Can someone help me with Steam Mover? I reformatted my OS Drive that had Steam on it and have backups of my games on a HDD

[battletoad_boy]

I'm familiar with Steam Mover from having my Steam Install on my SSD that also had the OS on it.. When I finished the game, I used SM to move it to my HDD to free up SSD space. In some cases I moved games back to the SSD from the HDD if I wanted to play them months later. This worked dozens of times without issue.

However, I recently reformatted my PC, so the drive that had Steam on it is wiped clean. I first tried to install Steam on the SSD, then use SM to create a junction from the HDD location of a couple of game into the newly installed Steam folder where games are supposed to be placed. Steam would not recognize either game, saying that they would have to be downloaded and installed to play.

Then I tried just copy-pasting games from the HDD to the new Steam install. This didn't work either.

Finally, I deleted the new Steam Install, and installed another Steam onto the same HDD where all of my Steam backups are stored. I tried using SM for THIS version of Steam (which when you try to move games from a HDD to another folder on the same HDD it says isn't necessary). This did not work either. As one final attempt I tried copy-pasting from the HDD to this newest Steam install as well.

No doubt the issue hanging me up has to do with the original Steam Install being erased when I reformated. This is literally the only difference from the many times I have been able to move games between drives in the past.

Can anyone help me with this please?

 

[Jaxem]

Why even play games from the SSD? there's no real benefit besides loading up a bit faster. If you're okay playing from your HDD, you can add the folder on the HDD to your list of steam directories and you should be able to play them afterward

 

[battletoad_boy]

I tried moving my entire Steam Apps folder which contains all of my game backups (located on a HDD) into the proper place on the new Steam Install (also on the same HDD) Steam is still not recognizing any of the games from my Library actually existing, instead they are all grey and each of them say they must be Installed (downloaded).

The reason i liked having some games on the SSD was for loading multiplayer maps far faster than a HDD can. Now that I have no access to any of the games at all, I would definitely tolerate slower speeds in order to get access back. Even if my 256GB SSD would have to serve as little more than overkill as a OS boot drive

 

[USAFRet]

Is your SteamApps folder still in one piece and accessible?

All you have to so is:
install the Steam client
In the Setting, you can designate one of more locations
Point that at the folder where the SteamApps is

 

[Jaxem]

Are they actual backups made from steam, or just where you moved them, in their normal, playable form? I did something similar last week, and i had to actually go into a game folder and get the windows prompt to grant access to that portion of the drive (since the drive was with a 'different' PC before) before steam would show the games in my folder

 

[battletoad_boy]

They are not backups created through Steam, but some of them were directly installed there from Steam (never being put on the SSD) while others were moved there from the SSD when I wasn't playing them on a regular basis. All of them worked from their current location before the original steam install was deleted during the OS reformat.

I do not understand what you mean about getting a windows prompt. Can you explain this?

 

[photonboy]

*This is what I did:

1. Installed Windows
2. Installed Steam and registered
3. Moved my "Steamapps" folder to replace the new folder.

Now, you say you did this EXACT same thing so I'm unsure what your problem is.

 

[battletoad_boy]

Yes I did that exact same thing. After I saw your post, I attempted to replace the steamapps that contains all of my games into the newly-installed Steam Client's steamapps folder for a second time. Steam still does not recognize any of those games as actually in my library and not needing to be downloaded.

If I didnt have over 350GB worth of games and a strict 250GB per month ISP restriction, this would only be a hassle. Instead, it will be months to redownload all of this.

Jaxem, could you please explain more about that windows prompt thing that got it to work for you? How did you do that?

 

[Jaxem]

If you move a drive from one system to another, that system will only have access to parts of it (or sometimes none of it) without you giving permission. I had to open a windows explorer window and manually navigate into the drive, when i tried to get into steamapps, i got a prompt from windows asking me to give the system permission from that point forward to access that area, after that steam could get into the directory to see/use my games.

 

[USAFRet]

If you move a drive from one system to another, that system will only have access to parts of it (or sometimes none of it) without you giving permission. I had to open a windows explorer window and manually navigate into the drive, when i tried to get into steamapps, i got a prompt from windows asking me to give the system permission from that point forward to access that area, after that steam could get into the directory to see/use my games.

Right. You need to move that SteamApps folder outside of the original User folder space. Anywhere not under a particular 'user'.