Drive disconnected during game - Steam can't detect games anymore

[tzetsienghwaang]

I was in the middle of a game when my hard drive got disconnected and the game exited after a while. Now none of my games can be detected again. (I'm using an external hard drive because my internal one is full, so it's on a fragile USB wire connection)

I've tried restarting Steam multiple times, restarting my computer, deleting download cache, right clicking on the games on my Steam Library (only "hide this game" is available), and deleting the appcache folder, all solutions I saw on Google. Nothing worked.

When I try to start the games' .exe files directly from the "common" folder, they start in offline mode and tell me that connection to Steam has failed.

I can't play any game that connect to my Steam account/use any online functionality anymore. Is there any other solution available?

Edit: Solved from Settings > Storage > + to add a local file directory.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

For future ref if you're using external storages, or slow hdds, ensure they're ready to read before launching Steam.

For losing connection to drive while Steam active, and you closed it, then launch it, you have to re-add the folder location via steam settings, or do repiar if it see it drive already when viewing libary management.

[tzetsienghwaang]

I don't actually know how to do repairs or check if it's ready to read (file manager can access it without problems), but it seems readding the folder location in the settings is what fixed it.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by tzetsienghwaang:

I don't actually know how to do repairs or check if it's ready to read (file manager can access it without problems), but it seems readding the folder location in the settings is what fixed it.

So how to do repair is simple, only have to do this if steam see the drive, but has problem seeing the games.
Steam settings > Storage > select the drive from drop down menu / click on tab for drive, now click on button with three dots, from there y ou click repair library.


Now for manual work if don't want to do repair feature you do this.
Go to the drive that steam unable to see your SteamLibrary folder > Rename SteamLibrary to SteamLibrary-old > open steam > settings > storage > add new storage > place it in same spot as last SteamLibrary you had on the problem drive > once place shutdown steam, now delete new SteamLibrary folder, then rename SteamLibrary-old back to SteamLibrary, and steam should see that folder again.

[crunchyfrog]

I'd echo the comment above about using external drives.

I've used them on my entire life on Steam (some 13 years or so). There's a few general tips to make sure it runs well.

First off, as said above, make sure you ALWAYS connect your drives and make sure they're recognised under Windows BEFORE you start Steam. You found out rightly how to add them back should issues happen so I won't address that.

Also, try NEVER to use sleep mode under Windows. ALWAYS shut your PC down fully. This causes the same sort of issues.

And lastly make sure you have power savings settings in Windows turned off.