Moved over data from one HDD to another, now none of my apps work

Jenkins453 · Apr 5, 2015

So the other day I bought and installed a new 2TB HDD in my pc. Got it all hooked up and formatted, and started to transfer data from my main HDD to this one (as I just wanted to use it for storage for my games and large apps only). Everything finished and appeared to be well, until I tried to open apps this morning. Now none of my apps work and it says that they are all missing the file locations. I try to change the start in and target locations to where they are on my E: drive but they still wont open. Maybe I am messing this up somehow? I have no idea what to do from this point!! Help please!

USAFRet · Apr 5, 2015

This depends completely on 'what' you moved.

Data (music/pics/video) can be moved easily. Applications? No.
What, specifically, did you move?

Jenkins453 · Apr 5, 2015

I grabbed the program files from the C: drive, so for instance with SpeedFan, went into ProgramFiles(x86) grabbed the folder labeled SpeedFan and cut and paste into the new E: drive. Did that for: Steam, all Blizzard Games, LoL, and google chrome. That was all that I moved. I got steam to work again, but still nothing else that I transferred does.

USAFRet · Apr 5, 2015

I grabbed the program files from the C: drive.....and cut and paste into the new E: drive

That does not work.

Steam games can be moved sort of like that, but regular applications? No. They need to be actually installed on whichever drive. You can't just copy/paste to a new location.

See this for moving Steam games:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Jenkins453 · Apr 5, 2015

I got the steam apps and now blizzard apps to work being that the game client just finds everything itself. As for speedfan and the other things, I have to re-install them completely? There is no other way to pull them over without having to re-install it to the new drive?

EDIT: So trying to re-download the things you said that I couldn't just move (i.e. speedfan) and now I get the message "Windows cannot find C:\downloads\...... Make sure you typed the name correctly then try again." Im confused as to why I am getting this message now since I never moved the downloads folder or anything other than games to begin with :/

USAFRet · Apr 5, 2015

For regular applications, yes, they need to be actually reinstalled on the new location.
When you install something, many, many entries are created int he registry and elsewhere. If you just 'move' them...the registry does not know this.

Some few applications may work being moved like that, but the majority...no.

Jenkins453 · Apr 5, 2015

Okay, thank you for the help. One last question, how do I fix the issues with my downloads folder now? I cant download anything since it continuously says that windows cannot find anything. Well, I can download it, I just can run the .exe

USAFRet · Apr 5, 2015

Jenkins453 :

Possibly look in your browser settings, and change where it points to for downloads.

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Moved over data from one HDD to another, now none of my apps work

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