Deleted Steam by Accident Need Help.

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Infanteer Jan 19, 2014 @ 9:40pm

I Deleted Steam program by accident don't ask:)
Can I restore it or get it back through my backed up files function on my computer?
Don't want to download all games again, mainly and lose saved game data?

new to PC

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Showing 1-15 of 15 comments

Laptop Jan 19, 2014 @ 10:29pm

If you uninstall Steam then all your games go along with it.

You'll have to redownload them all I'm afraid. Be more careful in future.

Ineffable Anathema Jan 20, 2014 @ 12:47am

Some game saves will probably be okay if you had Steam Cloud on, as they are stored in the cloud. Others are stored locally, and if the save folders they were in were deleted, then they will be gone too. Disc recovery is all I can recommend at that point.

If there is a person in your home network or a friend with a laptop who also has Steam and has any of the same games, you can transfer the installs to your machine to avoid redownloading them, but be sure that person does not modify files or use cheats if so. Also of course, any games they own that your account does not are not transferrable.

Teksura Jan 20, 2014 @ 1:26am

Your ability to restore files from a backup depends entirely on what files are backed up.

For example, my backup program (Time Machine) does an hourly backup of the entire system. So, if I ever accidentally uninstalled Steam, I could go back an hour, a day, or even a week to simply move all of the files back to where they used to be.

It should work the same way for you. If you have all of your files backed up, you should be able to simply copy them back to where they used to be. I believe that when you open steam, it SHOULD reconize which games are currently installed and in the folder where it expects to find them. But if I'm wrong someone should correct me.

Infanteer Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:18am

thanks for the replies, I actually fixed it. I had a system image saved on an external hdd. And just restored system image from last week.

Basically i tried to move my steam folder because hdd was getting full. Did it wrong.

Can I keep steam app folder in my internal hd, but save game data and games to my external hdd? And is that a bad thing, meaning lagging or poor qualitly because of external hdd?

Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:27am

Originally posted by Infanteer:
thanks for the replies, I actually fixed it. I had a system image saved on an external hdd. And just restored system image from last week.

Basically i tried to move my steam folder because hdd was getting full. Did it wrong.

Can I keep steam app folder in my internal hd, but save game data and games to my external hdd? And is that a bad thing, meaning lagging or poor qualitly because of external hdd?

Game loading might take longer than usual since USB is not as fast as a SATA connection. Performance wise it would be fine once a game is loaded in to the computer memory.

Last edited by Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel; Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:28am

Infanteer Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:35am

Thank you for the reply. I have noticed that, i have a couple big storage games on my external hdd. Its a small fix untill i buy a new internal hdd.

but as of gameplay? any harm? mainly if i were to go online? Because right now im plaing Battlefield 4 from my externa,l no room on internal.

Ineffable Anathema Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:38pm

All I know is, don't trust the cloud, or any game, to keep your saves safe - always make a backup of your game saves (preferably every time you play them, but at least weekly if not) on a separate folder (like on your desktop). That way if something like this happens again, or if one of the games hoses a save or Steam Cloud decides to start you back from six chapters ago (it did this twice to me with Alan Wake) you're safe. ;)

Glad to hear you fixed it though, that sounds like a horrific thing to happen.

Last edited by Ineffable Anathema; Jan 20, 2014 @ 10:38pm

Infanteer Jan 21, 2014 @ 8:34pm

thanks for the reply. Im new to PC and PC gaming. Do all my steam games saved game data go into one folder or is the saved game data in each seperate game folder??

thanks for the awesome tip, can't believe I didn't think of doing that:)

--Learning something new every day!--

Ineffable Anathema Jan 21, 2014 @ 9:26pm

Unfortunately, although many of the games' saves go into the same Steam folder, there are also many that store them elsewhere. A good thing to do is to make a textfile with all of your games' save locations on it (relevant to your operating system of course, they are in different places sometimes for example from XP to Win7 or Win8) and keep it on your desktop for future reference, that way when you need to back up a save you don't have to remember some ridiculous long path. There is a thread here on Steam forums somewhere with save locations in it (I cannot remember where at the moment, perhaps someone else can?)

Syrift Sep 29, 2017 @ 5:10am

I accident deleted steam , the games are gone , but i found all the games on disk D: , so i download another steam to disk d , and i move the files ( game files ) to steamapps ,will it work ?

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