Replacing hard drive with P3D

[Bobsk8 12,580]

I am planing on getting a new harddrive as a maintenance measure to replace my HD which is going on 4 years old. I can install the new HD in my PC and with cloning software I have, make an exact image of my present hard drive on the brand new drive, so they are duplicates. My question is, what do I do with P3D, do I have to uninstall the client only, prior to switching to the new hard drive, and then reinstall, or do I have to install P3D entirely, which frankly is something I  would rather avoid at all costs, in which case I will probably just keep my old drive and hope for the best. . 

[hesynergy 67]

Bob,

 

I successfully and painlessly transferred my entire drive contents (I:\Prepar3d) ~>260GB

from HDD to SSD by;

1. simply copying (or cloning) entire P3d HDD drive contents to the new SSD drive let's call it Y:

2. relabeling the old HDD volume from I: to something unused..,Say Z:

3. Reassigning SSD Y:\ to the newly available drive letter I:

4. That's it...Your PC Thanks you and thinks it's talking to the old I: drive… It is...just a super fast I: drive this time.

 

 

 

Go fly....FASSSSSSSSSSSST!

 

CAVEAT:

Anytime that you do something this radical it gives you an opportunity to think about it before you actually carry the process out.

 

I.Are your drives and your volumes logically laid out and;

II. could you have done better by thinking about how you previously stored things?

III what you previously did with your scenery ?

IV. Where you put your add-on support software?...

A.SSDs are still significantly more expensive than the Cost of HDDs.

B.With that in mind, some of our content just doesn't need to be on 'spensive lickity-split SSD media.

V. You have the opportunity now to start from scratch and put things where they really belong...

 

… Just saying..

 

Hope this helps

 

Chas

[ffantasy67 51]

Hi Bob,

 

Just made it couple of weeks ago.

Installed a new SSD in my rig, cloned old HDD on it (AOMEI backupper free), switched drive letter between the two drives (AOMEI partition assistant, again free) and that's it. Everything woks flawlessly. No sweat and no need to reinstall a thing.

 

Cheers,

 

edit: http://www.aomeitech.com/

[newtie 533]

 

 

SSDs are still significantly more expensive than the Cost of HDDs.

 

They are also significantly faster.

 

I've been running EVO Pros for quite a while, which may explain why I don't get the blurries, at least not yet.  :wink:

 

Cheers,

Mark

[Poppet 703]

Are you changing your OS Drive "Windows"  or just Replacing an old Hard drive?  

 

If your just replacing or adding another Hard Drive and you want to just move Prepar3D to a different location.............. 

 

 

(1)  Uninstall Client from your Control Panel Restart your Computer 

 

(2)  Copy, Drag or Move your Complete Prepar3D to the place of your choosing. 

 

(3)  Reinstall Client again,  Please Note: When you Run the Client Installer again you will have to Navigate the Client Installer to your New Prepar3D Location.

 

(4)  Entry your Register editor  You will have to follow the path below and change your Content and Scenery Path= to now represent your new Install Client Path=  

 

Go to:  HKEY_CURRENT_USER ► Software ►Lockheed Martin ► Prepar3D V3  Right Click on AppPath,  Click Modify  and enter your new Drive Letter into Value data  Click Ok 

 

Go to:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  ►  Software   ►  Wow6432Node  ► Lockheed Martin ► Prepar3D V3   Click Into Content and Scenery  Right Click on SetupPath  Click Modify  and enter your new Drive Letter into Value data  Click Ok

 

(5)  Delete your Old Prepar3D Icon from your Desktop. Go to your new Prepar3D Install Location,  Right Click on Prepar3D.exe  Send to Desktop (Create a Shortcut) 

 

(6)  You might have to Delete any Shortcut Ad On Icon that you have Installed INTO the Prepar3D folder,  Same as above though Locate the Ad On .exe and send to desktop

 

============

 

The downside to this method is........

 

If you have 3rd Party Software that you have Installed into the Prepar3D folder that require an Update from time to time, you will have to Locate and Change the Value data Path of the specific Ad On to represent your New Location,  Not a big deal though.

[hesynergy 67]

Are you changing your OS Drive "Windows"  or just Replacing an old Hard drive?  

.Not a big deal though.[/size]

Sorry Poppet, I'll stick by my guns until proven otherwise ...I fail to see the virtue of that lengthy "big deal" process but...as every pilot is always learning, I am happy to be shown the error of my thinking.

 

Regards to all

 

Chas

[brucewtb 247]

Sorry Poppet, I'll stick by my guns until proven otherwise ...I fail to see the virtue of that lengthy "big deal" process but...as every pilot is always learning, I am happy to be shown the error of my thinking.

 

Regards to all

 

Chas

 

 

Well I don't know about P3D but your method certainly works for FSX.  I have several installs of FSX on different drives used for testing various options that I enable by simply changing drive letter.

 

Bruceb

[ffantasy67 51]

I'm now using my old HDD as back-up: I created a small partition on it and cloned a fresh image of my (P3D) SSD, just-in-case the new solid goes south.

 

Cheers,

[Bobsk8 12,580]

 

Are you changing your OS Drive "Windows"  or just Replacing an old Hard drive?  

 

If your just replacing or adding another Hard Drive and you want to just move Prepar3D to a different location.............. 

 

 

(1)  Uninstall Client from your Control Panel Restart your Computer 

 

(2)  Copy, Drag or Move your Complete Prepar3D to the place of your choosing. 

 

(3)  Reinstall Client again,  Please Note: When you Run the Client Installer again you will have to Navigate the Client Installer to your New Prepar3D Location.

 

(4)  Entry your Register editor  You will have to follow the path below and change your Content and Scenery Path= to now represent your new Install Client Path=  

 

Go to:  HKEY_CURRENT_USER ► Software ►Lockheed Martin ► Prepar3D V3  Right Click on AppPath,  Click Modify  and enter your new Drive Letter into Value data  Click Ok 

 

Go to:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  ►  Software   ►  Wow6432Node  ► Lockheed Martin ► Prepar3D V3   Click Into Content and Scenery  Right Click on SetupPath  Click Modify  and enter your new Drive Letter into Value data  Click Ok

 

(5)  Delete your Old Prepar3D Icon from your Desktop. Go to your new Prepar3D Install Location,  Right Click on Prepar3D.exe  Send to Desktop (Create a Shortcut) 

 

(6)  You might have to Delete any Shortcut Ad On Icon that you have Installed INTO the Prepar3D folder,  Same as above though Locate the Ad On .exe and send to desktop

 

============

 

The downside to this method is........

 

If you have 3rd Party Software that you have Installed into the Prepar3D folder that require an Update from time to time, you will have to Locate and Change the Value data Path of the specific Ad On to represent your New Location,  Not a big deal though.

 

 

All I intend to do is make a mirror image of my current harddrive ( an exact copy,) Once I have that, I change the letter of the new hard drive to C:, and boot from it, with the old hard drive now serving as a backup with a different drive letter assigned to it. ( I may even just unplug the old drive, since I already have an external drive as a constant backup of my active HD. 

[hesynergy 67]

Sorry, I didn't realize that you were talking about a boot drive rather an ancillary drive upon which you have P 3-D… I have seven HDD/SSD storage devices with close to 20 partitions… I guess I was coming from that...

 

That revelation changes things entirely ...although a good cloner should be able to create a bootable image.

 

Chas

[Bobsk8 12,580]

Sorry, I didn't realize that you were talking about a boot drive rather an ancillary drive upon which you have P 3-D… I have seven HDD/SSD storage devices with close to 20 partitions… I guess I was coming from that...

 

That revelation changes things entirely ...although a good cloner should be able to create a bootable image.

 

Chas

 

All I am doing is replacing my main drive, with a brand new drive. The way I am going to do that is to clone my present drive to  the brand new drive, using an image of my present drive, as the source. Now the brand new drive will be an exact copy of my present drive down to every last byte. Now all I have to do is change the letter of  the brand new drive to C: