Starting Over and Have a few Questions

[Molevalence]

Hey everyone. Just recently there was a bad storm and then mixed with some mild weather caused some flooding into my home and a leaky ceiling. The damage to the house is fixable but I lost my laptop and flash drive because of the leaky ceiling. I archived all my files for the past 4 years for mostly Skyrim and Fallout 3/New Vegas and all my character presets so it kind of sucks that I have to start over from scratch. I don't have the motivation to do it now but when I start mod searching again I just have a few questions just to prevent this from happening again.

 

1. When using Mod Organizer it leaves your Skyrim folder unchanged for the most part. If this is true can I copy the Data folder from Mod Organizer containing all the installed mods onto a separate source so if I ever lose/uninstall Skyrim all over again I can port it into the Mod Organizer folder and continue from there? (Just so I don't have to install all the mods again one by one.)

 

2. Anyone know a good way to archive a large number of files to a secure site or location so if physical items get destroyed they will always be there on the net. (This sounds kind of stupid leaving files on the internet but if it's secure I'm willing to do this as a third level of backup.)

 

If the first question is possible I may hire someone if they are willing but as of right now that remains to be seen.

 

[Varithina]

Hey everyone. Just recently there was a bad storm and then mixed with some mild weather caused some flooding into my home and a leaky ceiling. The damage to the house is fixable but I lost my laptop and flash drive because of the leaky ceiling. I archived all my files for the past 4 years for mostly Skyrim and Fallout 3/New Vegas and all my character presets so it kind of sucks that I have to start over from scratch. I don't have the motivation to do it now but when I start mod searching again I just have a few questions just to prevent this from happening again.

 

1. When using Mod Organizer it leaves your Skyrim folder unchanged for the most part. If this is true can I copy the Data folder from Mod Organizer containing all the installed mods onto a separate source so if I ever lose/uninstall Skyrim all over again I can port it into the Mod Organizer folder and continue from there? (Just so I don't have to install all the mods again one by one.)

 

2. Anyone know a good way to archive a large number of files to a secure site or location so if physical items get destroyed they will always be there on the net. (This sounds kind of stupid leaving files on the internet but if it's secure I'm willing to do this as a third level of backup.)

 

If the first question is possible I may hire someone if they are willing but as of right now that remains to be seen.

 

1 Yes

 

You can just copy the profiles folder from mod organiser and you should be good to go, though if you are installing on a  new machine with a different drive letter you would have to edit the modorganiser.ini to refer to the new location, as well as change the settings for all the installed utilites.

 

Or you could copy the entire mod organiser directory which would include all the mods, you would also of course need the saves directory from my documents as well.

 

Or you could copy the entire mod organiser directory, which would make sure that you get all the installed mods as well, though it would of course take up much more space.

 

2 - Easiest way would be to buy a usb/firewire external docking bay, something like this http://www.ebuyer.com/726313-xenta-2-5in-3-5in-sata-hard-drive-usb-docking-station-gdpebd01y , but bought from wherever you normally buy stuff, and a spare hd a 1 or 2tb one would allow you to maybe even back-up your entire steam collection, and just copy the entire skyrim directory to it, while there are on-line solutions to this do not forget your upload speed is likely to be considerably lower than your download, for example I can get a 1gb download in about 30min or so roughly, doing the same upload I would be looking at about 4-6 hours, assuming nothing went wrong.

 

2 Online, even a free account from mega has 10gig of space, which should be enough, if not they do variable charges for more space, pretty sure other places do the same, hell, windows 10 comes with some free cloud storage though I have no idea how much, even you won ISP may offer such services.

[Akzyra]

1. Yes, you can do that:

Just Backup the whole MO folder. Maybe delete the "downloads" folder first. Can be very large.

And the Save Folder of Skyrim: "%userprofile%\documents\my games\skyrim\saves"

The other files and folders in "%userprofile%\documents\my games\skyrim" are logs and skyrim INI files which are in case of MO not used.

 

Edit: As said above me, you can just backup "MO\profiles" but then you need to manually read the modlist and search the mods.

 

The only problem you might have is saving all this data: I have 52,3 GB in the mods folder right now.

MO has all files, not just the ones you installed last. Worst Case: Two huge texture mods where one replaces most of the other = Lots of wasted space.

Maybe clean some mods from the backup and create a list of huge removed mods.

 

2. No clue. I use Google Drive for small syncs of files, but you can have 100GB for 2$/month. No other Cloud comes to my mind.

Otherwise I really like personal hardware.

Maybe a drive that is only connected to the PC for backups/restoring? And store it safely and protected from the elements.

[Varithina]

The only problem you might have is saving all this data: I have 52,3 GB in the mods folder right now.

MO has all files, not just the ones you installed last. Worst Case: Two huge texture mods where one replaces most of the other = Lots of wasted space.

Maybe clean some mods from the backup and create a list of huge removed mods.

 

Damn, last time I backed up my skyrim install it was 120gb, tedious was the word and that was copying from my gaming pc to my personal data server on a lan.  There again I do run a big mod list 210-220 esp/esm, with a couple of them being 1-2gb merged armor/weapons mods, add in luxury collection and trx armour re-placer and that lot add up to around 8-10gb just by themselves.

[Molevalence]

Thank you for the responses and information. I will be out after the Easter Holiday weekend to pick up another laptop so I can start the goose chase if I get my motivation back. Also if anyone is interested in making a quick buck send me a message to my profile. Thanks again everyone.