Two Skyrim Installs on Two Different Hard Drives?

[Sahji]

Overview
I own Skyrim and all the DLC. I recently acquired a new hard drive, and want to make a seperate Skyrim install because my original install has a lot of custom content that I'm more or less hoarding until I'm happy with the new install and freshly updated mods.

Problem and Methodology
I had had luck migrating steam games using the steam backup and restore features. So, I made a fresh backup for Skyrim and the DLCs. This backup was placed in the new hard drive directory. However, when I tried to install there using the backup, I just get "Verifying Game Files", and the game does not install on the new drive.

Questions/Concerns
1. Can a steam game be installed twice on different hard drives? Can Skyrim, specifically?
2. I know there is a second way of migrating steam games by more or less cutting and pasting into the new directory (described here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129), but my INTENTION is to make a seperate, CLEAN install, and migrating this way would leave a lot of custom nonsense.

[Shrapnel]

put skyrim on usb, delete old install path

[Sahji]

Trying a modified version of this, since I don't have a USB large enough for my original install.

Copying the files (steamapps/common/skyrim) to the new hard drive, going to see if I can restore fresh files using a backup.

[OutsidR]

It's possible to parallel the two drives. There usually is two eide ports on your motherboard. You can connect the two indepent drives and use your C drive to access the other D drive which would be accessable via your C drive. You can then download what programs (games) you want, just install all of them to the D drive when it ask's where you want to install them to. You will still be able to place the game icon on your C drive. desktop. Then you can cut and paste or copy from one drive to the other and have the best of both worlds. Maybe more ppl can expand on my fix who have more expertise on the matter.

[Shrapnel]

really, all you had to do was save a copy of your save game folder and your mod folder (if using NMM). probably faster to simply reinstall skyrim and then your mods, if you remember their order and then launch and load.

[Kazaanh]

Hey man why not use a Mod Organizer? Its way superior than crappy NMM.

It leaves a Clean Skyrim instalation always. And stores every mod in the external/virtual catalog. Also you can create a lot of player profiles with a different characters, load orders, ini's settings , saves and it keeps all of your original Skyrim files, untouched.

I really recommend it becouse with this tool you don't need to reinstall Skyrim at all. Its a bit confusing at the beginning but there are plenty of video tutorial explaining every feature.

[Shrapnel]

I tried M/O and went back to NMM. It does seem like a cleaner tool but something about NMM is more user friendly, or its just what I started out with so ...