Steam won't recognize games on my external hard drive.

[red-tail]

To cut out unnecessary details, I had to change the USB port my keyboard was connected to for the keyboard to work.
Foolishly, I unplugged my hard-drive not thinking anything would happen. I open up Steam to find that all the games I had installed on the hard-drive are now missing.
"Well okay I guess I'll just add it as a folder through the downloads tab in the settings."
I set the library folder to D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps not taking my time and now I'm stuck, because it says I have 1 installed game in the folder (when I have 12) and when I try to remove the folder I'm told that 'Only empty folders can be removed.' Where do I go from here? I've tried 'Repairing library folder' and no changes happen. I can still access & play my games I just can't get steam to recognize them without wanting to download the damn thing again. Thanks for the help.

[rawWwRrr]

Just point it to D:\SteamLibrary

[red-tail]

Oprindeligt skrevet af rawWwRrr:

Just point it to D:\SteamLibrary

It tells me that the selected drive already has a steam folder.

[rawWwRrr]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Red-Tail:

I set the library folder to D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps

sorry, I was pressed for time. the mistake made was pointing to the steamapps folder. that is where the games are physically located, but you don't add that as the steam library folder. you only add upto the folder just above it which in your case is D:\SteamLibrary

first thing I would do is just remove the USB drive like you did before and restart Steam so it sees it's disappeared. if it's still listed in your library folders remove it. then plug the USB drive back in and add the library folder back but only up to D:\SteamLibrary

[Tev]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Red-Tail:

Oprindeligt skrevet af rawWwRrr:

Just point it to D:\SteamLibrary

It tells me that the selected drive already has a steam folder.

Don't open the SteamLibrary or the steamapps folder within the browser.

Just open [Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders > Add Library Folder]

If your external disk's Steam library is D:\SteamLibrary, you go to D:\ and press the SteamLibrary -folder with one click (Do not open it.) and then click [Select]

That should allow Steam to be able to properly read the install status of the games' from the steamapps -subfolder's appmanifest files.

If all else fails, just manually modify the libraryfolders.vdf (open it with i.e. WordPad) that you can find under the steamapps folder where your Steam installation resides. By default,

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\libraryfolders.vdf

You'd just add,

	"1"		"D:\\SteamLibrary"

Then just exit Steam; save the file; restart Steam.

[red-tail]

Oprindeligt skrevet af rawWwRrr:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Red-Tail:

I set the library folder to D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps

sorry, I was pressed for time. the mistake made was pointing to the steamapps folder. that is where the games are physically located, but you don't add that as the steam library folder. you only add upto the folder just above it which in your case is D:\SteamLibrary

first thing I would do is just remove the USB drive like you did before and restart Steam so it sees it's disappeared. if it's still listed in your library folders remove it. then plug the USB drive back in and add the library folder back but only up to D:\SteamLibrary

Thanks. Works without any problems now.