Steam restore and missing option to select location

Status
Not open for further replies.

Lewis Penrice

Honorable
Aug 18, 2013
7
0
10,510
Well im trying to install steam games onto an external HDD while steam and a few special games are already installed on my SSD. I have ALL of my games backed up by using steams shoddy backup feature in a single disk, only a couple were backed up on indivdual disks.

The only problem is, when i try to restore the games, it doesnt give me an option to pick a drive location, its just gone. I have some games individually backed up, and they install onto my HDD no problems, the option is there. But when i try to restore multiple games from a single disk, it just locks me on installing on my SSD?!?!?! even if i only select a single game from the list!

Some of the games on the single disk are already on my SSD as i restored them earlier, so maybe that interferes with the installation. Its just not letting me select games from the Single disk and restore them to where i want them to go?

has anyone encountered this and have a solution? i dont want to have to delete everything, restore all the games that i have onto my hardive, then individually backup and restore a few games back onto my SSD. But i cant find a solution anywhere!


 
I don't have a specific answer, but I will say this: Steam games are inconsistent on where they are installed and how. Even if you manually direct a game to install on an external drive (say the directory is E:/Steam/Games/....), there still may be parts of it that are installed on the main Windows drive (C).

I came across a similar problem when changing around partition sizes on my external drive where some Steam games are installed. The games disappeared entirely and Steam only shows me having to reinstall it (lost all my game data). However there are ghost files of said missing games in my main Windows directory files. This is one of the biggest problems I have with Steam...no standard format how games are installed.
 
if you open the steam client, at the top click on steam and then settings. Under downloads click on steam library folders, you can add locations here for where you want the games to download.

Like 10Tacle said some times it will put small files on the main c drive but these are normally just save files. I can look tonight when i get home from work, have a 6TB drive with over 300 steam games installed. I think only a handful actually save anything to the C:\ drive, everything else is saved within the steam folder.
 

Lewis Penrice

Honorable
Aug 18, 2013
7
0
10,510


I did solve the issues. I've discovered that if you backup a group of games on a single backup, you can only reinstall that group of games onto a single drive eg your SSD or HDD.

if you want to install individual games on both drives(some games on an SSD while bigger games on your larger HD), you have to have them backed up in seperate backups. At least have a backup for games to go on your SSD, and another backup of games to go on your HDD. And if you already have one of the backed up games insatlled on onther drive, the backup will have to onto that drive only. It won't even give an option

It's a really terrible steam bug. Each game should be able to be installed individually on either drive regardless of whether it was backed up singularly or whether you just did you whole library as a backup.

The solution is the hard way. Delete any games you have, reinstall all onto one drive, backup any games you want to move to your second drive, delete and reinstall on the desired drive!

Far more complicated than it needs to be!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.