Oblivion Reinstall advice needed

[DsoS]

I need a little advise on a few things.

I've bought three 64-Gb Solid State Harddrives (for $99.99/ea from NewEgg with promo code) which will arrive Monday hopefully. I'll be setting them in a Raid 0 configuration. This, of course, means that I will have to reinstall Windows, all programs and everything else.

I've currently have Oblivion installed, with more mods than I know of. I really do not want to have to reinstall all these mods, as it took me 3-4 weeks to get my Oblivion to this state, which is nearly crash free (about a 1-3% chance of crash).

I know that I can make a copy of the oblivion install folder on another hard drive. Then when I get windows and everthing reinstalled I can recopy it to the Oblivion install locaton. Thing is I've never tried it this way before (after a new install of windows), I've copied back when I messed up installing a mod or something not work right with a mod.

Would I have to reinstall Oblivion, SI, all expansion packs, and the CS from scratch AND THEN copy the modded Oblivion folder to the fresh install? I'm currently sitting at around 20-25+GB in oblivion mods installed (I'm at work and don't have a actual number, but I think thats pretty close!)

Another thing, I'm going to use my old drive, which is a 300GB western digital velicoraptor (10k rpm) drive for Oblivion alone, nothing else!

1)Would I be able to move this drive from my computer to a friends computer (without Oblivion installed) and continue playing (and of course taking the "My Games" folder in the document folder along with me for game saves, if needed)

2)Would anyone see an issue doing this?

As for just coping the Oblivion Install folder and the "My Games" folder in my documents. What else would/should I copy before I reinstall Oblivion?

Sorry if this is a little confusing I tried to explain it the best that I can. If you have any questions just ask, I won't bite, I promise

Thanks in Advanced

DSoS

[HeyYou]

Wanna get the most performance from your game using the SSD's? Consider this configuration.

Use one of the SSD's as a standalone drive, just for the operating system, and standard MS software. (office, and the like, if you have it.)

Use the two other drives in RAID 0 (if ya like) and use the 128gb you get from that to install your games to. The 300 gb disk can be used for just storage. That way, you would end up with your O/S, AND your game, on the fastest drives in your system. That would go a long way toward reducing load stutter at cell boundaries in oblivion. (not to mention interior/exterior switch....)

For installing Oblivion, once you have the drives set up the way you want 'em, and your O/S, drivers, and such squared away, just install Oblivion. That's it. Then you should be able to direct copy your current install to the new location. (of course, given the size of the install, that may take an hour or so..... ) You will probably have to reinstall your utilities like Wrye Bash, OBMM, etc. (along with whatever else they need to run.... python, for instance)

You could conceivably take one of your drives (or, all the drives in the raid config..... which may or may not work on a different machine....) with the oblivion install on it, and stuff it into another machine, but, you will have to create the Oblivion folder in my games, and let the game create a new ini file for the new machine. Don't expect miracles though, I am not entirely sure that will actually work. Don't expect any of your utilities with other software dependencies to work though.

[DsoS]

For the storage aspect, I'm not too worried about that. I've got four single 1.5TB 7200rpm drives for storage

As for the MS stuff, the only thing I use MS for is Windows, Open Office and open source software for everything else (if possible, and usually is )

I figured I would have to reinstall everything for the most part that requires it, Wrye Bash OBMM, etc.

Thank You HeyYou

Another quick question, Is the location for the saved games, ini files, hardcoded into Oblivion? or is there a way that I can change the location to the "My Games" folder?

[darkstone]

I`m with HeyYou on this,if I had 3 SSD,I would certainly use one for my OS,it`s a no brainer really.

[HeyYou]

I think it is possible to move the entire My Documents folder, not sure about individual subfolders thereof. I have also heard tell of folks that DID move the Documents folder, having various strange issues...... Its been a while though, and I don't recall exactly what problems he was having.

[DsoS]

I'm using the 3 drives in Raid-0 for the OS drive.

and later I will be getting a few more of the same drives, then of which I can use for storage.

For now I'm happy with the 3 drive raid system (well once I get it all installed that is )

Thank you for the help guys

[HeyYou]

I use a 40 gig drive for my O/S, and put the page file on yet another drive. I have never had a space problem, even with a bunch o' stuff installed.

[BootySweat]

I'm using the 3 drives in Raid-0 for the OS drive.

and later I will be getting a few more of the same drives, then of which I can use for storage.

For now I'm happy with the 3 drive raid system (well once I get it all installed that is )

Thank you for the help guys

I've been using 2 x 160GB Intel X18 G2 SSDs in Raid0, for nearly two years as the primary drive in my laptop, no problems so far, but I would recommend to back up to external drive regularly. (If either of the drives fails, then all the data will be lost.

Edited May 23, 2011 by BootySweat