Clean win10 install on SSD results in programs, etc. not functioning on original HDD

[wjazzz]

I had posted a similar question yesterday, however, in reading it again, it appears to me that I was not clear as to exactly what I was doing. I decided to rephrase and provide more details as to my situation. I really am lost here and greatly appreciate any help or a simple nudge in the right direction.

Here was my plan:
Currently I have a 1TB HDD on a desktop which is near capacity due in part by a 700GB steam folder. I thought I could upgrade to a 2TB HDD and a 120GB SSD. My plan was to put clean win10 on the SSD and then put the old 1TB HDD back with everything still on it (win10, games, programs, etc), and put in the 2TB HDD to be used as additional storage for games etc.

I did a clean install of win 10 on the SSD. I then put the 1TB HDD back in along with the new 2TB HDD, thinking everything would simply work just fine. It didn't. I thought I could solve this problem by simply moving everything from the 1TB HDD to the new 2TB HDD, but from what I am reading doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm just getting more confused the more I read. The 1TB HDD still has everything on it including the 700GB steam folder and win 10. The 2 TB HDD doesn't have anything on it, it has been formatted though.

Am I correct in understanding that I cannot use the programs on the old HDD any longer because of my new win 10 install to the SSD? Do I have to re-download the 700GBs of steam games to the new 2TB HDD?

At this point it seems that it wasn't a smart move for me to add the SSD with the new win 10. It appears to have made everything on my old HDD useless. Can I, at this point, simply remove the SSD and go back to booting from the old 1TB HDD and using my new 2TB HDD as additional storage?

I love how fast win 10 boots from the SSD but it's simply not worth it if I have to re download everything that's on the old HDD to the new HDD to make everything (meaning steam games) work.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can give me.

 

[Colif]

SSD - if you clean install onto a drive, the registry won't know about anything on other drives. You have to reinstall any programs on it to get them to work off it.

steam games - you should be able to copy the 700gb steam library folder onto the 2tb drive without downloading them
download the steam client onto the SSD and point the default save location at the steam folder on the 2tb drive and it will find them again
see here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

I would use ssd as its better for booting off, if steam was the bulk of your programs you didn't want to download again, the small pain of installing everything else again on ssd is outweighed by its load times.

can you break post up a bit, it was a struggle to read as 1 big paragraph

 

[Rogue Leader]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from wjazzz : "How do I get my old HDD to work after doing a clean install of win 10 to a new ssd?"

I apologize in advance since this question has been asked 1000 different ways, and I'm asking it again. I'm just getting confused with the more I read about this and cannot find my exact situation. Id greatly appreciate some help, even if its just pointing me in the right direction.
I have everything on a 1TB hard drive that is now full. I removed that and put in a 120 GB SSD and did a clean install of windows 10. I then put the old hard drive back in along with a new hard drive that's 2TB. Basically, how do I get everything so it'll work. I thought it'd be as simple as just copying everything from the 1TB to the 2TB and then holding onto the 1TB as a back-up for a few days just in case something went wrong. There is a 700GB steam folder on the 1TB that is my main concern. Basically, my goal is just to get everything working again since installing windows 10 on the new sdd. Would greatly appreciate any help on this. Thanks.

For the Steam games, easy.

Locate the Steam folder on that HDD.
In your Steam client on the SSD, tell it that location.

Like this:
Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

 

[Ralston18]

Just for clarification:

The original 1TB HDD was drive C: with both the OS and one 700 GB file for Steam. (No partitions.)

And your requirement is put Windows 10 on C: drive via a new SSD.

And the Steam folder will end up being Drive D: or possibly Eif you have a optical drive) via the new 2TB HDD.

Yes you should be able to go back to the original configuration provided you have not made some irreversible change during your efforts to date.

But first do some research and reading, e.g. the following link:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

https://www.howtogeek.com/257472/how-to-painlessly-move-your-steam-library-to-another-folder-or-hard-drive/

There are other such articles to be found.

Plan it all out with a bit more detail and be sure that you do have working backups.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I merged your other post here. If you have programs installed to the hdd and make a new windows install on a new SSD the programs will NOT work. The only thing you can do is as outlined in the reply above to copy and repoint your steam folder, but other than steam, programs/applications need to be re-installed to function.

 

[wjazzz]

Just for clarification:

The original 1TB HDD was drive C: with both the OS and one 700 GB file for Steam. (No partitions.)

And your requirement is put Windows 10 on C: drive via a new SSD.

And the Steam folder will end up being Drive D: or possibly Eif you have a optical drive) via the new 2TB HDD.

Yes you should be able to go back to the original configuration provided you have not made some irreversible change during your efforts to date.

But first do some research and reading, e.g. the following link:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

https://www.howtogeek.com/257472/how-to-painlessly-move-your-steam-library-to-another-folder-or-hard-drive/

There are other such articles to be found.

Plan it all out with a bit more detail and be sure that you do have working backups.

I'm not sure if I am replying to you correctly, but here goes:

The 1TB HDD (original hard drive) had, and still does, the OS (win10), the 700GB steam file, and absolutely everything else on it that totaled another 200 or so GB's. It was the only drive in the desktop and it was basically full.

I pulled the 1TB HDD, connected a 120GB SSD, and then installed win10 from a disk to the SSD.

I have now put the 1TB HDD and the new 2TB SSHD into the computer with the SSD. As of yet, I have not altered anything on the old HDD or the new 2TB Drive which is actually a SSHD w/ 8GB SS. I then went into disk management and here is what it indicates:

Disk (0) is drive C: which is the 120TB SSD with win10 OS and lists: System Reserved 500MB NTFS (system, active, primary partition), C: 111.30GB NTFS ( boot, page file, crash dump, primary partition)

Disk (1) is drive F: which is the new 2TB SSHD and lists a 1862.89GB NTFS primary partition

Disk (2) is drive E: which is the old 1TB HDD and lists a 450MB recovery partition, a100MB EFI SYS Partition and a 930.96 GB NTFS primary partition

My plan now is to move the 700GB steam folder to the SSHD and then point to it from the steam client in the SSD as instructed to do via the links provided to me in this post.

Then I'd like to move whatever else I can from the old HDD onto the SSHD that will work. I've got approximately 200GB's in programs that I'll just have to reinstall/download.

It's my understanding that after I do that I can pull the old HDD and keep as a back-up of everything I moved-reinstalled or I can simply wipe it clean and use as additional storage in the system.

Please correct me if I am wrong about this. I really do appreciate all the help so far with this from everyone.

 

[maikutech]

What you are trying to do is really complicated and messy.
If you get the clean install to work on the ssd, thats good news, take out any old files you need from the 1TB drive.
Next you erase the drive " full format" so it will start off fresh use a logical partition for it.
Samething with the 2TB if you need to put the files on a good size flash drive 8gb or 16gb and move it back once your done.
Take the 2TB drive, format it, then you resize it into 2 logical partitions, one of them can be for old documents to back up.
The other for music, videos, games if you do it this way windows will have a much easier time going through your drives when copying back and forth.
http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html
Use this been using it for years and does wonders makes me wish partition magic didn't go out of business as they were better than easus at the time.
https://livecdlist.com/opensuse/
You can use that too, it'll make copying back and forth easier while you setup the drives the way you want it to.
It may take a half a day to do this but it beats trying to get your other plan moving which would take a long time.
Long as your internet connection speed is good, just download the games steadily over time.
Close out any browsers while you are not home, half of your games will be installed when you get back.

 

[wjazzz]

What you are trying to do is really complicated and messy.
If you get the clean install to work on the ssd, thats good news, take out any old files you need from the 1TB drive.
Next you erase the drive " full format" so it will start off fresh use a logical partition for it.
Samething with the 2TB if you need to put the files on a good size flash drive 8gb or 16gb and move it back once your done.
Take the 2TB drive, format it, then you resize it into 2 logical partitions, one of them can be for old documents to back up.
The other for music, videos, games if you do it this way windows will have a much easier time going through your drives when copying back and forth.
http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html
Use this been using it for years and does wonders makes me wish partition magic didn't go out of business as they were better than easus at the time.
https://livecdlist.com/opensuse/
You can use that too, it'll make copying back and forth easier while you setup the drives the way you want it to.
It may take a half a day to do this but it beats trying to get your other plan moving which would take a long time.
Long as your internet connection speed is good, just download the games steadily over time.
Close out any browsers while you are not home, half of your games will be installed when you get back.

So you're basically saying that starting with a clean slate will yield the best results.. ..sImply download the games on a nice clean hard drive. I get that.

This rig is used exclusively for gaming, there's nothing else on there to move that isn't gaming related...nothing.

Yes, the win10 SSD functions great and the speed really amazes me.. Makes me laugh every time I hit the power button. I used to be able to hit the power and then make my bed before it loaded. Now it's almost instantaneous.

I've got time warner (spectrum) internet w the "turbo" (whatever it's called) and it's TRASH. I live in the country on a street with few houses so they're not collecting enough fees over here to really care about their service. There are no other options. It fluctuates between 10 - 24 Mbps when it's working. So downloading these games will definitely be a pain.

Well I appreciate the advice and will give it some thought.

Thanks again!

 

[maikutech]

Yeah that would be the best way to go, unless you do this before reinstalling windows its kind of impossible.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3194904/computers/how-to-back-up-your-steam-games.html
I've heard complaints about time warner but it really shouldn't be too slow.
If the game programs is under 10gb usually on my wireless nic it'll take 1-2 hours tops anything above 10gb.
I let it install at night 11pm when I get up in the morning 5:30am usually its done and thats coming off a comcast connection.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Just for clarification:

The original 1TB HDD was drive C: with both the OS and one 700 GB file for Steam. (No partitions.)

And your requirement is put Windows 10 on C: drive via a new SSD.

And the Steam folder will end up being Drive D: or possibly Eif you have a optical drive) via the new 2TB HDD.

Yes you should be able to go back to the original configuration provided you have not made some irreversible change during your efforts to date.

But first do some research and reading, e.g. the following link:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

https://www.howtogeek.com/257472/how-to-painlessly-move-your-steam-library-to-another-folder-or-hard-drive/

There are other such articles to be found.

Plan it all out with a bit more detail and be sure that you do have working backups.

I'm not sure if I am replying to you correctly, but here goes:

The 1TB HDD (original hard drive) had, and still does, the OS (win10), the 700GB steam file, and absolutely everything else on it that totaled another 200 or so GB's. It was the only drive in the desktop and it was basically full.

I pulled the 1TB HDD, connected a 120GB SSD, and then installed win10 from a disk to the SSD.

I have now put the 1TB HDD and the new 2TB SSHD into the computer with the SSD. As of yet, I have not altered anything on the old HDD or the new 2TB Drive which is actually a SSHD w/ 8GB SS. I then went into disk management and here is what it indicates:

Disk (0) is drive C: which is the 120TB SSD with win10 OS and lists: System Reserved 500MB NTFS (system, active, primary partition), C: 111.30GB NTFS ( boot, page file, crash dump, primary partition)

Disk (1) is drive F: which is the new 2TB SSHD and lists a 1862.89GB NTFS primary partition

Disk (2) is drive E: which is the old 1TB HDD and lists a 450MB recovery partition, a100MB EFI SYS Partition and a 930.96 GB NTFS primary partition

My plan now is to move the 700GB steam folder to the SSHD and then point to it from the steam client in the SSD as instructed to do via the links provided to me in this post.

Then I'd like to move whatever else I can from the old HDD onto the SSHD that will work. I've got approximately 200GB's in programs that I'll just have to reinstall/download.

It's my understanding that after I do that I can pull the old HDD and keep as a back-up of everything I moved-reinstalled or I can simply wipe it clean and use as additional storage in the system.

Please correct me if I am wrong about this. I really do appreciate all the help so far with this from everyone.

Don't redo everything like was mentioned by maikutech above, its a waste of time you're already on the right track.

After copying and repointing your steam folders from the 1tb drive to the 2tb SSHD just re-install any other software to the SSD or the SSHD (NOTHING else supports copying like steam). Once this is all good and you've copied your personal data to the SSHD you can remove or format the old hard drive and use it for whatever.

 

[maikutech]

So how does he repoint steam games that are on another drive ?
Its his first time doing this and he has no clue what he needs to do ?

 

[Rogue Leader]

So how does he repoint steam games that are on another drive ?
Its his first time doing this and he has no clue what he needs to do ?

The instructions are right in this thread more than once.

The games are on his old drive which is connected to the computer as is his new drive. Copy the folder, run steam, repoint the game folder.

Read his post he clearly understands what we have said and what to do.

 

[USAFRet]

So how does he repoint steam games that are on another drive ?
Its his first time doing this and he has no clue what he needs to do ?

Telling the Steam client about Steam games on a different drive is built right into the Steam client.
Detailed instructions above.

You can even move an already installed game to a different drive.

 

[maikutech]

Hmm he could use this then, when I reinstall I just redownload everything I prefer not to back up games.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-tdlc-0426

 

[USAFRet]

Hmm he could use this then, when I reinstall I just redownload everything I prefer not to back up games.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-tdlc-0426

The Steam client functionality has changed/improved since that was published.
It's even easier now.

To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder


Functionality built right into the client.
No cut/paste needed.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Hmm he could use this then, when I reinstall I just redownload everything I prefer not to back up games.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7710-tdlc-0426

There is no backing up involved, he has both drives connected.

The rest of us prefer not redownloading 700gb of data we already have access to.

 

[wjazzz]

Ok, so I downloaded the steam client onto my SSD. I was about to copy all my games from my old HDD (now e: drive) to my new sshd (now f: drive) when I decided, out of curiosity, to just point steam to the old HDD as recommended by USAFRet originally. A couple of clicks later and the games are now playable. Being that steam allows you to have numerous libraries on numerous drives, could I just leave this as is and have steam install new games to drive f: (new sshd) and just keep the old ones on the old HDD (drive e? I guess the issue with doing that is that I will be wasting a couple hundred gb's that would otherwise be available to me on the old HDD... or, can I get rid of everything else other than the steam games on the old drive and just continue to fill it with more steam games until it's full, then add new ones to the new sshd? I guess I'm just wondering why I should move them if they work fine where they are. There's nothing wrong with the old HDD, it's just basically full (40GB's left on it). Am I making any sense?
The whole reason I even ended up approaching any of this was because someone told me that if I put win10 on an SSD it would speed up booting, etc. They then said all I had to do was clone my old drive onto my new 2TB drive and everything would run perfectly. It wasn't until after I did the clean install of the win10 to the SSD that I found out differently. Now I don't do anything without checking several sources, etc.

 

[USAFRet]

You can have your Steam games spread across multiple drives and/or folders.
The Steam client does not care, as long as it is configured correctly as above.
You can even designate the 'other drive' location (SSHD?) as the default install location.

 

[wjazzz]

I appreciate all the help here. Resolved this with a combination of suggestions...It was a collaborative effort.

The steam client makes it easy to move your games around. Simply copy them where you'd like and then let steam know where they are via settings in the steam menu. Since steam accounted for 700GB of the 1TB drive, this pretty much wrapped things up for me. The other 300GB was garbage I could delete and a few programs I just downloaded again onto the new sshd drive.

There is also good information on this site to redirect folders off the SSD to another drive so as to preserve the valuable SSD space for more appropriate items.

Getting into this I seriously started to regret having installed the new SSD for win10 due to all the work it created to get things up and running properly. I was questioning whether it'd really be worth it after hearing from someone claiming that the increased speeds were minimal at best. Wrong. Increased speeds are amazing. Before, I'd turn my computer on and literally have enough time to make a cup of coffee (Keurig) while waiting for it to boot up. Now it boots up almost instantaneously. I also placed a couple of large games on the SSD that would take a really long time to load from the old drive. I don't know exactly, but it's got to load the programs like 10x faster. I don't know if all of this is because my other drive was a mess or if these increased speeds are standard with the SSD, either way Ill take it.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[maikutech]

No problem glad you managed to make it work on your own.