Dual Hard Drive Mod/Save Transfer Issues

[LadyBirdGerhl]

Hello, I apologize if this has been answered already but after searching I couldn't seem to find an answer. Also, I apologize for the long post but I wanted to make sure I included as much information as possible. I'll include a short version at the bottom if you're more familiar with SSD and HDD dual systems.

The issue I'm having is I recently had to purchase a new laptop. Since I use a lot of heavy duty programs like the Sims 4 (photoshop, illustrator, having five or more programs open at a time lol) I decided to get one with a dual drive system. I have a SSD, Solid State Drive, that holds the operating system (running Windows 10) that holds about 117gb. With the operating system and various items needed to the OS to work correctly, I currently have about 42gb of space left on the SSD.
Here is where the dual hard drive comes in; along with the SSD, I have a HDD, Hard Disk Drive. This holds 1TB and has plenty of room, basically dedicated to everything a single hard drive is supposed to handle. Having the dual hard drive like this makes for an easier start up, faster working computer, and the ability to handle heavier programs like the Sims. The SSD drive is the C drive, whereas the HDD drive that holds everything else is the D drive.

Now for the issue I'm having; there doesn't seem to have been any problem with installing The Sims 4 or Origin on the D drive. Everything starts up just fine, it's fast, everything downloads, updates, and seems to be working perfectly. HOWEVER, none of my custom contact nor my old save files are showing up. I've done everything I can possibly think of to get this to work;
- Changed the Resource.cfg file to read
Priority 500
PackedFile *.package
PackedFile */*.package
PackedFile */*/*.package
PackedFile */*/*/*.package
PackedFile */*/*/*/*.package
PackedFile */*/*/*/*/*.package
- Copied and pasted the entirety of my backup of The Sims 4 from my old laptop to the new one in the correct place, wrote over any file doubles, everything looks the same as it did on my last laptop where everything worked fine.
- Made sure custom content is enabled within the game options as well as in the library area.
- Checked for mod conflicts (there were a few that might have been a problem but since they all showed up fine in the last game I'm taking them as a false positive).
- Changed the save files.
- Updated and restarted.
- Uninstalled and reinstalled origin a couple of times, before and after trying a bunch of these things.

I'm at a loss now and feel as if I've exhausted all my resources. Everything in the files is literally the same as it was on my old laptop EXCEPT that it's all on the D drive (HDD) instead of the C drive (SDD). One other difference is that because it's on the D drive it's under just D/The Sims 4 instead of going through c/users/myname/documents/electronic arts/the sims 4 . But, since the game starts up fine I figured that wasn't an issue. The Mods are in the same Mods folder with the subfolders, everything is pretty organized. My Custom Music isn't showing up in the game, which was just a couple of music files but worked fine on my last laptop.

Other information:
- My last laptop was an HP ENVY with one hard drive running windows 8.1 while this laptop is an MSI with dual drives running Windows 10.
- I have the disk for The Sims 4, however since I registered it with Origin I downloaded the whole game to my laptop so I can play the game without the disk.

IN SHORT: I now have a dual drive system with all my Sims 4 stuff on the D drive while the OS is on the C drive. The game starts and plays fine but no custom content or my old save files, houses, families, or custom music show up. Everything within The Sims 4 file have been copy and pasted so it is the exact same as it was on my last laptop that have one hard drive. Is the dual drive system really actually the issue here? Is there a way to get all my old stuff to show up? Is it a matter of uninstall/reinstall?

I'd bypass all this and just reinstall it on the C drive like it seems to be used to but if I ever get an expansion pack of any kind I won't be able to use it since there's so little room on the C drive. I'd really like to get this working on the D drive if possible. Anyone have any ideas on what I can do to get everything to work properly?

Let me know if you need any further information, file names, how the directories are named, screenshots of the file order in the folders, etc.

Thank you in advance! And if you read ALL of that, thanks for hanging in there and taking all that time, I really appreciate it!

[Bexs15 · Accepted solution]

I think I may have a fix for you as I was having the same issues with TS4 and it saving my mods etc to the C: Drive. I have a 1TB D Drive and of course wanted all the mods to save to this location. I'm currently using WIN10, so apologies if this doesn't solve your issue. I right-clicked on the My Documents folder in the C: Drive and went to properties. From here, I changed the file path to my D: Drive, I tested this by downloaded some mods and checking the Byte counter for both drives. The D: Drive byte count went down accordingly, all I needed to do at that point was delete the mods from my C: drive (as this is where my downloads save to and also from the Recycle Bin) and Voila! All mods (and other documents) now saving to the D: Drive! But this does change the file path for all files saved to My Documents, but if like me your C: Drive is tiny, then this is another win!

I really hope this helps you!

[crinrict]

Unless you tell Windows to put your user folder on a different drive, the game will always use the one on the c drive.

I might have overlooked this in your post but did you check if there's another user folder on the c drive ?

[LadyBirdGerhl]

Hello Crin! Thanks for responding so quickly!

The only other users on the C drive are admin, Default (that's a hidden file), Default.migrated, and Public. However, I checked the subfolders in those and there is nothing related to The Sims 4 or electronic arts in general. I have Windows install The Sims 4 on the D drive and everything looks the same as it did when it was on the last laptop. The only difference I can see is that now the file extension goes D/The Sims/ The Sims 4/Mods instead of C/user/program files/documents/electronic arts/The Sims 4/Mods. The game works perfectly, better than I've ever seen it work on any computer I've played it on, but it doesn't seem to be recognizing the mods folder at all along with the previous saved games, saved sims, saved houses, and custom music. However, I can save new households and those come back up just fine. Could it be an issue with an update? If there was one between the time I played on the last computer to when I installed the game on this one, maybe now the game can't read the files from before the update.

I suppose I could boot up the older laptop, update the game, go into the game, play, make sure all the mods and such are there, quit, then try recopying over the save files/tray/mods/etc. again? I'm willing to try just about anything at this point. By rights, taking a look at the file listing, everything should be showing up in the game! It's driving me bonkers! lol

[crinrict]

Try creating a new family and save it to the library.

Then go to the tray folder on your d drive and see if it was saved to there to make sure that's the folder the game is using (you'll recognize it by the date of the file)

If you're using oneDrive, the game could also be using the folder on onedrive.

[LadyBirdGerhl]

OH MY GOSH, ONE DRIVE! I specifically steer clear of One Drive because it's so annoying! That's where everything was! I can't BELIEVE THIS! Thank you so much, I can't believe I missed that!

Okay, now that we know where everything is saving, how can we move all that to the D drive? It seems One Drive was factory installed on the C drive and with all the Sims stuff I'll end up with I'm going to need all the data going to the D drive. Will I have to reinstall everything? It's bizarre that it saved to One Drive, I could have sworn I told it to install on the D drive. Does it install there automatically or something like that?

[crinrict]

Just turn it off to not sync anymore. If you're not using it, that's the best way.

[LadyBirdGerhl]

Thank you, I did that and decided to do a clean reinstall so everything would go to the D drive for sure this time. I installed it via download from Origin and made sure the path was to the D drive. Once everything was finished, I noticed that everything once again downloaded and installed on the C drive! Is there no way to install The Sims 4 on the D drive? If I copy/paste all the information over to the D drive, is there a way to tell the game where all the information is located?

[crinrict]

Is this for the doc files or the installation files ?

The game should install to the path you specify in Origin

[LadyBirdGerhl]

Both, actually! I told Origin to put them in the D folder, but it went to the C drive anyway. Should I reinstall Origin? I'm not sure, but it's possible that was accidentally installed on the C drive instead of the D.

[crinrict]

Shouldn't matter though but it's worth a try.

Uninstall everything and run ccleaner to make sure everything is gone then reinstall