Is it possible to move a hard drive with Steam games to a new computer?
I've seen a lot of questions asking somewhat the reverse of this question, namely copying games from one PC to another to avoid downloading. My question is can I just remove my entire hard drive from my current PC and move it into the new PC and get Steam to recognize that all the games are already downloaded? I'm basically wondering if the way Steam knows which games are installed is tied to the account info in the cloud, or PC-specific information (like registry entries) or some combination.
The specific example: I have a PC with a C: drive and a Z: drive. 90% of my games are on the Z: drive. My new PC has just a C: drive, and I want to put the Z: drive into the computer and just get Steam to see everything there.
Best Answer
Yes. I did it before: simply moved my "Steam disk" from machine A to machine B, then installed Steam on machine B, pointing it to the Steam disk location and voilà.
As an extra precaution, you can also delete the ClientRegistry.blob file to force Steam to scan the steamapps folder and find out what is installed, making sure all the games get found.
Some minor updates (to install the missing files that are not in the Steam library itself) and file integrity checks may occur when you run Steam for the first time.
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Can I move my Steam drive to another computer?
Find the game in your Library you want to move. Right click the game's title and select "Properties..." Select the "Local Files" tab and then select "Move install folder..." From the drop down menu you can then select the Steam Library folder location you want to move the game's installation to.Can I move my HDD with games to another PC?
If you have all your games in a new library on different HDD than it will work. After you install steam just add a new library and select the one on your another HDD. Steam will check the files and update them if necessary.Can I use an external hard drive to transfer all my Steam games to my new PC and launch them without re downloading?
In the \u201cChoose location\u201d dropdown, choose the Steam folder on your new hard drive. Instead of re-downloading the game (which could take hours), Steam will detect the existing files there and make any necessary minor changes. When it's done, you should be able to play the game as usual.Steam Library - Move to New Drive or New Computer | 2021
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Answer 2
the way i found to do it with 100% success is to copy the steam folder to an external disk, then transfer to an already active disk on the new desktop. from there you will open the steam folder and inside you will find an application called "steam.exe" right click and hold, then drag to the desktop and select create shortcut. then just launch from there. the install for new games will default to wherever you copied the folder to, as well as completely eliminating having to reinstall steam, and risk having it wipe your data.
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