Moving Steam Save Files to a new hard drive

[KyGonKillYou]

I recently bought a new SSD and now have two hard drives installed in my computer. I used macrium reflect to essentially clone my old hard drive over to the new SSD. Steam and everything else was working fine. I then re-formatted my old HD and wanted to use it to store my games. I used the steam client to move games one-by-one over to the old HD (by using "move install folder" under local files tab of game properties). I have the new game folder added as a library (settings>downloads>steam library folders>add library folder). Now that the games are moved back over to the old drive, I can no longer access the save files. I tried using GameSave Manager, but cant seem to figure out how to "move" the saves and make them usable on the old drive. Any game I load can not seem to find the save files. I've tried creating a similar save folder that is on the c: drive (c:/users/[name]/documents) over on the e: drive, but that also does not seem to work. I keep trying to find solutions on how to move the saves and the most common answer is to use this program but I'm not sure how to make it work properly. Please give suggestions.

[🌙 polarbearb 🍉]

Normally every game has its own default save file location. That location is constant, unchangeable. Creating a /documents folder on another drive don't works, thats normal.( By some games you can change it. But it has a bit more complicated way. Not just moving the save file from c: to e: )

After moving your games, have you tried to restore your game save files with GameSave Manager to their default locations on your new SSD?

[KyGonKillYou]

When i cloned the old HD, the save files were correctly moved over to the new SSD. Everything was working fine until I moved the games from the SSD back onto the old HD. Now the games can not find the save files. I was hoping GameSave manager would mesh nicely with steam and allow me to move them from the C: drive back over to the E: drive so the games would find the saves once again. The saves are currently on the C: drive in the exact directories where they were originally created. Shouldnt the games still try to access the c: drive even if they were moved?

[🌙 polarbearb 🍉]

I have moved games also but manually. Without using cloning or steam's "move install folder" option. I think here, the cloning causes the problem.
Before going further or risking of lose any saves, can I ask how many games, save files needed to get fixed?

[KyGonKillYou]

The cloning worked fine. Once I cloned, I unplugged the old HD from the motherboard and the SSD worked fine. Steam ran just as it did before with saves and all. I decided to plug the old HD back in to use it as storage for games. When I moved the games, only then did I run into save game issues.... I have a little less than 100 games. Not all have been played so they dont all have save files, but there are plenty of saves to move..... So this is never an issue with anyone else? If you get a new drive and move games to it, no one ever has issues with save files not showing up?

[InsaneMatt]

Just to confirm, you wish to copy your saves from your old boot drive to your new one. Correct?

This can be achieved in a couple of ways...

• Booting from the old drive
  
  1. After booting from the old boot drive and start GameSave Manager
     
  2. Make sure you have the latest Database Update applied (9.2019-02-08_01 at the time of posting this). This will be shown at the top-left of the GameSave Manager window.
     If you're using an older database, you may wish to update it before continuing
     
  3. From GameSave Manager's Main Menu, select 'Make a backup'.
     If you haven't done so in a while, you may wish to perform a full system scan for supported saves. You can do this by clicking the 'Rescan' button from the top-right of the window.
     Note: A full scan may take several minutes to complete
     
  4. From the listing on the left-hand side, select all the files and registry data you wish to backup
     
  5. Click the 'Run Task' button.
     Depending on how you've configured GameSave Manager, you'll be prompted for a location to backup your selection to
     
  6. Once the backup completes, boot from your new drive and start GameSave Manager.
     
  7. From GameSave Manager's Main Menu, select 'Open Archive(s)'
     
  8. You'll be now asked to select the backup(s) to open
     
  9. Just as you did while making a the backup(s), select what to restore from the listing on the left
     
  10. Click the 'Run Task' button
  
  
• Modifing GameSave Manager to scan the old drive
  While not as accurate as the previous method, this should still find most of your saves
  
  1. Start GameSave Manager and make sure you have the latest Database Update applied (9.2019-02-08_01 at the time of posting this). This will be shown at the top-left of the GameSave Manager window.
     If you're using an older database, you may wish to update it before continuing
     
  2. From GameSave Manager's Main Menu, select 'Modify Variables'
     Go through each option via the ComboBox and select the directory to treat as it's path. For example, changing 'My Documents' to use 'Z:\Users\OldAccount\Documents' will cause GameSave Manager to use said path when trying to find saves using the 'Documents' directory
     
  3. Go back to GameSave Manager's Main Menu.
     Follow steps 3-5 from the previous method
     
  4. Return once again to the Main Menu and select 'Modify Variables' again.
     You'll want to reset each of the options you modified back to their original paths (a 'Default' button will appear for each that were changed)
     
  5. Restore your saves as described in steps 7-10 in the previous method

[KyGonKillYou]

thanks insanematt for your quick and thorough response