New Steam will not use my previous storage location

[swmiller58]

Up until the June 14th update I have stored my installed games on my external drive in the Steam folder (H:\Steam). Now, the new update will let me use the external drive, but not the folder where all my installed games have been for years. The new Steam update created the new storage location as H:\SteamLibrary. The new update only lets you choose the drive, but not a folder on that drive. So now I have to reinstall all my games so that Steam puts them in the folder Steam created......unless someone out there can tell me of something I am missing???

[RiO]

Tried renaming that Steam folder to SteamLibrary?

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

If your other storage location is named something else like old name it used to be back 6 or so years ago, then change it to "SteamLibrary" that what steam searches for, now if it happen to not appear, just name folder like SteamLibrary-old for a minute, go ahead on steam into settings, go into library managment to add a new folder into same spot where your SteamLibrary-old folder is, now when it makes the new folder, shutdown Steam > delete that new SteamLibrary folder that appear, and rename SteamLibrary-old back to SteamLibrary, and launch steam then it should work.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by Alice Liddell:

Copy/paste the data over to new location. I wonder if Steam repair would work, but use caution as I tried this yesterday to rename a library and it deleted the thing.

I wonder now if that mass moving of files through the client would be better.

Anyways, take caution here not to lose the installations. Would be a pain to redownload it all.

But now it depends on space, idk, I would just copy/paste the data see what happens, then maybe do a repair. IDK. When I merged all my libraries (I had 10) all I did was copy/paste and change the vdf

I tried to cut/paste one game from my original folder to the new folder Steam created....the new folder would not recognize the game I just pasted into the folder, even after doing a repair. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by Alice Liddell:

Copy/paste the data over to new location. I wonder if Steam repair would work, but use caution as I tried this yesterday to rename a library and it deleted the thing.

I wonder now if that mass moving of files through the client would be better.

Anyways, take caution here not to lose the installations. Would be a pain to redownload it all.

But now it depends on space, idk, I would just copy/paste the data see what happens, then maybe do a repair. IDK. When I merged all my libraries (I had 10) all I did was copy/paste and change the vdf

I tried to cut/paste one game from my original folder to the new folder Steam created....the new folder would not recognize the game I just pasted into the folder, even after doing a repair. Thanks for your suggestion.

If you're manually moving games you have to move game .acf file that found in "steamapp" folder and game folder.

.acf found here Steam > Steamapp
Game folder found here Steam or SteamLibrary > steampp > common

I suggest using steam move feature as it built into the client, and makes your job easier so don't have to do it manually.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by Alice Liddell:

Copy/paste the data over to new location. I wonder if Steam repair would work, but use caution as I tried this yesterday to rename a library and it deleted the thing.

I wonder now if that mass moving of files through the client would be better.

Anyways, take caution here not to lose the installations. Would be a pain to redownload it all.

But now it depends on space, idk, I would just copy/paste the data see what happens, then maybe do a repair. IDK. When I merged all my libraries (I had 10) all I did was copy/paste and change the vdf

I tried to cut/paste one game from my original folder to the new folder Steam created....the new folder would not recognize the game I just pasted into the folder, even after doing a repair. Thanks for your suggestion.

If you moved it all including the app manifest files and then relaunched the client entirely it should be recognized without issues.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by RiO:

Tried renaming that Steam folder to SteamLibrary?

My original folder was H:\Steam\steamapps\common...the new update created a new folder called H:\SteamLibrary. So I took your advice and first renamed H:\SteamLibrary to H:\SteamLibrary1. The I renamed my H:\Steam to H:\SteamLibrary....then restarted the Steam app. Now all my games show up as installed but I noticed that when I started BattleTech it took a long time to start and it is now trying to refresh my saved game files...and has been trying to do this of 5 minutes and still going. So you idea worked to a certain point, but at least I am closer. Thanks for your suggestion.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Originally posted by swmiller58:

I tried to cut/paste one game from my original folder to the new folder Steam created....the new folder would not recognize the game I just pasted into the folder, even after doing a repair. Thanks for your suggestion.

If you're manually moving games you have to move game .acf file that found in "steamapp" folder and game folder.

.acf found here Steam > Steamapp
Game folder found here Steam or SteamLibrary > steampp > common

I suggest using steam move feature as it built into the client, and makes your job easier so don't have to do it manually.

The Steam move feature does not work because Steam does not "see" my original storage location and therefore it can not move the game to the new updated location. Thanks for your suggestion.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by Mad Scientist:

Originally posted by swmiller58:

I tried to cut/paste one game from my original folder to the new folder Steam created....the new folder would not recognize the game I just pasted into the folder, even after doing a repair. Thanks for your suggestion.

If you moved it all including the app manifest files and then relaunched the client entirely it should be recognized without issues.

I pasted the entire game and all files from the original location to the new update location, then I relaunched the Steam app. Steam did not recognize the game in the new updated location. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

If you're manually moving games you have to move game .acf file that found in "steamapp" folder and game folder.

.acf found here Steam > Steamapp
Game folder found here Steam or SteamLibrary > steampp > common

I suggest using steam move feature as it built into the client, and makes your job easier so don't have to do it manually.

The Steam move feature does not work because Steam does not "see" my original storage location and therefore it can not move the game to the new updated location. Thanks for your suggestion.

Reason why doesn't see it, because it doesn't know about it, or unable to see drive that has it.

Issue that can happen such as auto start on steam, and your H drive wasn't ready to be read cause Steam to think folder is gone, and to fixing that you have to do what I suggested by adding folder to that drive via Steam settings, then you can do the steam move feature.

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by RiO:

Tried renaming that Steam folder to SteamLibrary?

My original folder was H:\Steam\steamapps\common...the new update created a new folder called H:\SteamLibrary. So I took your advice and first renamed H:\SteamLibrary to H:\SteamLibrary1. The I renamed my H:\Steam to H:\SteamLibrary....then restarted the Steam app. Now all my games show up as installed but I noticed that when I started BattleTech it took a long time to start and it is now trying to refresh my saved game files...and has been trying to do this of 5 minutes and still going. So you idea worked to a certain point, but at least I am closer. Thanks for your suggestion.

That good news your client see the folder again, now not sure on the game as I haven't played it, can try asking the game sub forum as they might know what to do.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by Alice Liddell:

Ah, Paradox must be attempting to find it in the other location perhaps.

Or maybe, the save files are causing it.

Try a game w/o a third-party DRM.

Renaming my original folder from H:\Steam to H:\SteamLibrary worked....so far. The first time I opened BattleTech it took a long time to load and it was working for over 5 minutes to "refresh" saved games and I saw it was stuck and stopped the game. The second time I started BattleTech it started at normal speed and all save game files were present......it seems to work now. I will try other games to see what happens with them.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by RiO:

Tried renaming that Steam folder to SteamLibrary?

My original folder was H:\Steam\steamapps\common...the new update created a new folder called H:\SteamLibrary. So I took your advice and first renamed H:\SteamLibrary to H:\SteamLibrary1. The I renamed my H:\Steam to H:\SteamLibrary....then restarted the Steam app. Now all my games show up as installed but I noticed that when I started BattleTech it took a long time to start and it is now trying to refresh my saved game files...and has been trying to do this of 5 minutes and still going. So you idea worked to a certain point, but at least I am closer. Thanks for your suggestion.

Renaming my original folder from H:\Steam to H:\SteamLibrary worked....so far. The first time I opened BattleTech it took a long time to load and it was working for over 5 minutes to "refresh" saved games and I saw it was stuck and stopped the game. The second time I started BattleTech it started at normal speed and all save game files were present......it seems to work now. I will try other games to see what happens with them. Thanks for your suggestion.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Originally posted by swmiller58:

The Steam move feature does not work because Steam does not "see" my original storage location and therefore it can not move the game to the new updated location. Thanks for your suggestion.

Reason why doesn't see it, because it doesn't know about it, or unable to see drive that has it.

Issue that can happen such as auto start on steam, and your H drive wasn't ready to be read cause Steam to think folder is gone, and to fixing that you have to do what I suggested by adding folder to that drive via Steam settings, then you can do the steam move feature.

Steam knows the drive is there, it recognizes the drive....but it will not recognize any folder on that drive but "SteamLibrary" so therefore it will not look in my H:\Steam folder. By changing the name of the H:\Steam folder to H:\SteamLibrary it seems to have fixed the issue.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

Reason why doesn't see it, because it doesn't know about it, or unable to see drive that has it.

Issue that can happen such as auto start on steam, and your H drive wasn't ready to be read cause Steam to think folder is gone, and to fixing that you have to do what I suggested by adding folder to that drive via Steam settings, then you can do the steam move feature.

Steam knows the drive is there, it recognizes the drive....but it will not recognize any folder on that drive but "SteamLibrary" so therefore it will not look in my H:\Steam folder. By changing the name of the H:\Steam folder to H:\SteamLibrary it seems to have fixed the issue.

Misunderstand it can see all drives, it has trouble seeing "FOLDER" that why if it Fail to see folder, it thinks it gone, not the drive but the folder itself.

[swmiller58]

Originally posted by swmiller58:

Originally posted by Alice Liddell:

Ah, Paradox must be attempting to find it in the other location perhaps.

Or maybe, the save files are causing it.

Try a game w/o a third-party DRM.

Renaming my original folder from H:\Steam to H:\SteamLibrary worked....so far. The first time I opened BattleTech it took a long time to load and it was working for over 5 minutes to "refresh" saved games and I saw it was stuck and stopped the game. The second time I started BattleTech it started at normal speed and all save game files were present......it seems to work now. I will try other games to see what happens with them.

I deleted Paradox and then restarted the game....it started smoothly! Thanks for the suggestion.

[Slug]

Looks like I have the same issue

With the recent update you can add an external drive to install Steam games but you can no choose a different install folder / map to a user-chosen folder

eg if the default set by Steam is D: Steam .... you can +no longer+ map to the user defined folder of D: Games/Steam [my issue....]



Steam support to me today: "Thank you for taking the time to report this issue. Unfortunately, we do not have a fix for you at this time."

.......