hard drive dying so i must unninstall steam and all my library?

[Q]

(my english is trash sorry)

Welp my old hard drive is dying, it has like 10000 bad sectors so i already bought a new one but how can i avoid reinstalling everything again into the new one?

steam is installed in the damaged hdd with only 6 games, i've spent like 2 hours saving every hidden folder and stuff related to such games in the main hard drive the one where windows is installed (and that one is ok).

I thought i could tell steam to "relocate" X game folder, lets say, SMITE, that one is kinda huge above 15gb and repeat till all my games are relocated in the new HDD, then unninstall steam and reinstall it in the new hard drive but steam would recognize those folders/games? do i have to tell steam where they are?

ohh about "relocate" games option, im talking about the "make a backup..." thing when you go to your library, right click on any game in the list and select properties, there you'll find the "make backup" option or something that allows you to "backup" the game in any path you want like a different hard drive but i dont know if that will work, thx in advance.

uhh what if i just copy the entire "steam" folder :D? it doesnt work always tho many programs create some kind of "registry" where windows is installed and when you format or change the entire folder location (move steam folder from X: drive to G: drive) then it wont work but idk maybe steam is different.

[Snapjak]

No you don't have to uninstall everything. But you SHOULD back up anything important immediately and then just pull the bad drive out.

If you've really got a high number of bad sectors, chances are you've already got lots of corrupted data.

[B-o-B]

Using the Steam Backup Feature
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-YPHV-2033&l=


Moving a Steam Installation and Games
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129&l=

[Tev]

Just move the whole Steam installation onto your new drive.

Should your failing HDD be C:\, you might as well back up your save files from under C:\Users\<username>\Documents\ and C:\Users\<username>\AppData

That, or use GameSave Manager.

[Q]

uhh what if i just copy the entire "steam" folder :D? it doesnt work always tho many programs create some kind of "registry" where windows is installed and when you format or change the entire folder location (move steam folder from X: drive to G: drive) then it wont work but idk maybe steam is different.

ohh yeah i saved all my data, photos, family stuff, software, movies, music, fap material ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) everything is good i just dont wanna unninstall steam and reinstall over 60gb of games, if theres no other choice welp ill make some coffee and watch family guy while this !"#!%@ ends.

edit: ohhh so i can copy "steam" folder and thats it? that would be AWESOME !!!

[Tev]

Having moved my Steam installation from Windows 10 to 7 to 10, that works just fine.

Just remember if you use custom skins that you might have to reinstall some fonts.

[Snapjak]

Yes just copy it. However when it's on the new drive you should verify each game that was moved to make sure the files aren't bad.

Run steam.exe after you move and it will install itself there.

[Q]

f yeah you made my day guys thx!! gonna do it now, the classic copy & paste, i rly didnt think it would work tbh thats whyi came here for help coz in the past when i did such thing with lets say, some cd/dvd burning software, winzip or some non-steam game like age of empires II or Diablo 2 i remember none could start again coz the "registry" was missing and windows (in the C: drive) didnt recognize the software, anyway apologies for the mexican engrish.

[Cathulhu]

Yeah, Steam is a bit smarter and just fixes those registry issues on the first startup on the new machine.
You should use a tool like https://www.gamesave-manager.com to backup your savegames as not all games on Steam use the SteamCloud.

[Q]

Ok everything seems fine with the "cloned" steam version and his games on the new hard drive i played some of em and havent seen anything wrong.

Now, lets say i start the steam client, the original one located at the bad hard drive, from there i wanna unninstall everything and finally unninstall steam, why would i want such thing? well i dont know tbh maybe to erase any trace left and make the "cloned" steam re-link stuff from the new hard drive to Windows or something... anyway maybe ill just erase the entire steam folder in the bad hard drive. and whats "nu da" lol?