"Microsoft Flight Simulator was not found and cannot be opened. The storage device may be missing or disconnected."

I have installed Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on an external hard disk.

I unplugged the hard drive yesterday to work on another PC.

But after plugging it back into my main PC, I always get this message when I try start it:

“Microsoft Flight Simulator was not found and cannot be opened. The storage device might be missing or disconnected.”

The letter of the disk (E:) has not changed, the path of the game has not changed either, actually nothing at all.

Nevertheless I keep getting this error message without success.

I have tried to reset the Microsoft Store with (wsreset.exe), disconnected and reconnected the hard disk and restarted the PC.

(I am also on the latest Windows version and using MSFS2020 on the Microsoft Store)

Nothing helped to solve the problem

Help and tips are really appreciated!

I believe you are using the MS store version of the game right?

If its the case of the Steam version. If you unplug the H. drive, Steam wont recognize the path once you plug it back in. You have to set again the library path manually and everything will work.

Sorry if it is not your case.

No, I have the Microsoft Store version. I could have mentioned that. I edit it now but still thanks for helping!

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I had this same problem after I upgraded my d: (games, etc) drive from HDD to SSD. I had to reinstall all the games I had installed from the MS store. The store wouldn’t recognize the games at all. I even did a disk image, not a file copy. It was frustrating. I hope you find a better solution than having to reinstall.

Try uninstalling the USB (assumed) drivers for all the ports in device manager, and then restart PC. Windows sometimes get error in USB drivers and it just does not see them. Make sure you are plugging drive into 3.1 port as well. Some external drives won’t run unless on 3.0/1 ports period. Good Luck, I considered your install method, but had more than enough C space and that is where it resides, no loading issues.

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting.
No

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No

Brief description of the issue:
The whole thing has had a catastrophic failure and request reinstall.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

image

Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:
No Idea. I parked up turned off avionics and the game stopped and won’t start again.

PC specs for those who want to assist (if not entered in your profile)
6850K, RTX3090, 64GB RAM, NVMe install.

Did you submit this to Zendesk? If so, what is your ticket #?
I could only find the FAQ pages.

At the top of this board, click on Support. You need to Sign In - Upper Right, then you can Submit a Request - which means a ticket.

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Ah log in! Cheers.