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Moving All Files to an External Drive?

QuixotryQuixotry Posts: 917
edited December 2014 in New Users

Hello everyone,

I've never posted on this forum, so I'm technically new here, but I've been using DAZ for about two years, without having to deal with any big problems, I seem to have created one for myself tonight. I'm running DAZ 4.7 (Pro) on an iMac with OS 10.8. As I said, I've never had any problems until now. My computer's hard drive is only 1.12 TB, and was filling up fast with all my content and saved files. I've got a 5 TB external drive hooked up now, which I want to store all my content on. However, I think I made a very silly mistake.

I took My DAZ 3D Library, and several other DAZ-related folders and dragged-and-dropped them into the larger hard drive. Then - here's the silly part - deleted all that from the main drive. Now I have all that lovely content stored safely on my great big hard drive. That's fine. But… DAZ can't see it because, apparently, it's doing the logical thing and looking for the content under the proper installation paths, which I have basically deleted.

I don't mind uninstalling everything and reinstalling it, but I have tons of content and installing it manually sounds like torture. (Only because I was making Christmas gift/prints, and am running out of time). It seems to me that I had read somewhere that you could customize installation paths in Install Manager. Maybe?

Is there some way that I can make the external drive the default location in Install Manager, so that when I want to install something, I can just click the green 'install and download' button and let it do all the work? Or have I just committed myself to installing everything manually from now on? Is there possibly some way to reestablish the connection to the content without uninstalling/reinstalling? It's all there, just in a place that DAZ doesn't know to look…

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Post edited by Quixotry on

Comments

  • TotteTotte Posts: 14,094
    edited December 1969

    First, you need to tell DAZ Studio and also DIM where it is. Preferences settings AFAIK (Content Directory Setup), just woke up, if it's wrong I need tea....

    And when you have done that, It's a good idea to reimport metadata so that will point right.

  • QuixotryQuixotry Posts: 917
    edited December 2014

    Oh, thank you, Totte. I know where the Content Directory Manager is, and Content DB Editor, but I'm not seeing Content Directory Setup. Where should I be looking?
    And how is metadata reimported? This is all a part of DAZ that I haven't paid much attention to before.


    *****EDIT******

    I may have found it. At least my files are showing up in the content pane now, and I can now load figures without them becoming grey box people. You may have just solved my entire problem! Thank you so much! I'll let you know if everything is working as it should be.

    Still curious about metadata, though…


    *****EDIT 2*****

    I can now access all my content through the Content Library pane! The icons under Smart Content are still a mess, but the important thing - getting DAZ 4.7 to locate the files - worked! Thank you!

    Post edited by Quixotry on
  • TotteTotte Posts: 14,094
    edited December 2014

    marykb said:
    Oh, thank you, Totte. I know where the Content Directory Manager is, and Content DB Editor, but I'm not seeing Content Directory Setup. Where should I be looking?
    And how is metadata reimported? This is all a part of DAZ that I haven't paid much attention to before.


    *****EDIT******

    I may have found it. At least my files are showing up in the content pane now, and I can now load figures without them becoming grey box people. You may have just solved my entire problem! Thank you so much! I'll let you know if everything is working as it should be.

    Still curious about metadata, though...

    You need to go into the Content DB setup ?? (tea hasn't activated the brain yet) and do reimport metadata.

    I've done the move you just done several times, even moving from one HW to another, so I know it's doable, just point everything to the right place.

    Edit: Content DB Maintenance

    Post edited by Totte on
  • QuixotryQuixotry Posts: 917
    edited December 1969

    Okay, metadata reimported. It's good to know that this can actually be done. Thanks a million for the help!

  • TotteTotte Posts: 14,094
    edited December 1969

    marykb said:
    Okay, metadata reimported. It's good to know that this can actually be done. Thanks a million for the help!

    You're welcome!

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