I was downloading BG3 on my laptop and when it was almost complete I got a "insufficient disk space" error. Can I complete my download in some other pc?

[LordXamon]

As the title says, I was downloading this very large game. I use my laptop because my gaming setup fans make noise and I can't have it run at night, while I can just keep the laptop running 24/7 in some other room. And with my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ internet speed, it would take me twice as long if I didn't have the download running 24/7.

Thing is, I had to reboot the laptop because of unrelated reasons, and when I launched steam to continue the download (which was almost complete at 90%, only two more days to go), it showed the error that my laptop doesn't have enough disk free space. It worked just fine before rebooting the laptop, I don't understand.

Thing is, my gaming setup has enough free space, and I was wondering if there's a way to move my incomplete download to my setup and finish it there. It would be quicker and redownloading the whole thing again, specially since the error could strike again.

[Katana DK]

I'm not 100% on this (someone else will confirm), but this should work:
- Start the download on your gaming PC, wait a few minutes until it has reserved space on disk, and _has begun download_.
- Stop the download and exit steam fully.
- Copy (don't move) the files from your laptop so that the files are in the same relative location/path (\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3) and say yes to overwrite.
- When finished, start Steam and go to your Library, right click on BG3 > Properties > Installed Files > Click on "Verify integrity of installed files".
- If they are in the correct location, they should be read by Steam (this can take several minutes if on a harddisk) and the download should proceed from 90%.
- When completed, you can delete the files from your laptop.

[Sergeant Tuff-Stuff]

You think you have enough space,but Steam is telling you a big "NO".If you did have enough,you wouldn't get the error,simple as that.If you want to play this badly enough,uninstall some older games you haven't played in a while to free up some of that precious space you don't have now.
Btw,the files go to ONE disc only.You tell it at the start which drive you want it to go to and that's where it will go.No hokey pokey with some on one drive and some on another.

[Katana DK]

Sergeant Tuff-Stuff, I think you misread the question completely. I'm pretty sure OP is saying that the downloading laptop ran out of space and that "my gaming setup has enough free space" means another (gaming, non-laptop) computer.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Just fully download it on your gaming PC and use the Local Transfer to move it to your laptop...

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/46BD-6BA8-B012-CE43

[LordXamon]

Originally posted by Katana DK:

I'm not 100% on this (someone else will confirm), but this should work:

Nah, that didn't work. I also tried copying the files of the "downloading" folder to no avail.

Originally posted by Sergeant Tuff-Stuff:

You think you have enough space,but Steam is telling you a big "NO".

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Just fully download it on your gaming PC and use the Local Transfer to move it to your laptop...

I'll explain my problem again. My internet speed is ♥♥♥♥, so in order to download the games faster, I just download them on my old laptop, because I can have the laptop running 24/7, which I can't do with my gaming setup. I don't play in that laptop, I only download them there and use steam's backup feature to copy them to my gaming setup.

Unfortunately, steam's backup feature only works on complete games, not half downloaded games.

And now, for some reason, rebooting the laptop broke the download. When it was almost finished at that. I would like to know if there's some way to salvage this, so I don't have to wait another three weeks to redownload the game again.

And yes, the laptop has enough space. I mean, Steam did let me download the game in the first place. It just broke when rebooting.

[Katana DK]

Originally posted by LordXamon:

And yes, the laptop has enough space. I mean, Steam did let me download the game in the first place. It just broke when rebooting.

How much space did you have left over on the laptop drive? It's possible that another program was doing something in the background and filled up the drive (causing a problem, with Windows or Steam) and then cleaned up after itself again.

I don't have any experience with downloads failing halfway, and AFAIK Steam reserves the full amount of disk space necessary to download AND install. So it should be pretty robust.

(Some additional amount of disk space may be needed when the download has completed 100% and the installation starts and some files may need to be unpacked (although to my knowledge/experience, in most cases this happens while the download is in progress, with just a little bit of processing at the end), but by the looks of it, you never made it that far.)

What happens if you exit Steam client, reboot laptop, start Steam and then look in the downloads window? Is BG3 still listed there as "Download paused" at 90%, or what is your current status?

[LordXamon]

Nothing changed. Hell, it’s a windows partition I use exclusively for downloading games, there’s nothing else there other than steam.

Anyway, I decided to try giving it more free space, so I removed my linux partition (which is going to be a holy pain to restore later) and expand the windows one. Now it should have pleeenty of free space.

Welp, upon executing steam the download started again, so the partition trick worked… except it doesn't matter, because it started from the beginning. I lost all the downloaded data.