P3D re-install after C:\drive failure - seeking advice

[expat]

So, after our house was flooded last month I lost everything on my PC's C:\drive that had the Win7 O/S, Outlook data files (ouch) and most other programs one finds on your boot drive. I have rebuilt the rig with a new power supply, some upgraded RAM and bigger SSD's and now have Win10 up and running. So that's all good news.

I am in a quandary how to deal with what's left of my P3D v 4.5 installation whose "architecture" has been spread across three different drives. Just to be clear, I managed to avoid losing any irreplaceable homemade addons, e.g. repaints, addon scenery etc, which is also good. The question I think but very much welcome comments is whether I can get away with a partial "repair" install of P3D (I don't know if they even offer this) OR I should start completely over from scratch, set aside all wanted addon files to add back in later (payware a/c may need to be properly installed again too), uninstall everything P3D, everything ORBX FTX? and do a completely fresh install of P3Dv4.5 and then add back my addons. I predict people will say the full and fresh install route, as there are now breaks in the mapping to essential installed P3D related files that were in my C-drive but are no longer there. A bit of a pain - particularly Orbx and many dozens of other add on sceneries that have to be activated in the sim one by one - but that's the way the ball bounces.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions.

[expat]

Mapping in the attachment.

[Priller]

Damn expat, you haven't made life easy on yourself with that configuration! I feel for ya, I really do!

I think that maybe, just maybe you could start all over again, install P3D like it was (although I NEVER install flightsims in the program files folder), But if I were you, I would put those precious files of yours somewhere else for safe keeping, and do a complete reinstall on one of the other untouched drives.

For what it is worth (post factum), I always make full backups of my installs on a separate data drives and two external drives.

Priller

[wombat666]

What Priller said.

I fear you need to go the fresh install route, preferably on a separate drive or drives.
My system sees P3D in two flavors on their own drive, with ORBX and other 'extras' on another drive.
As Jan has mentioned, complete backups are worth the effort.
I have taken the complete backup route on external drives, aside from keeping everything tidy it helps sort out the add-ons.

[dhazelgrove]

Ah, backups. If only people would. I use this one here.
There's a free version, too.

Dave

[expat]

Thanks guys,

Yes, I need to improve on my back up strategy. Note, however, I did keep my payware and other hard to replace files on an external drive that was on my desk and unaffected. In fact, this was the more unusual case of flooding, and therefore the components lowest in the case getting damaged. It was the PSU and just one of four drives (counting the WD external). It just happened to be the one with the Win O/S and other Windows programs on it - the boot "C" drive. The upside being most stuff on it is replaceable, the downside being it's a pain to go through.

Note also please I deliberately did not install P3d on the drive with the O/S and other core programs on it - in my case the C drive that has failed. Instead as people have previously recommended I have the P3D exe installed on a dedicated D drive which was not submerged and this data was recovered. However, it seems if you do install on and run P3D from its own drive as I do, it still puts a number of essential files on the programs "C" drive - the path that leads to Lockheed Martin > P3D > and then your xml files and the P3D.cfg etc. Using this recommended architecture here when the boot drive with the OS and these essential P3D files on it fails results in this "broken" installation it seems. Also will add, aside from flooding and PC boxes on floors and external drives sitting outside of any flooding zones, it strikes me backing up to an external drive has the same risk of HDD or SSD failure as your internal drives in the box. So I guess you just do triple backups on three drives and hope they all don't fail? Does anyone use large pen drives or different technology eg imaging software?