moving Steam to another hard drive AND installing a new OS.

[haggis-cream]

Hi, I don't know what to do with Steam!

I'm doing a major hardware upgrade, requiring my main disk, C:, to be formatted, (a new OS will then be installed, XP Pro instead of Home).
I also have a secondary E: disk, but since that doesn't have an OS, it doesn't need to be formatted.

My question is, Steampowered.com says I can transfer Steam form one HDD to another, fine. But the new OS wont recognise something originally installed with the old OS, right?

(I originally posted this thread in the wrong section, sorry about that.)

So do I have to completely reinstall Steam after my long-awaited upgrade? (Sorry if this doesn't read very eloquently, its just that I'm not quite sure how to word this...)

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any help would be appreciated...

 

[Naudian]

Hmmm, when I formatted and installed XP pro on a fresh drive, all I had to do was download steam from steampowered.com, install it, and login with my account that I had always used. All the games I owned are still available, it's just that you have to re-download the content, unless you made a backup of your game content files from your old drive....

 

[diluted]

All you need to do is backup your GCF files (located in Steam/SteamApps/ folder). Either burn all of those files to CDs/DVD or copy them to another drive. When you install your new OS, download the Steam setup file from steampowered.com. After it installs, login to your account. Then close Steam, and copy those GCF files to the Steam/SteamApps folder (if it asks to overwrite anything, choose yes). Now restart Steam and you should see all of your games installed. You can also use the Steam backup feature if you want, but all it does is create an installer file for installing the GCFs, nothing you can't do with a simple copy and paste job.

But yes, you do need to do a fresh install of Steam. You can't simply copy the entire Steam folder to the new OS. Just copy the GCF files.

 

[haggis-cream]

Back up GCF files- that's actually a really good idea. Thanks!

Now all I'm waiting for is the new hardware to arrive- "3 to 8 days for delivery" they said: Day 7, still waiting...
Although the longer I wait the more I'll enjoy the stuff when it finally comes

 

[Beerdude26]

All you need to do is backup your GCF files (located in Steam/SteamApps/ folder). Either burn all of those files to CDs/DVD or copy them to another drive. When you install your new OS, download the Steam setup file from steampowered.com. After it installs, login to your account. Then close Steam, and copy those GCF files to the Steam/SteamApps folder (if it asks to overwrite anything, choose yes). Now restart Steam and you should see all of your games installed. You can also use the Steam backup feature if you want, but all it does is create an installer file for installing the GCFs, nothing you can't do with a simple copy and paste job.

But yes, you do need to do a fresh install of Steam. You can't simply copy the entire Steam folder to the new OS. Just copy the GCF files.

Well, that might be possible, just remove the clientregistry.blob and the platform.gcf file in the Steamapps folder. They control the location where Steam searches for the files.

Don't take my word for it tho