Moving ESO to a different drive

Anastian · December 2018

Hello everyone.
Is there a quick and safe way to move ESO to a different hard drive? With other games, copy pasting often works, but I am unsure on ESO given its ties with ZoS launcher.
I am not using the steam version so it should be much easier to manage the install location.
Anyone could help me out?

PS: This is being done as the game keeps stuttering (since one week... Didn't happen before) and nothing has been changed on my PC. I noticed my HDD is always shooting at 100% lately with the game, and it's abnormal, so I thought moving it to an SSD would ease the burden on my rather old HDD.

ZOS_Bill · December 2018

The threads linked below goes over some ways on how to move the ESO installation over to a new PC. The suggestions in these thread may help you out.

qbit · December 2018

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

Start there. Your mileage may vary. Or just install to the new location and figure it out.

Merlin13KAGL · December 2018

qbit wrote: »

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

Start there. Your mileage may vary. Or just install to the new location and figure it out.

Sym links on an HDD that sounds like it's getting ready to crap out is a bad idea.

qbit · December 2018

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

qbit wrote: »

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

Start there. Your mileage may vary. Or just install to the new location and figure it out.

Sym links on an HDD that sounds like it's getting ready to crap out is a bad idea.

User needs to get a minion backup ASAP. Copy to another drive or cloud storage. And reinstall game elsewhere. Replace drive immediately since eso requires main setting files in user profile folder as far as I know. I could be wrong. If drive is failing then addon savedvariables folder is of the utmost importance.

qbit · December 2018

You need to get a backup of your documents/elder scrolls online folder immediately if your hard drive is failing.

SirAndy · December 2018

I haven't done this in a long time but i have moved the game to a different drive before.

You can copy the whole game folder, if it's going to a new computer, you also should copy the ESO folder from your user profile, it has all your AddOns in it, including their SavedVariables files.

Once you have the game copied, run the launcher directly from the new game folder and run a repair.
The game works fine after that for me, the last time i did that was around two years ago.

unchainedzulu · January 2019

i'm sure those links are awesome. i recently have done this.

use browser to install the zenimax folders to the new location from scratch.
once the folders have been loaded, it will ask you to start the launcher and download complete game file. you can stop there, and copy paste your game files from old location to new location. took me about 5 mins.

Anastian · January 2019

Thank you for your replies!
I am not sure yet whether the hard disk is failing, as the different tests from proprietary software has yet to find an error or bad sector, but I can already move the game. ^^ Will do so in a few minutes

Iarao · January 2019

@SirAndy @unchainedzulu

i, too, am looking to put eso on my data drive instead of my os drive. i could use a bit more detailed info, pls.

so before i actually download the files, i just shut the launcher down and then go get my files on my os drive and move them to my data drive? i make the same file structure to put them in but use

instead of C: ? haha d : together makes an emoji

unchainedzulu · January 2019

Yes.
You dont actually need to run the launcher,just the install file.
I found it fairly intuitive and without a panicked STOP situation.

Iarao · January 2019

will this work if i set it up on a new computer, but stop it and then transfer over my eso files from this computer? and of course the files under documents.

on this computer, my addons go under the the pc/documents folder. on the new computer with win 10 home just like this one, eso is looking to shovel my addons onto one drive. i have one drive on this computer (it came with it) and eso never wanted to put them there. i cannot disable one drive on the new computer (or at least it isnt intuitive as to how it is done). i did remove it and then downloaded eso, hoping if it wasnt there, eso would see that and set it up like this one. nope. so evidently, if your win10 machine doesnt come with one drive, you need to go to ms and download it for eso to work?

unchainedzulu · January 2019

i dont see why not.

full disclosure - i do not know computers and how they work.