External hard drive usage?

[Ghiaman1334]

My laptop's been sent away for repairs. One of the things that might have broken it is how much space I used, especially for Assetto Corsa and its mods.
I was wondering if it were possible to put Assetto Corsa on an external hard drive or something similar, then plug it in when I want to play the game? That or just the mods I use? I don't know, it sounds wrong, both in the sense of it sounds impossible to make work and also it sounds illegal even if I did make it work. I'm just trying to find ways to save space to maybe help out. If it affects it, I bought the game on Steam.

 

[Robert Bachmayer]

Steam will probably give you the $hits when it can't find its games, then you'll have to show it where it is next time.
But aside from that it should work.
I have my games on seperate HDD from the OS ssd, playing about in the bios sometimes makes it forget a HDD, then after I have to show Steam that the games are indeed available.

 

[pattikins]

I also keep all my games on separate a hard drive to my OS. Many years ago I used a small program called Steam Mover when I was running out of disk space. Alternatively, if you're comfortable using the command line you can do it yourself.


Edit: I've just had a look @ steam & it's possble to create multiple steam libraries across different drives.

 

[GeekyDeaks]

That is a great tip @pattikins!

Although I have to confess, when you said to use MS-DOS, my immediate thought was having to boot up in some kind of non-ui mode, not opening up the command line

 

[pattikins]

That is a great tip @pattikins!

Although I have to confess, when you said to use MS-DOS, my immediate thought was having to boot up in some kind of non-ui mode, not opening up the command line

Good point.

 

[Jach]

you can do that just make sure not to open steam before plugging in your drive

 

[Ghiaman1334]

Thanks for all your help! So, essentially, you're saying it'll work. So I just need to move my stuff to an external hard drive? Will the mods still work?

 

[Robert Bachmayer]

Yes
Mods will go in the steam game folder as per usual, game settings etc will naturally go in OS drive documents folder as per normal/default.
By the way, Steam will let you move any installed game to a new location/HDD, so don't try cutting and pasting.
Problems only arise if you start the OS, allow steam to start and have forgotten to plug in the external HDD.
Easily fixed but a pain in the but.

 

[Ghiaman1334]

Yes
Mods will go in the steam game folder as per usual, game settings etc will naturally go in OS drive documents folder as per normal/default.
By the way, Steam will let you move any installed game to a new location/HDD, so don't try cutting and pasting.
Problems only arise if you start the OS, allow steam to start and have forgotten to plug in the external HDD.
Easily fixed but a pain in the but.

Ah, so I need to change the setting so it doesn't try to boot up on startup

 

[Robert Bachmayer]

Hmm, maybe I've confused you.. anyhow, if it were me I would set steam to not automatically run when starting windows that way you'll remember to plug in external drive before starting steam.

 

[Ghiaman1334]

Hmm, maybe I've confused you.. anyhow, if it were me I would set steam to not automatically run when starting windows that way you'll remember to plug in external drive before starting steam.

Great, thank you, that's what I meant. I'll make sure that works.

 

[Neilski]

You could even put Steam on the external drive