Game installs on other drives not C drive

[somdow]

Hello all. For organizations sake, and backups sake, i have a couple of drives on my rig.

I have one that i use specifically for games which is around 2TB or so. This drive (drive: contains all my STEAM/ORIGIN/Single install games etc. OBS and pretty much anything that has to do with gaming for me goes on this drive.

When ever i re-install windows, i notice that when i try to launch a game or anything that was installed on that drive, it doesn't work. I always have to delete everything and re-install it all back.

The question i have is why? Is there anything i can do installation wise that will allow me to run things independent of the C drive?

This way, anytime i need to re install for whatever reason, i don't have to download and re install all these games.

thanks in advanced.

 

[ss202sl]

This is because the new OS doesn't know anything about the apps installed on the other drive until they(apps) are installed. You should be able to install Steam. and point it to the games directory and it should pick up the games.

 

[freeskier93]

"Doesn't work" isn't very descriptive... When you add the library folder from the other drive do the games in that library folder show up as installed and you can actually hit "play"? If so what exactly happens when you hit play? Have you tried verifying the game cache?

 

[SBMfromLA]

I know exactly what you are asking... and I have a better answer for you. A lot of games keep saves and settings, and other info in HIDDEN FOLDERS on your main C drive.

I have all my Games installed to Drive D... and most of the games I have store data in either C\ProgramData or ...C\Users\<name>\AppData (both either Local or Roaming or both).

So all you have to do is go through the programs you have installed on a different drive... and search those hidden folder locations (unhide folders from Folder Options) to see if they have a corresponding folder.. it could be the name of the game or the publisher or developer). I do this so even if i reinstall Windows... I won't lose like my progress in Bejeweled 3... or other games..

Also, you have to create NEW desktop or Start menu Shortcuts for ALL PROGRAMS installed on a different drive every time you reinstall a fresh copy of Windows onto Drive C. So if you have 5 Games and 5 Utility programs on Drive D... and you install Windows 7 again... you have to copy over the data folders in the hidden folders, assuming they had anything saved there... and go to the install folder for all 5 games and 5 utility programs and create new shortcuts from their EXE... so you can run them... otherwise you would have to browse to the location each time to manually run them.