Restore Origin games like Steam?

[jonneymendoza]

Hi, i have reformated my hdd(cheers mrs mendoza for browsing dody sites with a load of spyware,adeware that brought my pc to its knees) and i have my origin games installed on a different hdd.

After i reformated and installed windows 7 again. i tried to click on one of my games and it said i need to download origin.

ok so download orgin, logged in and set the correct path for origin to find my games.

did it work? nope! origin fails to find the games and when i try to manually launch say for example fifa 12 it says this

Error Launching Game, the game does not appear to be insalled(it is installed u ****ing idiot) Please install it or try relaunching a game(**** re downloading all my origin games again)

i thought Origin was similar to steam where once u download your games, you dont have to re download or re install them if u reformat or move your whole collection on a new pc or hdd?

Something so basic missing from origin? or am i doing it wrong?

 

[stooeh]

I have re installed Windows and managed to play BF3 and ME3 without re installing them.

I think it basically just entailed pointing the install folder to the appropriate one on 2nd HDD, running some exe in the games' folder (activation.exe or something) then restarting Origin.

After the restart Origin changed to install game instead of download and took about 30 seconds to complete for each game.

 

[MissChief]

When i did it I installed origin, started the downloads then closed origin. I then moved the folders over, restarted Origin again, checked the files and was ready to play.

 

[chaparral]

i thought Origin was similar to steam where once u download your games, you dont have to re download or re install them if u reformat or move your whole collection on a new pc or hdd?

If you format the C: drive you do have to reinstall steam games as it removes they information from the windows registry...

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

If you format the C: drive you do have to reinstall steam games as it removes they information from the windows registry...

No you don't, the only game I saw that required re-installation with Steam was Dragon Age: Origins due to it requiring some crappy launcher running in the background for the DLC to work.

For the most part Steam looks after the games to make sure they work when you move to a new installation (I've carried my Steam folder through at least five re-installs and haven't had a problem yet).

With Origin I've found it to be very hit and miss, one of the games I did manage to get working this way promptly stopped working mid way through the game for no apparent reason.