Steam Not Detecting Games

[Neutrony_The_Great]

So i recently merged two of my drives which both of them contained steam games , and now steam tells me to redownload the games again while i am sure they are in the folder they already were.
Does anyone know how to fix it?

[Basan™]

You should've tweaked Steam settings to settle up the folder directory in which those would be prior to merging those ficticious partitions into one. Alas for you, most OS' (Operating Systems) take where you installed things paths seriously and you acting carelessly surely didn't help either. My bext advice to you now is trying to settle a proper Steam installation location upon it's settings and then try to see if the moved games folders into that location pans out for the better.

And if that doesn't work, I strongly advise you to make back-up copies of all your games' saves and then properly reinstall all of those that you're currently playing and/or had installed upon your OS.

[Joke]

Did you remember to copy/merge the manifest files?

In the SteamApps folder in every steam library, there is a file for each installed game.

They are named like "appmanifest_xxxxxx.acf", where xxxxxx is the gameid.

Copy all of them from the two drives, and put in the same folder on the merged drive.

[Neutrony_The_Great]

Originally posted by Joke:

Did you remember to copy/merge the manifest files?

In the SteamApps folder in every steam library, there is a file for each installed game.

They are named like "appmanifest_xxxxxx.acf", where xxxxxx is the gameid.

Copy all of them from the two drives, and put in the same folder on the merged drive.

I dont have access to the two drivers , they are merged mate
but yea , there seems to be app manifests in the steamapps folder

[Neutrony_The_Great]

Originally posted by Basan™:

You should've tweaked Steam settings to settle up the folder directory in which those would be prior to merging those ficticious partitions into one. Alas for you, most OS' (Operating Systems) take where you installed things paths seriously and you acting carelessly surely didn't help either. My bext advice to you now is trying to settle a proper Steam installation location upon it's settings and then try to see if the moved games folders into that location pans out for the better.

And if that doesn't work, I strongly advise you to make back-up copies of all your games' saves and then properly reinstall all of those that you're currently playing and/or had installed upon your OS.

Oh im sorry , is there any way that i can download the games but add the files i already have and make it detect those files and not install them?
Or is just deleting the current unsable games and reinstalling them would be better?

[Neutrony_The_Great]

oh i think i fixed the problems , the games werent in the right folder and now they are , and when i pressed install after moving them it is going tru a process of validation it seems

[Satoru]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2937159382

Note taht 'merging' your library manually is a terrible idea. Use Steam's built in tools to move games betwen library locations

[Neutrony_The_Great]

Originally posted by Satoru:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2937159382

Note taht 'merging' your library manually is a terrible idea. Use Steam's built in tools to move games betwen library locations

well i didnt merge the library manually , i merged the drives themselves

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

What you mean don't have access to your drive??? If you don't have access then you should be fixing that issue first before doing anything else, as sound like something went wrong.

Now idk what you meant exact when you merged your drives

- do you mean you move one drive content to the other drive, and click replace all?

- do you mean you raid them together the two drives to make one drive?


How Steam works it need to see the game app manifest files, if it doesn't see said game manifest file, it will think the game not there, and will redownload it, just moving the game folder will not work, the app manifest files are found in Steamapp folder, this is before the common folder that contains the game folders. Each game has it own app manifest file that why it's important for steam client to see them.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Neutrony_The_Great:

Originally posted by Satoru:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2937159382

Note taht 'merging' your library manually is a terrible idea. Use Steam's built in tools to move games betwen library locations

well i didnt merge the library manually , i merged the drives themselves

Again doing any 'merging' manually is a bad bad idea

Use steam's tools to move games between libraries. If you use anything other than steam's tools you are setting yourself up for utter failure