Steam Folder Damaged or Corrupted

[Mr Brightside]

So today I noticed that Steam wasn't loading correctly, I was getting an error message saying that module 'bin/FileSystem_stdio.dll' could not be loaded. I checked my steam folder, and I was horrified to find that my steamapps folder is NOT what it should be, almost all of my games are missing. I got a message from my computer yesterday saying something about drive damage, but now it looks like the Steam folder got corrupted. Are all my games and ALL the data gone? Is there any way to salvage this? Will I have to start from scratch with everything?

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

If Windows is beginning to complain about disk drive damage, you should probably replace it and start over from scratch.

That disk drive's on its last legs.

[The Giving One]

The games are still tied to your account, so if you lost them on the PC, you simply have lost their installations and can later redownload them after you fix the apparent hardware issue you have.

Backup any important data on that hard drive NOW. CAUTION : sometimes, the very act of backing up the data can be the straw that breaks the back, if the hard drive is on the outs.

[Mr Brightside]

Alright its not an SSD, its an external hard drive. Going to run a few tests but everything else appears to be working fine, does it happen that just Steam folders get corrupted?

[pivotman319 (Trans Rights FTW!)]

External hard drives have a far shorter lifespan than a solid state drive.