# Possible to install games to non-OS hard drive?



## armysgt1

I would like to use my larger hard drive to install games to. Is this possible when the larger drive doesn't have the operating system on it?


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## deanj20

Absolutely. Whenever you run the installation utility for the program, just select the other drive and put it wherever you want. On this computer, I have a Program Files folder on C:and on D: , but you could call yours whatever you like (Games, Utilities, Documents, whatever).


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## armysgt1

Great, thanks a lot!


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## Drenlin

Some games won't let you do it, but most will. Some will even install to an external drive.


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## Aastii

If you install them, you can't move the game afterwards. It will install alright onto the non-OS drive, but 99% of games won't. There are some exceptions (WoW comes to mind), but most can't be moved without files being affected and not working with a different file path


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## wag 42

How about online games? My son plays alot of games on steam, and has downloaded a bunch of stuff from steam. When I build a computer, i'd love to have a seperate HD just for his stuff. My guess is you can't, but i'd hate for all of his online game stuff to be loaded onto the same drive as the operating system.

I plan on using a SSD for the operating system, but until prices come down, space will be a premium.


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## deanj20

It's been my personal experience that you can install _any_ program to _any_ drive, so long as you choose the appropriate drive/directory during the program's initial install. 

Very few (poorly written) program installers will not allow you to choose the drive letter and/or directory, in which case you should be able to change the program's registry entries and move it manually.


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## salvage-this

wag 42 said:


> How about online games? My son plays alot of games on steam, and has downloaded a bunch of stuff from steam. When I build a computer, i'd love to have a seperate HD just for his stuff. My guess is you can't, but i'd hate for all of his online game stuff to be loaded onto the same drive as the operating system.
> 
> I plan on using a SSD for the operating system, but until prices come down, space will be a premium.



unless you have a separate partition for your os I don't think that you can pull the os out on to a separate boot HDD.  

For putting the games on a lager drive, you could just clone the smaller drive to the larger one to make it your primary HDD.  I have not noticed any problems running my os and all of my games together on my tb drive.  I just make sure to clean and defrag it every so often.  Keeps it pretty fast.


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## Aastii

wag 42 said:


> How about online games? My son plays alot of games on steam, and has downloaded a bunch of stuff from steam. When I build a computer, i'd love to have a seperate HD just for his stuff. My guess is you can't, but i'd hate for all of his online game stuff to be loaded onto the same drive as the operating system.
> 
> I plan on using a SSD for the operating system, but until prices come down, space will be a premium.



When you install steam, install it onto a sifferent hard drive. Then, all of the games will be installed into the steam directory, on the other hard drive


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## deanj20

> i'd love to have a seperate HD just for his stuff. My guess is you can't, but i'd hate for all of his online game stuff to be loaded onto the same drive as the operating system.



All of the games on this computer are installed on D:\Program Files\

The OS is installed on C:\Windows and the only thing in C:\Program Files\ is MS Office and a few other programs. 

Everything runs great. Simply choose the desired drive and directory during the initial installation of your son's games. By default, installers choose "C:\Program Files" so you have to change the drive letter. That's it! (Or has always worked for me anyway)


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## wag 42

Aastii said:


> When you install steam, install it onto a sifferent hard drive. Then, all of the games will be installed into the steam directory, on the other hard drive





deanj20 said:


> All of the games on this computer are installed on D:\Program Files\
> 
> The OS is installed on C:\Windows and the only thing in C:\Program Files\ is MS Office and a few other programs.
> 
> Everything runs great. Simply choose the desired drive and directory during the initial installation of your son's games. By default, installers choose "C:\Program Files" so you have to change the drive letter. That's it! (Or has always worked for me anyway)



That's great-thanks guys. That was the route that I wanted to go, but was not sure it would work. I didn't want to have to spend a small fortune for a large SSD just to accomodate the games. I figured a couple hundred $$ for an 80 GB SSD for OS and incedentals, then a couple more 500 GB's (or larger) standard  HDD's. One for his games and one for my stuff.


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