SOLVED: Steam folder missing after BSOD

[Chicken-Kicker]

As the title suggests, I was recently victim of a BSOD. After successful reboot my Steam folder was gone from my storage drive. While in a command prompt, I can see the folder, but there are 0 bytes associated with it. Chkdsk came up with no errors. The drive is still as full as it was prior to the BSOD as well (ie. still at 85% capacity). Does anyone have any advice or is this lost storage and I have to re-download everything again?

[Komrade]

Use Crystal Disk Info to check your drive health. The entire folder is missing?

[Chicken-Kicker]

Автор сообщения: notkennyS

Use Crystal Disk Info to check your drive health. The entire folder is missing?

It late in my location so I'll try Crystal Disk tomorrow. According to File Explorer the folder is non-existent.

[Chicken-Kicker]

Автор сообщения: notkennyS

Use Crystal Disk Info to check your drive health. The entire folder is missing?

Alright, I just ran Crystal Disk Info, I'm getting a caution on the drive for "Reallocated Sectors Count."

Edit: So I modified my view settings and can see what my PC thinks is a file called Steam, but it's file type is just file. There's no extension associated to it.

[Chicken-Kicker]

After some Google-foo it appears that sometimes chckdsk will alter folders into files after a BSOD. I'm working on a recovery by trolling through the found.xxxx folders for the lost info. I'll update with the outcome.

[The Giving One]

You said "storage drive" above. Is that an external hard drive by chance ? If so, that is another possible part of the problem.

But the BSOD (forced shutdown) was surely the bigger part of that problem :

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

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

[Chicken-Kicker]

Автор сообщения: The Giving One

You said "storage drive" above. Is that an external hard drive by chance ? If so, that is another possible part of the problem.

But the BSOD (forced shutdown) was surely the bigger part of that problem :

Installed games are appearing as uninstalled

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

The drive is internal, just an HDD primarily used for storage. I took a look at the link, unfortunately the folder that I would normally map to was mis-labeled as a file by check disk so it couldn't be mapped in that manner.

[The Giving One]

Ok, thanks. Sorry, as I linked that page in case your reply was "external" but I think you are right and that's not directly the issue here, probably.

BSOD errors are almost always driver or hardware related. So consider other hardware a possible issue also. For example, a PSU is one that can be elusive sometimes. A PSU going bad can possibly be related to BSOD errors also.

[Chicken-Kicker]

Update: I managed to find a solution here [superuser.com]. Thanks for the attempts guys, problem is solved. Just a few games (about 14 of ~200) need patching, which is way better than re-installing all of them.

[The Giving One]

Автор сообщения: Chicken-Kicker

Update: I managed to find a solution here [superuser.com]. Thanks for the attempts guys, problem is solved. Just a few games (about 14 of ~200) need patching, which is way better than re-installing all of them.

That seems to correct the missing folder issue, but what about the issue that caused the BSOD in the first place.

There is an error number displayed, as well as other text, when the BSOD takes place. Did you note down any of this information ?

[Chicken-Kicker]

Автор сообщения: The Giving One

Ok, thanks. Sorry, as I linked that page in case your reply was "external" but I think you are right and that's not directly the issue here, probably.

BSOD errors are almost always driver or hardware related. So consider other hardware a possible issue also. For example, a PSU is one that can be elusive sometimes. A PSU going bad can possibly be related to BSOD errors also.

So when this BSOD occurred about a month ago, I managed to find the driver that caused it (realtek, go figure) and fix it, I'm only just now getting around to correcting my Steam library.

[The Giving One]

Автор сообщения: Chicken-Kicker

So when this BSOD occurred about a month ago, I managed to find the driver that caused it (realtek, go figure) and fix it, I'm only just now getting around to correcting my Steam library.

Oh, I see. Thanks, and yes, that makes sense. As long as you have had no other BSOD errors since then, then you should be good to go.

Well done in searching around and apparently finding the solution, and for sharing that here with everyone else that might also need help with this.