I just replaced my harddrive and now MSFS will not start anymore.
I have the MS Premium Version, all latest udpates were done. I was playing FS for weeks.
main software is under the base filepath as usual, remained unchanged and completly controlled by the software itself.:
C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe
C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator
For storage resons, I did my former first installiation: the offcial + community folder on a seperate drive.
This possibility was offered to me while installation.
So, these data had been on a seperate drive and were looking like this:
f.\FlightSim
|----Community
|----Official
Now I did a complete hd change (new hd has same size but other manufacturer)
I did a complete 1:1 copy before drive change.
And I didn’t start FS until hd was completly restarted and system was reboot.
So, the new drive has the same strukture mentioned above, the old drive is out and the new drive replaced the old one on the same internal slot.
When I start now the Game, the APP says:
The APP cannot be opened, MSFS is offline and cannot be opened.
Probably the storage is not available or interupted.
So finally: ALL is available and in the same and right place (like before - simply unchanged)
I assume it’s just a bagatelle by changing a UUID number (or similar) for the HD (in the registry or wherever) , to let it run again.
Can anyone help? - I Don’t want to reinstall more then 100GB just by this annoying situation.
Unfortunately, I can’t answer your direct question, but if you’ll allow me to butt in and answer an unasked question…
You should not be running MSFS on an HDD. (Meaning a physical hard drives with spinning magnetic media, which I call a “spinner”.) In fact, nothing MSFS related should be put on a spinner, not add-on files, not cache files, not anything. It’s just not built for the (slow) speed that spinners have compared to SSDs.
In fact, going even further, the only place spinners should be used in 2020 given all the big picture price reductions on SSDs, etc., is for a local drive that stores (for viewing, never for editing) video and movie files, on inside of a NAS for nearline storage. They are performant enough for those uses, but really nothing else any more.
Now, with apologies for the thread hijack, back to your regularly scheduled programming…
No worries but sorry if I was not that detailed.
A HD is generally for me first any HD no matter what the hardware setup is, since I don’t really talk about a hardware issue in general.
I have no “spinning” HD for MSFS.
The main data as well as my windows 10 system is based on an NVME.
The data we are talking about are on another NVME. Before, the data had been on an NVME and now they are again on an NVME (but (and this is the difference) the new NVME is even faster then the old one, that was the reasone why I repaced it.
I did that about a week ago. There is an option in the app settings to move your installation. Since you did not do this, check here: C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache
There should be a file called UserCfg.opt. Open that with notepad and check the last line. It points to your installation. Change it to the location that you moved your installation. It should work now.
Edit: If you named your new drive the same as the old one, then there should be something else that is wrong. In that case, I don’t know…
Edit No 2: Try the options to repair or reset your installation. I assume you know were these are located.
Hi NormalMonkey204,
thanks for your response but unfortunately it does not help. I found the setting meanwhile as well and saw at the end the path, but is says exactly that what I said: “f.\FlightSim”
So, no reason to do here any changes.
Meanwhile I plugged in my former NVME (it’s not deleted so far) via external USB. and even switched the drive number internally, so that the former drive had exactly the drive number like before. - No solution
I removed it again and renamed my new drive back again to f:\ and even changed the name (but this doen’t made sense for me anyway, because a drive is gonna be located by it’s number (in this case) f:
and not by his name and - as I thought already - No solution.
The only thing is, what I can test first - (if there won’t pop up an other sollutions here) and before I HAD TO INSTALL AGAIN grrrrr - is:
replacig the new NVME by the old one agian. But finally it’s just a crosscheck solution and I would avoid this as well since this is finally not my aim to keep the old NVME and means as well doing some hardware changengs since the NVME has really to become “installed” onto the motherboard and not just “pluuged in” like an external USB or similar.
You wright “f.\FlightSim” . Assuming that the correct is “f:\FlightSim” (2 dots after f) and that this is how it is written in your .opt file, sorry I have no idea. Hope you sort it out without installation.
I’ll be more than happy to take it off your hands. I’ve got a hungry, but empty, NVMe slot on my MB which would love a fillup!
BTW, regards the spinner vs. HDD discussion, it actually occurred to me that you might be using the term more generically (as you were), but I didn’t point that out and I should have. So apologies for being presumptive!
When I changed my “drive” to a “new drive” (SSD to NvME), I FIRST made a complete and verified “Backup” of my original working OS/Flight Sim Disk. I used professional backup software to create that backup. A boot system drive copy/copy is never recommended and usually never works. After the backup was completed. I removed the original “drive”, put in the new “drive” and restored my backup to my new NvMe drive using my backup software. Removing the original prevents 2 copies of the same software to attempt to boot, always leads to trouble. I verified that all was working and ok, which it was. I was then free to move around my FS if needed and I also had a nice recoverable backup in event everything turned to mush.
Like you, my core game is installed to the default on C:, which is a 1TB NVMe.
I had my content installed to a 2TB SATA SSD at D:\MSFS.
Then I decided to add a second 1TB NVMe to my system for MSFS so my stuff would load faster. Once installed and formatted, this new drive became F:. I copied the entire d:\MSFS to F:\MSFS.
Then I opened Windows Disk Management, and swapped the drive letters, making my new NVMe my D:, and old SATA SSD F:.
That was all that was required. Everything worked like a charm.
I have performed a similar up grade today.
MSFS was installed originally on a spinning rust disk (F:).
I then moved my steam directory to my SSD drive (D:), this didn’t go to plan as it was the same time as the lsat update and had to re-download the whole thing again…
After this I bought another NVME drive, prior to installing I renamed the D drive to A. Restarted and installed the new M2 drive, formatted as D.
I then copied the steam and MSFS directories to the new drive (now D) and launched the sim. No issues and loads a fair bit quicker now…
Happy!
Hmm, I where using as well a profi software fĂĽr copying. 2 month ago I moved my complete working OS to a new, bigger drive with this software. after replacing, the new drive worked well.
However meanwhile I realized that I have a folder on my “f:” drive which might be the reason for my trouble. I vaguely remember that when I installed the FS software, I said: Please do the entire installation on an other hard drive (this f drive).
This is the folder structure how it was before and is now again.
This WindowsApps Folder seems to content the real game files and inside there are file where even me as Admin hav no access neither in copy nor in opening (and we talk about an *.ini file for example).
I recognized this when I wanted to copy the complete f-drive content to another drive (just with the explorer). Some files didn’t allow me to copy them. So finally just copying one drive content to another one will not work - when there is as well the gaming software based.
The really crazy things are although I told the installation please install yourself complete out of my OS to another drive I have still some GB data on my OS drive and now I have data there in c:\ and f:\ as well. (ok, that some files have to be in the OS folder - clear - but even gigabytes of material?)
You see here in the picture the WPSystem folder? - This folder seems to content the similar stuff like what everybody and even me have on the c drive as well, so it’s mirrored ?!?
This is really crazy everywhere on my system are now parts spreaded from MSFS . This is absolutly no clean programming. It’s really longtime ago I had such an nightmare installation and finally I come to the conclusion, never buy a software like this from MS again. It is digging and interlocked that deep in your system that your rather setup your OS completely new afer deleting.
Finally I assume I have to kill now my complete FS installiation (with the hope it’ll run smoth again, keeping fingers crossed) after couple of hours downloading I’ll see.
I deinstalled the Microsoft Flight Simulator App in the Appstore (and only this App, not the SDK )
I opened the XBOX Store again and started installing the MSFS Premium again. (2-3GB or something)
When main intall was finished, I started the software again and in the next step, it asked me for the path to download and install the complete stuff from the net (-So the rather larger package and time consumpting step >100GB.) . I switched the path exactly to the path on f.\ I had and used before and where the complete data are still in (in this case: f:\Flight Simulator). Software started checking and after a while it started completly over into the game without downloading again the whole stuff.
So finally everything work fine now again.
However I’m still not amused how the programmers spread the software all over my system - Here some “Gig” peaces, there…and even some unessesary mirrored files…Although I decided in the beginning having it completly on another drive.
