Thread: How do I transfer games to external hard drive?

Got the external hard drive formatted. It was easy to find instructions on this. Now I want to move as many of my son's games onto it. Any suggestions on the best way to go about this ? Haven't been able to find any info on this yet. Hate to have to uninstall and re-install all of them.

Programs like app_mover and magic mover can do what you are asking for but I do not know how good they are performing the task.

Remember many Registry entries and .ini files have pointers for location of files and above programs may not find all to make necessary changes.

What kinda games?

I think games are better run from an internal drive if there's a lot of data being moved around.

I didn't think they would run from an external drive, but I could be wrong. You'd have to reinstall whatever the case.

The reasons for this external drive is so that the computer's internal disk drive is not used up by these games, and so that he can play them on other computers.

Originally Posted by BallBreaker

Originally Posted by mellow

The reasons for this external drive is so that the computer's internal disk drive is not used up by these games, and so that he can play them on other computers.

Installing them on external drive will not allow him to play on other computers unless installed on other machine to external drive too. You then have the issue of making sure drive letter is same on both machines.

What you are trying to do is only possible with very few games. Some game settings and saved games are stored in logged on users folder which is on internal drive.

Will the games work on the external drive if the games are installed on that particular PC which he mostly uses? Or should I transfer stuff from partitions D and E onto the external hard drive to free up room for his games? What would you suggest.

Originally Posted by baldrick

create ISO's of the discs - iso burn - and copy the ISO's to the drive
copy the game save folders to the drive.

get a copy of daemon tools also - this program allows you to created a virtual cd/dvd drive(s) on your computer that you mount the ISO images in and then use as if it was a disc in a drive.

then he has to install the game on the new computer by mounting the ISO file for the game in the virtual dirve and copy the game save folders for the game to where they should be.

unless you are using eSATA for the connection to the remote drive it will not be fast enough to use as the install drive - USB2 will not be fast enough.

best advice given above
arnt we the computer wizz

I just copy the folder from my computer onto a portable drive and then open it and double click the exe file. Works with many games but not all. World of Warcrafts works.