ALL of my games were removed from my system

[Pikathunder7]

I restarted my computer after steam wanted me to do an "update" for a game that was 35 GB when my computer restarted all of my games were gone and uninstalled my C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common was completely empty other than my controller settings

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

That not how Steam works as Steam never prompts you to restart your PC ever for updating games, as that was never a thing to begin with.

Was this a Windows update? Did you do a build upgrade of Windows 10, or upgraded to Windows 11 when you restarted computer?

Do you have more than one storage drive, such as D: E: F: or whatever the extra storage drive letter it may be?

[Pikathunder7]

1. there was no prompt i restarted because my computer had been running slow and needed a rest
2. there was no update when i restarted
3. no only a C drive

[Pikathunder7]

also no other files are missing seemingly, just my games

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Then something must have wipe Steam folder out, because things don't get wipe out of the folder on it own, unless Steam was uninstalled, or that Windows did build update, without you knowing, and you have to check the Windows.old folder if have one.


If you use any 3rd party software that mess with file, and permission of apps, and folders, it be good idea to look into what the 3rd party software has done to see what it doing to your files.

[Pikathunder7]

for the 3rd party programs, am i looking for anything that manages files, because i dont think i have any

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by Pikathunder7:

for the 3rd party programs, am i looking for anything that manages files, because i dont think i have any

What game was this update for?

Do you by chance have duel boot OS on your system, or have more than one profile on the PC?

[Pikathunder7]

i do have more than one profile

the game was Divinity original sin 2

[Pikathunder7]

luckily i have my cloud saves but its gonna take forever to reinsall all of those because i'd have to do them each individually

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

There an issue I can find relating to the game back in 2017, but the files are still in place, just not detected. So not sure what exact issue you face for your game folder to be deleted as a whole out of the Steam common folder, as only this can happen if game get uninstalled by command, but again not sure what the issue behind this.

[Iceira]

Sounds like the crashed steam muli steam libray and content is removed on that disk. ( from lack of free space to faulth disk even ) anything lesser then game update or 200gb free is seen as user own mistake , newest bigger game will be higher in a few years this can be 500gb

some game require 100gb+ now as installed or full update DL
and not have free temporary work space, can cause crashed steam game lib.
many forget games DLC'S and extra or patch even from games devs and count all the bits and piece's or games collection even with multi title in them.
and workshop item and save game/configurstion size

hence the warning anything lesser then 200gb , then you already are in trouble.

this dont seem to happend then disk is new and empty, require small disk or near full to happend. or faulty disk even.

Re-add or rebuld with repair might be part of the problem here with lost content or removed content.

be sure its the right account you have login into, ppl with multi account seem to do that mistake frequent.

[ImPattMan]

This just happened to me. Everything was "gone" including Steam itself. I believe my machine crashed while it was installing a game last night.

Today I found by running TreeSize that all of my Steam files were dumped into a folder called Found.000 that means they were recovered by chkdsk. So likely my ally crashed and chkdsk found possible corruption with those files and dumped them. They're still around in case you want to try and use them though. I just copied and pasted them back to where they go after reinstalling steam and I'll verify game files before playing any of them.

Just adding this in case any others come across this in the future.