Games all locked after moving drive to new PC

[VikingWynn571]

I have been building and upgrading my computers for over a decade, but this has never been a problem for me until the last couple months. I recently decided to buy a laptop to accompany my desktop so I could play on the go. I have a M.2 that I swap between the computers so I don’t have to manually reinstall all my games or buy additional storage. For some reason, any steam game that was installed using my laptop, I am unable to access when using my desktop. It requires admin just to open them, but it doesn’t give me any write or edit privileges. And Steam doesn't see them at all and if I try to play it, it will start verifying and try to reinstall the game from the start.
At first I thought this was maybe just a bug or some strange TPM setting, so I returned the laptop and bought a different model but it’s doing the same thing.

I have always had a secondary drive that I keep all my games on that would often move with my computer upgrades and this is never happened until I started doing it this past month.

I know that reinstalling it separately on the other computer would be the simplest solution, but I have pathetically slow Internet because I live out in the country. It would take me all day just to download a couple games. Finding a way to resolve the error would be the best choice if I can.

Anyone know what is happening and how to fix it?

Edit: still not fixed, but here is more info to avoid repeated suggestions.
It's an internal drive. The drive is being recognized and usable without issue. It's the game files themselves that are the problem. I'm just stumped as to why the game files are so heavily admin locked that I have to use administrator privileges just to open the folder. And all I get are errors if I try to change the permission settings for the folder contents. I can't even delete them without formatting and wiping the entire drive.
Steam is installed separately on the main C drive on both machines. I also have it installed outside of the program files directory in its own subfolder off the root of the drive. All the games are on the D drive as an extra steam library.
Normally I just plug in the drive-- boot up-- load steam-- then access the storage settings and tell it to add a library on that drive and all the installed games show up instantly. Now when I do it, only a couple of the games show up instantly and the rest only show up after queuing it to install again and it tries to verify and fails causing it to install from the beginning. Also worth mentioning that any games that were installed using the desktop are accessible from any computers. It's only games that were installed from the laptop that are locked.

[rawWwRrr]

I haven't run into myself, yet, but it sounds like Windows user permissions.

Does this work?

1. Right click on the inaccessible drive, select Properties.

2. In the Properties window, select Security, click on Edit...

3. It will pop up a window “Permissions for New Volume” dialog box. Click the Add button to continue.

4. Then, add a new user maned “Authenticated User” and click OK.

5. From the permission section, give “full control” to newly added user and click “OK”.

6. The dialog box will show two options: “Continue” or “Cancel”.

7. Press Continue… and Cancel at last.

Now, you are done, and you can reboot your computer to check whether you can access the external hard drive successfully.

[Iceira]

Do you know the word's "mount" or "remap" or "attach" it again mean.
then we dont need to explan anything if you did do this.

ps.
its diffrent ways, learn by many things with IT.

[VikingWynn571]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

Do you know the word's "mount" or "rema" or "attach" it sgain mean.
then we dont need to explan anything if you did do this.

ps.
its diffrent ways, learn by many things with IT.

Your sarcasm asside, it's not that kind of problem. The drive shows up with no issue. The steam games and the contents of their install folders are admin locked after moving the drive to the other pc.

[Lithurge]

Ursprungligen skrivet av sm_wynn01:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

Do you know the word's "mount" or "rema" or "attach" it sgain mean.
then we dont need to explan anything if you did do this.

ps.
its diffrent ways, learn by many things with IT.

Your sarcasm asside, it's not that kind of problem. The drive shows up with no issue. The steam games and the contents of their install folders are admin locked after moving the drive to the other pc.

Sorry don't know the solution to your problem, but you can ignore this user, they pretty much post mangled nonsense in response to most requests for IT style help. Then every so often they complain about having to provide support to people, even though they're just as free to ignore help requests as the rest of us.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Again, I would just set it up using Symbolic Links and just telling the PC that the external M.2 is a masked C drive so that both PC's see it as C and will work.

I was hot swapping a USB thumb drive with a few micro games and it worked well between my desktop and laptop.

[Iceira]

Then you wont get any help, from many, because we cant see if all is done the right way, and we think you did.

You know what take your problem down to a tech shop and learn hands on, cant be solved by a forum, and then you have to to pay for support maybe this will help on your attitude. problem its at your end, because as you say it working on 1 pc.

Many have done this over many years move a disk to oher pc, ( even external disk users, and now im the rude one now wow,. get a grip here and fix your pc issue. its that simple. )

Even they other here try to help you, did it help NO not according to you so we are back at look like you did all the right things, but it aient working , nothing change that fact accoding to you.

gl with it. ( pay for service seem to be the only Solutions for you. ) and gl to other helpers here, the lack of skill or knowhow could also be the problem or system is corrupted. and so is user access rights maybe.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

Then you wont get any help, from many, because we cant see if all is done the right way, and we think you did.

You know what take your problem down to a tech shop and learn hands on, cant be solved by a forum, and then you have to to pay for support maybe this will help on your attitude. problem its at your end, because as you say it working on 1 pc.

Many have done this over many years move a disk to oher pc, ( even external disk users, and now im the rude one now wow,. get a grip here and fix your pc issue. its that simple. )

Even they other here try to help you, did it help NO not according to you so we are back at look like you did all the right things, but it aient working , nothing change that fact accoding to you.

gl with it. ( pay for service seem to be the only Solutions for you. ) and gl to other helpers here, the lack of skill or knowhow could also be the problem or system is corrupted. and so is user access rights maybe.

You are of no help, cynical, and condescending to real helpers.

I already blocked you months ago.

[Iceira]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Wynters:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

Then you wont get any help, from many, because we cant see if all is done the right way, and we think you did.

You know what take your problem down to a tech shop and learn hands on, cant be solved by a forum, and then you have to to pay for support maybe this will help on your attitude. problem its at your end, because as you say it working on 1 pc.

Many have done this over many years move a disk to oher pc, ( even external disk users, and now im the rude one now wow,. get a grip here and fix your pc issue. its that simple. )

Even they other here try to help you, did it help NO not according to you so we are back at look like you did all the right things, but it aient working , nothing change that fact accoding to you.

gl with it. ( pay for service seem to be the only Solutions for you. ) and gl to other helpers here, the lack of skill or knowhow could also be the problem or system is corrupted. and so is user access rights maybe.

You are of no help, cynical, and condescending to real helpers.

And OP still have not solved it, so your help is also pointless, you just dont see it here, because you think you are support and you are NOT. thast the First mistake you do and you keep do it in many post, you are not moderator and think you know anything about recving end has the skill to master access rights. ( come again then you know what user rights is. )
you have no clue on system rights here.

you dont bring info on subject even "rawWwRrr" did thst, and again we need to explan you how forum rules is you dont repete what other already explan.

steam will not have 1.000.000+ thats say you need sccess controi fixed. you are the lesser skilled here , go read old forum core rule on any forum, there is one post with right solution and other is not allowed to keep repeat it, steam will not have many user say i agree even.

and sense rawWwRrr point it out, we other cant even help, ( you need to learn how things work at forum, so you can keep post with whatever point and all the wrong things in the world here, but rawWwRrr has nailed it and its over.

we other can only ask did you mounted the drive or remapped it or assigned it correctly.

rawWwRrr actual closed this post before it was started.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Wynters:

You are of no help, cynical, and condescending to real helpers.

And OP still have not solved it, so your helper is also pointless, you just dont see it here, because you think you are support and you are NOT.

No, I have only worked with PC's for over 30 years...

[VikingWynn571]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

Then you wont get any help, from many, because we cant see if all is done the right way, and we think you did.

You know what take your problem down to a tech shop and learn hands on, cant be solved by a forum, and then you have to to pay for support maybe this will help on your attitude. problem its at your end, because as you say it working on 1 pc.

Many have done this over many years move a disk to oher pc, ( even external disk users, and now im the rude one now wow,. get a grip here and fix your pc issue. its that simple. )

Even they other here try to help you, did it help NO not according to you so we are back at look like you did all the right things, but it aient working , nothing change that fact accoding to you.

gl with it. ( pay for service seem to be the only Solutions for you. ) and gl to other helpers here, the lack of skill or knowhow could also be the problem or system is corrupted. and so is user access rights maybe.

Let me give you a little context on my background. I do work in IT. I am a desktop support administrator. I build computers and diagnose them for a living. No one over here can figure it out either. So I'm just trying to see if anyone in the wide world has had an experience similar to this and found a solution or the cause.
So again, as a person who does this for a living, stop commenting if you don't have anything useful to say. If you are annoyed by my needing help, then kindly move on and ignore this post

[Iceira]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Wynters:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

And OP still have not solved it, so your helper is also pointless, you just dont see it here, because you think you are support and you are NOT.

No, I have only worked with PC's for over 30 years...

clearly not go read forum rules, rawWwRrr actual close this post.

[VikingWynn571]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Wynters:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Iceira W10:

And OP still have not solved it, so your helper is also pointless, you just dont see it here, because you think you are support and you are NOT.

No, I have only worked with PC's for over 30 years...

I just blocked the guy. He just wants to piss people off. I'm also a professional IT guy and this is stumping me and my coworkers. The sad thing is, I'm sure it's a simple windows or steam settings thing since it's suddenly happening on multiple of my machines. But for the life of me, I can't find what it is.

[Ogami]

One day i will open a thread with a Iceira posting that says something actually useful.
But alas, its not today.



@OP
Do you have a full Steam installation on the drive or just a secondary library or even just the games?
Steam is pretty finnicky with moving or switching out the main installation between PCs.
You could set up your games as a extra Steam library, then have a full Steam client installation on both systems.
Then when you move between them, just add the extra Steam library from the "Storage" menu in your client settings and it should automatically recognize all the games as installed on either system.

[VikingWynn571]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ogami:

One day i will open a thread with a Iceira posting that says something actually useful.
But alas, its not today.
:lunar2019grinningpig:


@OP
Do you have a full Steam installation on the drive or just a secondary library or even just the games?
Steam is pretty finnicky with moving or switching out the main installation between PCs.
You could set up your games as a extra Steam library, then have a full Steam client installation on both systems.
Then when you move between them, just add the extra Steam library from the "Storage" menu in your client settings and it should automatically recognize all the games as installed on either system.

Unfortunately that is exactly what I've been doing. And like I said in the original post, it's always worked before without issue until this past month or so. I'm just stumped as to why the game files are so heavily admin locked that I have to use administrator privileges just to open the folder. And all I get are errors if I try to change the permission settings for the folder contents. I can't even delete them without formatting and wiping the entire drive.

[Iceira]

haha gl with thats and he tell hes a professonal, what a joke here, say things you should know and take action on, you just dig a bigger hole here for yourself. noone is going to help a expert, and you did not even explan you got other to look at system rights also, clearly you are all amatures here. you lack the skills and open on who has tried to look at it , and feel offender then someone step on your toes, again you bring more shame to yourself here.

im sure a steam moderator will love this backstapper helpers here. you have no honor and no respect to tell what skill you are , go talk with real support company, they do this all day , send right ppl out with skills to try solve what can be wrong at a custommer, things left out here by OP

no one here can see what education you have, and you holdback that info, you are the jokes here not me.

just wait then it go up for all here, why did he not explan better and google it or told he know
how it should work and even "rawWwRrr" point should not be posted OP could have explan better if other have any crazy idea why this can happend , but he did not. ( shame on you guys here. )