I was wondering why I can play some of my games from my external hard drive and others won't play because it says missing .dll files or other launch errors. Here is a for instance...World of Warcraft plays directly from my external hard drive. *(the external is hooked using usb) No problems loading or playing. Now Titans Quest won't play from my external, but only from my pc hard drive. Any help as to why this happens or how to fix it? My comp is only 40 gig and so I bought a 150 gig external and was hoping to run all large programs through it, but alas, photoshop, paint shop pro, ms office 03, some games, ect... wont run from my external.

Thanks in advance for your smarts~!

For most games it's recommended to have at least a 7200rpm Hard drive, I'm not sure if that's part of your problem or not. Another point is if you are using USB 1.# or 2.#, the later version allows for higher access speeds.

As for the games themselves, It's really dependent on the developers as to how well coded the installation is. (Btw OpenOffice should run on an External)

There is probably a more technical reason for why they don't install (perhaps you unplug the drive and plug it into a different USB port from time to time etc.)

You may have to check the directory you installed them and the directory they're reading, If they can't find a file, Its usually that.

Do the games require a license key typing in before they will work? Many games have a license key on the CD, and this is stored on the PC's system volume. I guess the coders are trying to stop you from moving the external HD from machine to machine, but that's pointess, really, as you could perform multiple installs using the same code.

What specifically does it do when it "can't play"? Does it give you a message, does it crash, does it just sit there forever loading, or does it do absolutely nothing? The exact cause would depend on what exactly the symptoms are.

I'll have to check again. On Titans Quest, it says the (insert letters here).dll could not be located. Others just don't do anything.

Just look up the missing .dll's on the net.
I've heard of this before, though I don't know why the .dll's are missing.
Most of the time you will find the .dll's and after copying it to the game folder the game will run.