Scanning for already installed games

[Zombiehunter13]

I bought a new HDD today because my secondary drive was dying, I transfrerd all my data from it to my new one and the games on it arent showing up in steam, how do I get them to show up without reinstalling them?

[Silicon Vampire]

Did you get all the corresponding .acf files as well, copied to the proper location?

[Zombiehunter13]

they should, the program I used cloned the old one to the new one exactly

[The Giving One]

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

As the good Silicon said above, open up your steamapps folder and check to be sure you have all the .acf files. Do all this with Steam closed and you logged out.

[Zombiehunter13]

where would I find the .acf files, and i looked through that page and i will try "Begin the installation process to cause Steam to recognize existing files" and see if that works

[Zombiehunter13]

and it wouldnt let me

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Zombiehunter13:

where would I find the .acf files, and i looked through that page and i will try "Begin the installation process to cause Steam to recognize existing files" and see if that works

As mentioned, they are normally kept in the steamapps folder.

Go to your Steam folder and open it up. Then find the steamapps folder and open that up. There should be .acf files in there for each game you previously had installed on the other drive.

If the support page does not help and you do not have the .acf files, continue to the common folder and find a game folder (hopefully you have these at least). Find the .exe file for a game and right click it and run it directly from the .exe. This may cause Steam to recognize the game and correct the issue.

[Zombiehunter13]

they are all there, I will try launching them from the .exe file

[Zombiehunter13]

I tried launching TF2 on it and it gave me an error saying "Setup file 'gameinfo.txt' doesn't exist in sud'directory 'hl2'. Check your -game parameter or VCONFIG setting"

[The Giving One]

Go to your library and try to verify the game files for TF2 or other games. Do you have the option to verify the game files or is the button greyed out, only showing "install" instead of "play" in your library for that game ?

Verify Game Files

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335

If you have the game folders and the .acf files, Steam should be able to recognize the games as installed. Try restarting Steam after logging out and fully closing the program properly. Relaunch Steam and try again.

[Zombiehunter13]

It says install, i went into the steam settings and checked the steam library folders and the only one that showed up was the one on my main hard drive

[The Giving One]

Wait a minute.

You said you cloned all this from the other drive, correct ?

But did you actually INSTALL the Steam client on that new hard drive ? That may be where the problem is. You have to actually install Steam first, then the steamapps folder from the previous hard drive can be placed into the new Steam folder where you newly installed Steam.

It's best to do this kind of stuff manually, really.

[Zombiehunter13]

I just realised the problem on steam not detecting the library, the drive letter is different, it was drive F: but now it is drive G:

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Zombiehunter13:

I just realised the problem on steam not detecting the library, the drive letter is different, it was drive F: but now it is drive G:

Ahhh...there you go. I was just about to mention that, as in what you said previously about the library folders.

There is a way to get around this, if renaming the drive letter does not correct the issue.

[Zombiehunter13]

after I changed the drive letter, i was able to launch some games but still not tf2 and steam still refuses to recognize that any of them are installed even though they launched

[The Giving One]

Have you tried logging out and restarting Steam again, since changing the drive letter ?

If all the files are in the correct place, and the drive letter is correct, there should not really be a reason why Steam won't recognize the games as installed now.

All that may be needed, once it does recognize them, is to verify the game files using the previously linked support page.