Issue transferring Steam games from external hdd to internal ssd

[cj9jones]

Alright so I'm going from a desktop I built a couple of years ago to an MSI GL62 laptop, and I took the hard drive from my desktop and am using an enclosure to carry it around with me for extra storage and whatnot, and I'm trying to move some of my Steam games from the hard drive to that  SSD on the laptop. I've tried copying the game folders from the steamapps/common folder on the hard drive to the same location on the SSD, but Steam refuses to recognize them at all. Also when I try to play games off the hard drive Steam still isn't recognizing any games anywhere, and going to the Steam/settings/downloads/steamlibraryfolders section it doesn't recognize my external hard drive on the system. Yes the hard drive is plugged in and works with transferring music, files, etc. Please halp!! 

[Mira Yurizaki]

If by recognizing you were thinking that Steam would say "you have these games installed" if you simply copied and pasted the game, it doesn't work like that. If you want immediate recognition, you need to copy the game's appmanifest file over as well. Alternatively, you can run the install procedure and Steam will realize the game is there and do a file validation check.

 

tl;dr, Steam requires another file for it to think a game is installed.

[TheNeonWhiteOne]

did you add the external drive as a library in steam settings 

 

this may help:

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-move-a-pc-game-to-another-hard-drive-without-re-1714706774

[Triage]

I think I used an application called SteamMover (free) when I was transferring my Steam games from my main SSD to a normal hard drive. Maybe that will help you too?

[cj9jones]

6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If by recognizing you were thinking that Steam would say "you have these games installed" if you simply copied and pasted the game, it doesn't work like that. If you want immediate recognition, you need to copy the game's appmanifest file over as well. Alternatively, you can run the install procedure and Steam will realize the game is there and do a file validation check.

 

tl;dr, Steam requires another file for it to think a game is installed.

I know it doesn't work that way. I hoped when I clicked install it WOULD recognize the files but it doesn't. Do I have to be connected to the internet for it to search for the game files? 

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, cj9jones said:

I know it doesn't work that way. I hoped when I clicked install it WOULD recognize the files but it doesn't. Do I have to be connected to the internet for it to search for the game files? 

No, but it probably needs an internet connection to verify you actually own the game.

 

Alternatively you can start the download process, verify it downloads the appmanfiest file, close Steam, copy the game over, cleanup the download folder, and launch Steam again.

[cj9jones]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

No, but it probably needs an internet connection to verify you actually own the game.

It just tells me "it's not ready to be played in offline mode" when I click install so you're probably right...

 

Right now I don't have internet so I'll have to get back later when I verify that's the issue

[Zagna]

Steam does support moving games between libraries.