How to avoid Steam game reinstalls
How to avoid Steam game reinstalls
Summary of issue: Catalyst 14.4, used with R9 290, stopped working and was thought to be fixed but sometimes restarts. I'm considering a rebuild. I have many Steam games on a 2TB drive and want to back them up before wiping in case Steam reinstalls after the rebuild.
Steamapps folder stores all your games. Safely copy them elsewhere. Reinstall Steam, transfer your saved games from Steamapps back to the Steam folder (which might need re-setup), then reinstall the games again. This will locate existing files and perform a repair or instant fix, similar to what you do with Origin. You can find more steps on YouTube titled "How to backup steam games" which often covers several methods.
Your Steam apps folder should be on a different drive than your operating system. After reinstalling Steam, simply install a game and create a fresh Steam library from there—old files will no longer interfere with new installations.