Steam won't recognize that I have games installed on my external hard drive

[Poopy Pan]

I own a one terabyte passport for mac external hard drive, and I installed Assassins Creed II on it. For about the first two days, I could play the game, but now Steam won't recognize that I have it installed. I have restarted steam many times, unplugged and plugged back in my external hard drive many times, but it still wont recognize that I have the game installed. I can install games onto the external hard drive, but can't play games that all already on it.

This is what shows up when I go to play Assassins Creed II which is on my external hard drive: http://i.imgur.com/TA1UMA8.jpg

If I reinstall the game, will I have to start over from the beginning?

Please Help.

[Ron ︻气デ 一]

I have 3 3TB externals. I download mostly to them because my boot drive is a SSD and I don't want to waste space on it with games. I find that most games will download nad run from the externals, but some will not and error. If I redownload them to the internal they work.

Not sure why you could play and now can't? I do play ACII from my external. Check your path and traget parameters for the game link. (right click and properties). My issue is that brotherhood crashes instantly... I just bought it = (

If you reinstall yes you have to start the download from the beginning and likely the saved progress you had will be gone. Unless the game writes it's own data files on the root which then may be shared.

[H o u C k H a M]

Open Steam > Steam Menu (Top Left) > Settings > Downloads > Content Libraries: Steam Library Folders > Add Library Folder > Add The File Called 'steamapps' On Your Hard Drive

[mistickalone22]

:)

[neom]

I have The Witcher 2 on my external hard drive and when i try to install it ( because i take my Hard drive to friends houses) i select the folder and it says failed to add new Steam Library folder. Any help?

[DemonTomato93]

Worked great for me. I didn't even have to start the installation. I just had to start the installation and pick out the directory, then Steam just went "Oh, crap! There they are!" and my games all lit up again.

[Madagu257]

Worked for me, don't know why I had to do that for a Library I created through Steam though. Scares you after playing a game for a day and it then saying you've got another 15 hour download ahead.

[Heldinvr]

Worked for me, don't know why I had to do that for a Library I created through Steam though. Scares you after playing a game for a day and it then saying you've got another 15 hour download ahead.

[f2k]

This is late, but if you click Steam in the top left, then go to Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders, then create a folder that you are planning to put your games in on your storage device. If you have already done this, the next step is to just click "Install" on your game and then choose the location for the install to the folder on your external hard drive. If you just let it install, it will automatically just add missing files just like "Verifying integrety of game cache" and will not run through the entire installation process again. Hope this works for you!

[James]

For me, I tried installing another game to this drive after it could not see any of my games on it. In the process I saw that the directory had drop the last part, "Steam Library". So when I chose it steam did not know were to save the game files, all I had to do was click on the "Steam library" folder and all my games came back and the new one start to install. Note: you may not have set name of this monitory folder the same as I did.

Hope this helped.

[pie]

Originally posted by DemonTomato93:

Worked great for me. I didn't even have to start the installation. I just had to start the installation and pick out the directory, then Steam just went "Oh, crap! There they are!" and my games all lit up again.

That worked for me. I started installing CS:GO and pressed the location and then as you said, steam went "Oh crap! There they are!" Even though I'm using windows I'm on a mac forum and it works. Thanks DemonTomato93

[cholt]

Originally posted by H o u C k H a M:

Open Steam > Steam Menu (Top Left) > Settings > Downloads > Content Libraries: Steam Library Folders > Add Library Folder > Add The File Called 'steamapps' On Your Hard Drive

Is there any setup where I don't have to do this every time?

[Kodachrome64]

i have that trouble also. would you sometimes open up steam then plug in the external HDD.
If you did:
Make sure you always wait for ur mac to find the HDD, then you launch steam.

If you didn't:
You must reinstall the game. I can't find a way to get steam to recognise my game folder on my 2TB external hard drive

[pEp]

Originally posted by H o u C k H a M:

Open Steam > Steam Menu (Top Left) > Settings > Downloads > Content Libraries: Steam Library Folders > Add Library Folder > Add The File Called 'steamapps' On Your Hard Drive

THIS WORKS LIKE A FREAKIN CHARM!!!!!

[theonlynamewithoutanumber]

Originally posted by H o u C k H a M:

Open Steam > Steam Menu (Top Left) > Settings > Downloads > Content Libraries: Steam Library Folders > Add Library Folder > Add The File Called 'steamapps' On Your Hard Drive

This worked for me, thanks H o u C k H a M

[skittlezmm]

Originally posted by H o u C k H a M:

Open Steam > Steam Menu (Top Left) > Settings > Downloads > Content Libraries: Steam Library Folders > Add Library Folder > Add The File Called 'steamapps' On Your Hard Drive

It told me that the new folder had to be empty in order to be added, sooooooooo what now?