Solved Just a question reguarding reformatting my C drive but games are on D

[nemo17]

I'm planning to reinstall my W7, and i have most of my games on my D: drive which is NOT my boot drive.

1. Would it be possible to reinstall my Windows which in the C: drive and not corrupt my game files? Would i be able to just create the shortcuts to the game.exe from the D: drive? Or will i have to reinstall my games again? The only game i have installed on my C: drive just Battlefield 3 and that wouldnt be a problem for me, but the rest of my games have more importance than that. And i have a lot of games.
   

• 
  Would it be possible (if a few of my games have game files in my User folder [ in appdata etc]) to just copy my User folder and overwrite the freshly installed one?

List of games i have installed on my D: drive:
-DCS:A10-C
-Lockon: Flaming Cliffs 2
-ArmAII and OA, with mods installed
-BF2 with mods installed
-Heroes of Newearth
-Warcraft 2
-Mass Effect 3
-Skyrim
-NFS:TR
-Dragon Age 2
-Minecraft
-Tribes Ascend
The only game i have installed on the C: drive is BF3, but it's fine if it gets wiped since it's synced online anyway.

So the major question, which is more general than the previous 2, is: using either of the methods in both questions, will i be able to play my games without any problems like corrupted files or missing files?

 

[M1GU31]

they won't corrupt you can make your own shortcuts from the d drive to your desktop to launch them and if there steam games then back up the steam folder on your drive and when you reinstall windows and try to open steam then it will ask for a code which you should get in your email to activate it on your new install. For retail games like dvd installs they should be able to play fine,only game i've had trouble with in the past is cod waw which had me reinstall it because it couldn't recognize my profile. Games on orgin i'm not sure about might be the same situation like with your bf3 or it will just go fine. Most should be fine like dragon age 2 i know will be fine since i have that game and done this before.

 

[cyclic]

If you leave D:\ alone and do what you suggest in the second question, then use regedit to export the steam and game settings, probably D:\ would be ideal. After installing OS, download and install steam afresh, import the registry settings and you should be good to go. Your profiles etc; will be in place (you may have to log in the first time) when you login to steam use the library to set desktop shortcuts up.
The first time after the new install you start any steam game you will likely have to go through the first run setup for DX and Visual plus as they will be expunged with the old OS.
Don't forget to copy you savegame folders to D:\ also and then back to the new C:\ afterwards, yes steam will syncronise anyway, it just helps.

 

[nemo17]

they won't corrupt you can make your own shortcuts from the d drive to your desktop to launch them and if there steam games then back up the steam folder on your drive and when you reinstall windows and try to open steam then it will ask for a code which you should get in your email to activate it on your new install. For retail games like dvd installs they should be able to play fine,only game i've had trouble with in the past is cod waw which had me reinstall it because it couldn't recognize my profile. Games on orgin i'm not sure about might be the same situation like with your bf3 or it will just go fine. Most should be fine like dragon age 2 i know will be fine since i have that game and done this before.

Gotcha.. thanks.. and yeah Origin wouldnt let me change the install location so i had no choice but to put it in C: which ticks me off a bit. next time ill see if installing origin itself in D: would install my origin games in D: as well.

If you leave D:\ alone and do what you suggest in the second question, then use regedit to export the steam and game settings, probably D:\ would be ideal. After installing OS, download and install steam afresh, import the registry settings and you should be good to go. Your profiles etc; will be in place (you may have to log in the first time) when you login to steam use the library to set desktop shortcuts up.
The first time after the new install you start any steam game you will likely have to go through the first run setup for DX and Visual plus as they will be expunged with the old OS.
Don't forget to copy you savegame folders to D:\ also and then back to the new C:\ afterwards, yes steam will syncronise anyway, it just helps.

I dont think Steam will be a problems since i dont play any of my steam games anymore lol.