Character Saves and Uninstalling the Game

CMDR Drake · Nov 8, 2020

Hi All!
With the approaching release of Odyssey (and Cyberpunk 2077) I decided to add a SSD to my PC to run both titles on. This would mean uninstalling the existing game and re-installing it on the SSD.
Then I thought, what happens to my Character Save if I uninstall Elite Dangerous?

After doing some research, it seems that everything is stored on Frontier's Servers and I need only worry about Control Bindings and Graphic settings, both of which are no problem to deal with.

But I want to be 100% clear with this. My Character is well established, with 4.2 Billion Credits and I don't want to lose it.

Has anyone done what I am considering and if so, how did it go for you?

All replies welcome!

Mr T · Nov 8, 2020

Yes, your saves are stored on the servers. I've gone from one PC to a different one and my original commander state was still intact.

As an alternative you could also look at cloning your disk if you didn't want to go through the whole reinstall process although you would need an external drive to store the backup on. I'd recommend a free open source tool like Clonezilla to do the job.

Bravo17 · Nov 8, 2020

Mr T said:
cloning your disk

It shouldn't need a clone, unless you are swapping out your boot disc.

If you already have 2 discs and are replacing the one with ED on it you can just copy the files.

If you are using Steam you can create a second Steam folder on the SSD and ask Steam to move the install for you.

CMDR Drake · Nov 8, 2020

Mr T said:
Yes, your saves are stored on the servers. I've gone from one PC to a different one and my original commander state was still intact.

As an alternative you could also look at cloning your disk if you didn't want to go through the whole reinstall process although you would need an external drive to store the backup on. I'd recommend a free open source tool like Clonezilla to do the job.

That's great to know, many thanks!
I didn't consider cloning. Might be an option. Thanks for the information

CMDR Drake · Nov 8, 2020

Bravo17 said:
It shouldn't need a clone, unless you are swapping out your boot disc.

If you already have 2 discs and are replacing the one with ED on it you can just copy the files.

If you are using Steam you can create a second Steam folder on the SSD and ask Steam to move the install for you.

I have Elite on STEAM and currently have two STEAM folders (on on C: and one on my D: HDDs) I had thought to make a third on the SSD when I installed Cyberpunk.
I will look at getting STEAM to move my Elite files over.
Many thanks

GroG79 · Nov 8, 2020

Disc cloning your OS disk is possible but in general not a good idea. I hope you manage using steam to do the move. This is also what I have used in the past and it worked fine.

CMDR Drake · Nov 8, 2020

GroG79 said:
Disc cloning your OS disk is possible but in general not a good idea. I hope you manage using steam to do the move. This is also what I have used in the past and it worked fine.

Thanks GroG79 The STEAM move is looking to be the favourite method

CMDR Drake · Nov 10, 2020

Hi All.
I thought I'd give an update, just to finish off the thread.
Well, my Solid State Drive arrived and was physically installed easily enough although I did have to use the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) built into Windows to initialize then format the SSD as the OS couldn't see the drive.

After Formatting, I used STEAM to create a new Steam Library on the SSD and then used STEAM to move the local files (some 20 GB of data) across, which took about 15-20 minutes. I then launched Elite Dangerous and everything worked beautifully! My Save loaded OK and my key bindings were unchanged as were all my other settings.

Performance-wise, the game loaded quicker and accessing the various screens in the Spaceports was also noticeably quicker. Hyperspace transition and planetary Glide to drop in transition were much smoother too and perhaps a couple of seconds quicker.
Another thing I noticed was there were no graphical glitches on the planet skins while flying past them in Supercruise, where I had noticed some before. This might be nothing to do with the drive but I thought I'd mention it.

Anyways, that's it. Many thanks to you all for your responses and helpful ideas.

o7 Commanders, see you around the Galaxy! ~ CMDR Drake

Bravo17 · Nov 10, 2020

CMDR Drake said:
I did have to use the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) built into Windows to initialize then format the SSD as the OS couldn't see the drive.

You have to do that with all new internal drives, whether old style platter or SSD

Mr T · Nov 10, 2020

Bravo17 said:
It shouldn't need a clone, unless you are swapping out your boot disc.

If you already have 2 discs and are replacing the one with ED on it you can just copy the files.

If you are using Steam you can create a second Steam folder on the SSD and ask Steam to move the install for you.

Yeah, I made an assumption he was swapping his boot disk.. my bad.

I've found the Steam Backup and Restore function to work better than manually copying the files for a lot of games. I think it has something to do with an identifier that's different. The copy method seems to work for other game distribution platforms Ok (ie. Epic, Origin, Uplay).

CMDR Drake · Nov 10, 2020

Bravo17 said:
You have to do that with all new internal drives, whether old style platter or SSD

Yes, I thought as much but I watched a YouTube video on SSD installation and the chap there didn't need to use MMC. His Windows OS found the drive, so I thought that maybe SSD's worked differently. Either way, no worries, easy enough to do but I thought it worth mentioning as part of the procedure