Steam hidden installation files on hard drive.

[Unappendixed]

I've been trying to download Shadow Of War for almost a week now, but since the first attempt failed, every time I try to download it all of the game files appear like magic in my 'downloading' folder before the pre-allocation is over. For reference, that's 100GB of files appearing in less than an hour. My download speed is rarely over 20mbps, so these files are clearly coming from somewhere on my hard drive, but I've uninstalled Steam twice, including the steamapps folder. Where are these files coming from?

I contacted Steam Support but they seem to be ignoring this line of questioning.

[Unappendixed]

And all those files repeatedly fail to validate and Steam immediately starts the process over, which is why I'm posting this.

[xarvn]

Don't know why downloading and the integrity validation fail for this particular game, but if you want to completely restart the download from the beginning you could go to /Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/ and find and delete the specific game folder. When you then try to install game, it should start the download afresh.

[Unappendixed]

I've deleted all of steamapps, unfortunately. The same thing happens. No matter what I try—short of formatting the entire hard drive—the files seem to be hiding somewhere, and appear during pre-allocation.

[xarvn]

Do you have another Steam Library Folder where you might have installed the game, say on another drive or partition or networked drive? Could the folder attributes somehow have been set to hidden or system?

[Unappendixed]

Nope. I have thoroughly searched my computer for hidden folders and partitions using WinDirStat and Diskpart, and I have no other Steam Libraries. I tried installing the game to a portable hard drive as a test, but got the same result. I even tried overwriting the empty space in my hard drive using cipher, but that didn't seem to change anything.

[xarvn]

Is your hard drive a hybrid SSD/platter type? In theory, such drives cache frequently accessed files in the SSD part of the drive for better performance. If game files are there in flash memory and somehow refuse to erase due to wear or some other malfunction, they could generate the symptoms that you are observing. This is admittedly just speculation on my part and is completely outside my experience as I have never owned this type of drive. If you happen to have a spare working hard drive, you might try to clone current drive onto it to see if this solves the problem. Cloning should take less time than formatting and reinstallation plus if you find you still have the problem you can continue to troubleshoot with the original drive.

Sorry, but that is all I could think of...

[Unappendixed]

Nah, I just have a normal HDD. I guess I'll just keep hounding Steam Support for help. Thanks for your time.

[tequiro]

Only solution i found is that carrying all things to somewhere and formatting disk then carrying back to storage, this is the way.

[Iceira]

Are OP aware of steam has lan enable now. ( Multi pc can do this now ) even Multi steam user on same pc should do same, not sure you can uninstall game then orther steam user has it as installed, i have not tested this myself, but that should be logic here. you might flag its as not installed on one account, dont mean other account user will uninstall it.)

And you also have old ISP and user that did proxy server, so cache DL data can be outdated, most dont do this anymore. ( there is a reason we mentions this, what if OP has a local server in basement in a building complex. )

"My download speed is rarely over 20mbps, so these files are clearly coming from somewhere on my hard drive"
this sounds like other sources OP might not know about, and why it sounds like data from own lan pc's or server down the line.

ps.
Technicaly i have hear of local lan at a building complex, so technicaly you could get data from there.
( be happy you get other idea'øs or input even then you might not understand it ) you can ask again but other steam user helper might reply on it.

[tequiro]

Nah, i tried that even Steam Support doesn't know the solution for this

[Iceira]

Originally posted by tequiro:

Nah, i tried that even Steam Support doesn't know the solution for this :SkullWizard:

Files dont come from unknown places without a DL, then files is fetch by other means and look like a DL.

and here as steam users,we give a crap in what steam support know, and many forget who said steam will will tell you the many other things that can do this, then its not a steam problem.

Most company do not explan other product that can do this. or give clue what can do this.

Any helper here can tell you that, i could also say then get a technican to help you its actual that simple.

[Yuki]

This thread was quite old before the recent posts, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.