
If the old mod, cc, and save files are missing, you can see if the Mods and saves folders have previous recoverable versions, you can try Windows' System Restore, or you can try a third-party file recovery tool, but you might be out of luck. However, if you still have your old mod and save files copied somewhere (I couldn't make out if you were saying you have them but don't know where to put them or if you no longer have them), copy them back to Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 on your older drive and see if you can access them in the game.
@Cantiras When I uninstalled origin and the sims the first time, I had to delete everything from the electronic arts folder. I kept my mods just in case, I tried to just put the mods folder inside my sims 4 folder in origin but they didn't show up. I tried to move my documents file to my new hard drive (I now have two hard drives). I still all my mods but they won't show up even when I put them in my new sims folder. What I was trying to say was, do I need to have this; Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4? If so, how do I move my documents folder to my new drive?
@simsss4gamerrr Using established convention, I will refer to your preexisting drive as C: and your new drive as D:. It's possible your drives have different letter assignments than that, but I will use these letters for the sake of example.
Your Documents folder should be located at C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents. The Sims 4 settings folder should be located at C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4. Anything removed from C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4 when you uninstalled The Sims 4 may be lost if you didn't make a copy of it before uninstalling the game.
My understanding is that after uninstalling The Sims 4 and Origin, you reinstalled both of these programs to your D: drive (i.e. the new drive). However, C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4 is still the location the game will use for mods and saved games; that doesn't change unless you change the storage location of the Documents directory. The Documents directory doesn't have to be on the same drive as the Origin client and The Sims 4.
Unless you are terribly low on available space on your older drive, I would leave the Documents directory on your older drive, as moving it can potentially disrupt other things, although such issues are usually minor. Since you still have copies of the previous mods you were using, they should work if you add them back to C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Mods.
If you still have your old saves, they should work if you add them back to C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves. If you lost them when you uninstalled the game, you could try right-clicking the C:\Users\<yourwindowsusername>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves folder, selecting Properties from the context menu, then in the Properties window, selecting the Previous Versions tab to see if there is anything listed there that can be restored. If not, you could try Windows' System Restore tool to restore your system to a point before you uninstalled The Sims 4 (if you have a system restore point that dates that far back) and see if you can recover your save files, however, you would then have to uninstall The Sims 4 from your C: drive (i.e. the old drive) again. There are also third-party tools that can be used to try to recover lost files.
If you really want to change the storage location of the Documents directory to your new drive, here are instructions.
Thank you so much for your time! This helped a lot, my final question is when I move my documents to my new drive, what if it still doesn't work? Will I just have to lay without mods?
@simsss4gamerrr If everything is done correctly, it should work. You might possibly encounter some headaches with other programs since this isn't a fresh Windows installation and you already have some existing programs which might have registered the Documents storage location as being on your old drive, but if you encounter that, it should be a minor affair to fix.
If you find it doesn't work after changing the storage location for Documents (as per the instructions), before giving up, trying reinstalling The Sim 4 (if you do that, make sure to save your mods and savegames before uninstalling The Sims 4). That being said, I won't guarantee you will meet with success; all you do is give it your best effort.
@Cantiras This makes much more sense, thank you so much for your help!
@simsss4gamerrr No problem. I hope it works out for you.
@simsss4gamerrr Is your second hard drive external? If so, please do not move the Documents directory there. Windows expects to always have access to Documents, and if you ever unplug the hard drive, Windows could react badly.
If you want to move the Sims 4 user data folder, the one that's located in Documents\Electronic Arts, to an external drive, you can do it via symbolic link. It's still better overall to leave that folder on your internal drive, as mentioned, but if necessary, you can follow these steps to move the user data folder and tell the game where to find it:
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