External HDD issues with Steam

[LiveStepFreak (QC/FR)]

Has anyone ever had issues with External HDDs on Steam where you have a bunch of games installed on your External HDDs but your games seems to "not be there" for X reason when you know you had them downloaded?

This has been going on for me since a little more than a month now, where my games are downloaded but needs to have files rediscovered.

I had it checked on Crystaldisk and did a Checkdisk last week with no errors whatsoever.

My External HDD is a Seagate 8TB Backup + Hub and was bought this summer 2018.
I am using this external hard drive because I have a lot of games (at least 1.8TB) and tend to switch from my computer at home to my laptop when I'm at my job.
Also makes less to hold on Internal HDDs, my laptop being 1TB HDD and home PC being 4TB HDD.


Anyhow, anyone with a solution would be more than welcome to give some help.
Thanks!

[wuddih]

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

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

it has so many issues that they have to point it out. Steam does absolutely not like it when you "take away" the drive while it is running or the drive is not there while it is starting. external drives usually power off or go in some standby if not used, also windows powers external devices off when not used, especially on devices that run on batteries.

when using external hdds, make sure the drive is connected and powered on, before Steam is started and does not lose power or shutdown on idle.

[The Giving One]

Like the good wuddih said. We see many issues posted about here where the user has an external for Steam and games.

And also, they can run slowly, as some might be even down to 5200 RPM max speed. Adding more to performance issues.

And also, the drive can become disconnected at an inopportune time, as explained above, and this has the potential to cause your games to appear as uninstalled, if the library data becomes corrupted.

Steam does not like it when it's forced closed while writing to a hard drive.

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

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

The easiest way around this is to STORE the files there, and then move them to the internal drive and Steam installation, when playing that game. Not install the games there.

This does cause more writes to a drive, yes, but it solves all the issues this can present, and keeps the storage space as a non-issue.

[LiveStepFreak (QC/FR)]

Originally posted by wuddih:

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

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

it has so many issues that they have to point it out. Steam does absolutely not like it when you "take away" the drive while it is running or the drive is not there while it is starting. external drives usually power off or go in some standby if not used, also windows powers external devices off when not used, especially on devices that run on batteries.

when using external hdds, make sure the drive is connected and powered on, before Steam is started and does not lose power or shutdown on idle.

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Like the good wuddih said. We see many issues posted about here where the user has an external for Steam and games.

And also, they can run slowly, as some might be even down to 5200 RPM max speed. Adding more to performance issues.

And also, the drive can become disconnected at an inopportune time, as explained above, and this has the potential to cause your games to appear as uninstalled, if the library data becomes corrupted.

Steam does not like it when it's forced closed while writing to a hard drive.

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

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

The easiest way around this is to STORE the files there, and then move them to the internal drive and Steam installation, when playing that game. Not install the games there.

This does cause more writes to a drive, yes, but it solves all the issues this can present, and keeps the storage space as a non-issue.

I don't see how this applies to any statement from Steam itself, because not all external hard drives work the same way or have the same mechanism materials inside them.

Anyhow, mine has never disconnected while playing or when on idle and even when I know I have to bring my external hard drive with me, I always make sure to securely eject the hard drive.

And another thought that passed in mind to me, my external hard drive connects through USB 3.0 and I know external hard drives speeds are not calculated with RPMs but in MB/s, which would be approximately around 615 MB/s of read/write.

But, nonetheless, I find it ridiculous that there's no fix for this yet... (if they ever get one out).

[tacoshy]

Never had issues on my external drives. Never got disconnected and have a steady 520MB/s read and write through usb-c 3.1

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Eat Dem Spicy Wings (QC/FR):

Has anyone ever had issues with External HDDs on Steam where you have a bunch of games installed on your External HDDs but your games seems to "not be there" for X reason when you know you had them downloaded?
Thanks!

You said you don't see how this is related to any statement from Steam, but the very support page that covers this exact issue was linked in both of the posts that you just quoted above.

Games appearing as uninstalled....that is the issue on that support page, and using an external, if you don't set things up properly, or it becomes disconnected, are possible causes of that exact issue.

So that IS a statement from Valve......it's a Steam support page.

Futhermore, there is another linked support page at the bottom that leads here........

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289

As in some rare cases, problematic software or conflicting software can be related to this also.

Valve provided the support pages to us so that is a way to troubleshoot the issue, and often when people post about this here, they blame Steam saying there needs to be fix for it. The fix is use the troubleshooting methods provided on the support pages and see if they are the cause of the issue.

EDIT......................

Originally posted by Eat Dem Spicy Wings (QC/FR):

Has anyone ever had issues with External HDDs on Steam where you have a bunch of games installed on your External HDDs but your games seems to "not be there" for X reason when you know you had them downloaded?

And instead of waiting on others to answer this, you can simply use the forum search instead, and see many, many cases exactly as you just described. Same thing in many of those cases, just as the support page says...user was using an external and the games became appearing as uninstalled.

The library data can become corrupted, so that's why the files are still there, but they only APPEAR as uninstalled in your Steam library.

[Winged One]

its a risk you take when you decide to use an external drive for this kind of thing, Externals are primarily designed for storage, not resource intensive software.. your best bet would be just upgrading the internal storage on your PC

[LiveStepFreak (QC/FR)]

Originally posted by theseraph1:

its a risk you take when you decide to use an external drive for this kind of thing, Externals are primarily designed for storage, not resource intensive software.. your best bet would be just upgrading the internal storage on your PC

Therefore, installing a new HDD in my laptop and scrapping my Windows license because of an upgrade? Odd.

[tacoshy]

Originally posted by Eat Dem Spicy Wings (QC/FR):

Originally posted by theseraph1:

its a risk you take when you decide to use an external drive for this kind of thing, Externals are primarily designed for storage, not resource intensive software.. your best bet would be just upgrading the internal storage on your PC

Therefore, installing a new HDD in my laptop and scrapping my Windows license because of an upgrade? Odd.

How does it scrap your windows license? The license is saved and stored on the motherboard not on a drive.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by tacoshy:

How does it scrap your windows license? The license is saved and stored on the motherboard not on a drive.

This....

Let's not make assumptons on how this works, please OP. If you have questions, please, ask them.

[Winged One]

Originally posted by Eat Dem Spicy Wings (QC/FR):

Originally posted by theseraph1:

its a risk you take when you decide to use an external drive for this kind of thing, Externals are primarily designed for storage, not resource intensive software.. your best bet would be just upgrading the internal storage on your PC

Therefore, installing a new HDD in my laptop and scrapping my Windows license because of an upgrade? Odd.

First of all it doesn't "scrap a license".. windows 8 and 10 register the license to the motherboard, so on any reinstall it auto detects and activates.. for 7 in the unlikely chance the CoA sticker is no longer readable you can always use produkey or jellybean key finder to tell you what they key is

A reinstall is the most common thing in PC servicing.. dead HDD, corrupt OS, Intensive and Persistent Malware, update Refusal, prolonged OS slow down, all of these are normally solved by a reinstall so the idea that doing so somehow voids your license is absurd


And even then you wouldn't even have to do a reinstall, since you are upgrading to a bigger HDD just use clonezilla or disk copy (I like the added control of clonezilla, but disk copy is alot more user friendly) to just clone the entire drive to the bigger one..



Don't just assume how things work OP

[tacoshy]

Originally posted by theseraph1:

Originally posted by Eat Dem Spicy Wings (QC/FR):

Therefore, installing a new HDD in my laptop and scrapping my Windows license because of an upgrade? Odd.

First of all it doesn't "scrap a license".. windows 8 and 10 register the license to the motherboard, so on any reinstall it auto detects and activates.. for 7 in the unlikely chance the CoA sticker is no longer readable you can always use produkey or jellybean key finder to tell you what they key is

A reinstall is the most common thing in PC servicing.. dead HDD, corrupt OS, Intensive and Persistent Malware, update Refusal, prolonged OS slow down, all of these are normally solved by a reinstall so the idea that doing so somehow voids your license is absurd


And even then you wouldn't even have to do a reinstall, since you are upgrading to a bigger HDD just use clonezilla or disk copy (I like the added control of clonezilla, but disk copy is alot more user friendly) to just clone the entire drive to the bigger one..



Don't just assume how things work OP

even windows 7 stores the license on the motherboard. The thign is, that you just need to enter your license there durign the installation.

[Winged One]

Originally posted by tacoshy:

Originally posted by theseraph1:

First of all it doesn't "scrap a license".. windows 8 and 10 register the license to the motherboard, so on any reinstall it auto detects and activates.. for 7 in the unlikely chance the CoA sticker is no longer readable you can always use produkey or jellybean key finder to tell you what they key is

A reinstall is the most common thing in PC servicing.. dead HDD, corrupt OS, Intensive and Persistent Malware, update Refusal, prolonged OS slow down, all of these are normally solved by a reinstall so the idea that doing so somehow voids your license is absurd


And even then you wouldn't even have to do a reinstall, since you are upgrading to a bigger HDD just use clonezilla or disk copy (I like the added control of clonezilla, but disk copy is alot more user friendly) to just clone the entire drive to the bigger one..



Don't just assume how things work OP

even windows 7 stores the license on the motherboard. The thign is, that you just need to enter your license there durign the installation.

Only certain OEM keys.., retail, refurbishment, or certain OEM keys do not and as such can be easily used on other PCs (even though outside the retail you are breaking the EULA by doing so)

[tacoshy]

Originally posted by theseraph1:

Originally posted by tacoshy:

even windows 7 stores the license on the motherboard. The thign is, that you just need to enter your license there durign the installation.

Only certain OEM keys.., retail, refurbishment, or certain OEM keys do not and as such can be easily used on other PCs (even though outside the retail you are breaking the EULA by doing so)

depends on the specific case. In general within the EU you dotn rbeak the EULA as by EU alw every software must be allowed to resell.
In his specific case itr will everywhere be allowed without breakign the EULA as he doesnt change his PC. Neither doing a critical hardware change by changing the CPu or Motherboard but simply by switching the drive.
On Windows 8/8.1/10 you could even simply call Mircosoft with an OEM key after switching the motherboard and explain them, that you had to change your motherboard because it was broken as example. Microsoft will then make the key transfarable even though it is a bound to motherboard OEM key.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by tacoshy:

On Windows 8/8.1/10 you could even simply call Mircosoft with an OEM key after switching the motherboard and explain them, that you had to change your motherboard because it was broken as example. Microsoft will then make the key transfarable even though it is a bound to motherboard OEM key.

I ofter often wonder about the success rate with this, as I have seen that said elsewhere also. That is refreshing to know, if they do accept that after an explanation such as you exampled here.

[Winged One]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by tacoshy:

On Windows 8/8.1/10 you could even simply call Mircosoft with an OEM key after switching the motherboard and explain them, that you had to change your motherboard because it was broken as example. Microsoft will then make the key transfarable even though it is a bound to motherboard OEM key.

I ofter wonder about the success rate with this, as I have seen that said elsewhere also. That is refreshing to know, if they do accept that after an explanation such as you exampled here.

the success rate isn't as high as people make it out to be, when it comes to OEM it entirely comes to the temperment of who you get as the support technician.. we shipped out a rendering server to a client that was damaged in shipping once, after I replaced the damaged board I had two seperate support technicians who refused to do it because "OEM licenses are not transferable" until I strong armed them with "If you are unable to uphold the terms of my clients license we will be forced to presue different means for running their infrastrucuture in the future, thank you for your time" only to be responded with a "wait wait wait" as I motioned to hang up the line..

Retail licenses they have to as the Terms for those are different, with OEM its at their discretion.. its why I know first hand from doing Warranty Repairs for Business grade HP products that if the motherboard has to be replaced we are provided with the needed utilities and information to brand the board so Microsoft thinks its the original board the key is already bound to meaning we don't have to argue with Microsoft about transferring an OEM license, we were never provided this before Windows 8 because licensing was handled differently then..

I have had several cases where they outright refused to transfer an OEM no matter how much I escalated the issue, I have had others where they just go "here you are".. it really comes down to how the person you get on support feels that day.. its why anytime I have to quote a board replacement thats out of warranty I have to specifically state that a license may be required, but we will not know until we get the part because Microsoft is very moody on this

Originally posted by tacoshy:

Originally posted by theseraph1:

Only certain OEM keys.., retail, refurbishment, or certain OEM keys do not and as such can be easily used on other PCs (even though outside the retail you are breaking the EULA by doing so)

depends on the specific case. In general within the EU you dotn rbeak the EULA as by EU alw every software must be allowed to resell.
In his specific case itr will everywhere be allowed without breakign the EULA as he doesnt change his PC. Neither doing a critical hardware change by changing the CPu or Motherboard but simply by switching the drive.
On Windows 8/8.1/10 you could even simply call Mircosoft with an OEM key after switching the motherboard and explain them, that you had to change your motherboard because it was broken as example. Microsoft will then make the key transfarable even though it is a bound to motherboard OEM key.

I know it won't break the EULA in this case (I do hard drive replacements all the time at my office, we go through them quicker than any other part), but the transferring of OEM and Refurbishment licenses does (and Microsoft takes attempts at transferring refurbishment keys very seriously due to how cheap they provide them to microsoft licensed refurbishment centers), and the EU law does not apply to transferring one PC's OEM license to an entirely different PC because in that case it is not considered purchased software but as an aspect of the hardware you purchased (has been challenged in court a few times)..