All of us at one point may run out of the hard drive space due to the tiny SSD, and we have to move some of our PC games to another hard drive. You don’t have to uninstall and re-download them rather you can move the games to the new drive without even having to wait for hours to reinstall each and every game.
While there are several ways to Move
PC Game to a new Hard Drive, most of these solution only fall into two categories. Here are they.
PC Game to a new Hard Drive, most of these solution only fall into two categories. Here are they.
1. Steam Mover
Steam Mover is one of the most efficient apps that aids in moving any game Steam, Origin or play it without re-installing. It creates a link at the original location, and makes your PC feel that everything is same location, but the space allocation is on the other hard drive.
How to use Steam:
Download the Steam Mover, and since it’s portable, you don’t have to install it. All you have to do is run the EXE file.
Click on the folder at the top of the window, where the game currently resides. Browse and select the location where you’d like to move the game. You can create a new folder if it doesn’t exist.
Choose the game from list and select the blue arrow in the bottom, which pops up a black command prompt window.
The command prompt shows a progress of the copy. Run it and when finished, the game will be in the new folder, with a “shortcut” mark in original location. You can now run it from Steam, Origin, or from the shortcut in original location.
2. Move the Game and Direct Your Game Manager to New Location
If you wish not to download any additional software, then you don’t have to, as both the Steam and Origin have the ways to detect the installed games. Using Steam you need to perform the right steps in the right order.
Create new folder to store Games. Go to Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders and select “Add Library Folder”.
Go to the new Steam library folder and create a folder with name Steamapps. Create Common folder in Steamapps.
Go to the current Steam folder, find folder for the game you want to move.. You can find it in the steamapps/common. Copy Game’s folder to new steamapps and the common folder you have created earlier.
Go to Steam, right-click on game and choose “Delete Local Content”. The move will let you uninstall the Game from original location.
Now click Install button to re-install the game. Select Steam folder on your new hard drive in the “Choose location” dropdown.
Rather than re-downloading your game which takes hours, Steam will detect the existing files, and lets you make any necessary minor changes. You can now play the game in your usual way.
The guide to move an Origin game would also be similar, though it will be a bit simpler..
Open Windows Explorer; create a folder in new location to store the games.
Go to origin folder and find new folder for the game to move it. Copy the game to new location and delete the old files.
Go to Origin > Application Settings > Advanced. Click the “Change” button Under “Downloaded Games” and direct it to folder on your new hard drive. Since it only affects the newly-installed games, you don’t have to worry on the current library
Now, return to “My Games” and select Download button to re-install the game, instead of re-downloading it. Origin will detect the existing files and implement the minor changes needed. You can play the game usual when it’s done.
Repeat the third above steps with original location, when you wish to Download button to re-install the game..
