How would I go about transfering Skyrim and MO2 to my external harddrive?

[xXDeliteXx]

Basically i'm wondering what precautions or extra steps it would take to move my copy of Skyrim and Mod Organizer to a hard drive with out messing anything up.

[sunhawken]

you literally just copy and paste and adjust the ini files BEFORE you start the software and back up your load order.

[Just Don't]

For the game folder you can just copy and paste it into your new location. You still need to setup Steam to recognize this new location as a Steam library and Skyrim as a game installed through Steam, but you'll skip having to re-download the game into this new location.

 

For MO you'll need to copy your current instance (easier if you went for a portable instance as everything is inside the MO2 folder) to the new location and adjust the file paths. For that you can do as sunhawken says and edit the ini file prior to using MO again (the file in question is ModOrganizer.ini which can be found inside your MO2 folder). But there is also settings to change the file paths inside MO.

 

Spoiler

In MO Settings, "Paths" tab: (note that this is a portable instance)

• Make sure your Base Directory is the new location for your MO2/Mod Organizer 2 folder.
• The other paths might change if you're not using a portable instance, mines are just BASE_DIR\<subfolder name>, so there is nothing to change here.
• The last path should point to your new Steam library\Skyrim install.

Then you'll need to update the information for some of your executables

• Check each executable (listed to the right), change the Binary field if the path doesn't fit the new location.
• Remember to press Apply before pressing OK/closing this window so the changes are saved.

 

Your saves should be in the default location (your Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\Saves).

Most of your MO profile info should be in MO2\profiles\<profile name>, which you'll be copying along your entire MO2 folder so your loadorder, modlist, lockedorder and other MO specific settings will be there.

[xXDeliteXx]

5 hours ago, Just Don't said:

For the game folder you can just copy and paste it into your new location. You still need to setup Steam to recognize this new location as a Steam library and Skyrim as a game installed through Steam, but you'll skip having to re-download the game into this new location.

 

For MO you'll need to copy your current instance (easier if you went for a portable instance as everything is inside the MO2 folder) to the new location and adjust the file paths. For that you can do as sunhawken says and edit the ini file prior to using MO again (the file in question is ModOrganizer.ini which can be found inside your MO2 folder). But there is also settings to change the file paths inside MO.

 

  Hide contents

In MO Settings, "Paths" tab: (note that this is a portable instance)

• Make sure your Base Directory is the new location for your MO2/Mod Organizer 2 folder.
• The other paths might change if you're not using a portable instance, mines are just BASE_DIR\<subfolder name>, so there is nothing to change here.
• The last path should point to your new Steam library\Skyrim install.

Then you'll need to update the information for some of your executables

• Check each executable (listed to the right), change the Binary field if the path doesn't fit the new location.
• Remember to press Apply before pressing OK/closing this window so the changes are saved.

 

Your saves should be in the default location (your Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition\Saves).

Most of your MO profile info should be in MO2\profiles\<profile name>, which you'll be copying along your entire MO2 folder so your loadorder, modlist, lockedorder and other MO specific settings will be there.

Thanks for the tutorial, I highly appreciate it