Steam Not Detecting Steam Library Filled with Games !

[KayBayBay]

I got a bigger hard drive and removed the old one. I didn't move over any of the games so later I plugged it back in to transfer them and I can access all of them through their actual folders but steam doesnt recogize the drive, steam library folder, or any of the games. It worked before and now it does not. I was able to create a new folder in that drive but that's not helpful at all. I can't browse local files on any of those games. NOTHING! I know it's so easy to do this but its been a pain in the butt for me. Any ideas so I dont have to redownload 40 games? Thank you everyone!

[Ivlichnov]

How about unplugging the new drive and leaving the old one plugged in as it used to be, and seeing if Steam recognises the steam files on the old drive. Then if that works, you could create steam game backups, rather than transferring the entire folder.

You could then plug in the new hard drive alongside the old one, and transfer the backed up steam games to a folder on your new drive.

I would also ask whether the old hard drive was a secondary drive, or the windows C: drive?

[Zekiran]

Just make sure that the drive letter is correct. If steam thinks it's looking for "drive D" when your new drive is called "J" ... correct it either by assigning the drive its 'right' letter, or redoing your steam library's location.

[Greasepaint]

You can have more than one steam library location.

Create a new library, you do this in Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam library folders, on the drive you've plugged back in, this needs to be the same location as where the games are located.

Steam should now 'scan' that location and hopefully recognise the games, if it does it will usually check their integrity.

If that doesn't happen you'll need to go to each game individualy.

Right click on a game, select Properties > Local Files > Move Install Folder, and point it to the Library that the game is located in, it should then see the games files and check their integrity, if there are any uninstalled updates, or files you've changed with mods or something, those will be downloaded now, but generally it'll just take a few seconds to a few minutes to verify the game, it depends on the games size.

After that you can use steam to love the games around as needed, I do this to move games I'm currently playing to a fast SSD, and then keep other games I'm not currently playing, but have large download sizes, on another drive.

EDIT:
You need to have the folder hierachy correct for this to work.
eg. D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dishonored2\
"D:\SteamLibrary\" is the location of the library, there then needs to be the "steamapps\common\" folders, and the games in there, "Dishonored2\" in this case.

Good luck.

[KayBayBay]

Originally posted by Ivlichnov:

How about unplugging the new drive and leaving the old one plugged in as it used to be, and seeing if Steam recognises the steam files on the old drive. Then if that works, you could create steam game backups, rather than transferring the entire folder.

You could then plug in the new hard drive alongside the old one, and transfer the backed up steam games to a folder on your new drive.

I would also ask whether the old hard drive was a secondary drive, or the windows C: drive?

I will try that. Thanks for your suggestion!

[KayBayBay]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Just make sure that the drive letter is correct. If steam thinks it's looking for "drive D" when your new drive is called "J" ... correct it either by assigning the drive its 'right' letter, or redoing your steam library's location.

Do I change the letter with steam? I'll google how to do that. It could be that.

[KayBayBay]

Originally posted by Ivlichnov:

How about unplugging the new drive and leaving the old one plugged in as it used to be, and seeing if Steam recognises the steam files on the old drive. Then if that works, you could create steam game backups, rather than transferring the entire folder.

You could then plug in the new hard drive alongside the old one, and transfer the backed up steam games to a folder on your new drive.

I would also ask whether the old hard drive was a secondary drive, or the windows C: drive?

Sorry I forgot to respond. I am on win 10 and both drives are just regular hard drives.

[KayBayBay]

Originally posted by Greasepaint:

You can have more than one steam library location.

Create a new library, you do this in Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam library folders, on the drive you've plugged back in, this needs to be the same location as where the games are located.

Steam should now 'scan' that location and hopefully recognise the games, if it does it will usually check their integrity.

If that doesn't happen you'll need to go to each game individualy.

Right click on a game, select Properties > Local Files > Move Install Folder, and point it to the Library that the game is located in, it should then see the games files and check their integrity, if there are any uninstalled updates, or files you've changed with mods or something, those will be downloaded now, but generally it'll just take a few seconds to a few minutes to verify the game, it depends on the games size.

After that you can use steam to love the games around as needed, I do this to move games I'm currently playing to a fast SSD, and then keep other games I'm not currently playing, but have large download sizes, on another drive.

EDIT:
You need to have the folder hierachy correct for this to work.
eg. D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dishonored2\
"D:\SteamLibrary\" is the location of the library, there then needs to be the "steamapps\common\" folders, and the games in there, "Dishonored2\" in this case.

Good luck.

I know about the folder thread to get to the actual games and that seems to be correct. I didnt change anything. And yeah, when steam wasnt recognizing the old steam library folder I thought to add a new one in that drive and see what happens. Nothing changed I even moved it into the old one. Nope. Its really weird. I cant browse local files because it doesnt think theres any. I tried downloading a couple because it does that whole "browsing local files" the interesting thing is one of the games downloaded in a second after the browsing, that gave me a ton of hope. But the second game took hours like usual. I just dont know :/

[Ivlichnov]

I wonder if you could start downloading a game, then pause the download and copy the game files into the folder that has been created.

[KayBayBay]

Hhhmm that's interesting. It can't hurt to try! Thanks! I'll let you know

[Greasepaint]

Damn, that sounds really annoying!
I hope you get it sorted out, sorry I couldn't help.

[KayBayBay]

Originally posted by Greasepaint:

Damn, that sounds really annoying!
I hope you get it sorted out, sorry I couldn't help.

Right! I mean it could worse, at least I know I can re-downlaod them. Its ok, I really appreciate your time!