Steam/Other Troubleshooting

Regnenth · **Posted:** September 12th, 2010, 5:50 pm

ok, so i had a question about Steam and my free Portal download. when the free downlaod of portal was up i got it and i was wondering if i formatted my computer, is portal saved to my account and i can download it again for free, or will i have to pay for another download of it

Adbot · **Posted:** September 12th, 2010, 5:50 pm

Shane · **Posted:** September 12th, 2010, 6:04 pm

All Steam games, including ones you get for free are tied to your account. So in short, yes. You will still have access to the game when you format your computer. That's the beauty of steam

Steam also has a backup option for your games if you are concerned about bandwidth usage.

Regnenth · **Posted:** September 12th, 2010, 6:07 pm

k thanks, although i have a question about formatting. i know i will have to backup my music, pictures, videos, etc. but what am i going to need to know or have written down after the format is done, like information for drivers and such?

Shane · **Posted:** September 12th, 2010, 10:21 pm

That depends on what OS you're using and what hardware you have. For me Windows 7 has been fairly easy to install. It detects every piece of hardware I have. The only drivers I update are the ones for my graphics card.

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Windows in my experience does a great job of detecting and updating drivers. Remarkably, when I went from Vista 32-bit home to Windows 7 64-bit Professional, I thought I would need to backup my files off the computer. But upon custom installation, I found that Windows actually did a back up of all my old files and put it into and Old Windows folder. Don't know if that's what it does every time, but if it does, then that's just an extra safeguard I suppose. I'd suggest leaving everything as is. When you back up, keep the directories the same or copy them as they are and don't change anything. The more you move things around, the more you forget how things were. In hindsight, taking some screenshots of your desktop and complex folders will provide a good way of remembering where to put stuff or what stuff to reinstall and whatnot. Formatting is a pain and should only be done when absolutely necessary. Next summer, I might reformat my computer once I install a better processor and see if that makes the switch better. Good luck with it. Just be sure to backup everything. If you aren't sure whether or not you have backed up something yet, it doesn't hurt to copy it again or just double check to make sure you got it. It's a greater pain to lose something just because you didn't take the 5 minutes to make sure it was taken care of. xD

Regnenth · **Posted:** September 13th, 2010, 2:31 pm

K thanks, i know formatting should only be used as a last resort, but i dont know how else to free up hard drive space. out of 51GB, i have 12GB left, i've uninstalled a lot of programs, and deleted a lot of media i had on my computer but im still low on memory

Adbot · **Posted:** September 13th, 2010, 2:31 pm

Mike · **Posted:** September 13th, 2010, 2:35 pm

If that's the only reason you are reformatting, why don't you just find what is using that space and delete it? (As long as it's safe to do so, i.e. not system files). Not knowing what you are getting rid of by reformatting is a bad thing.

A good program for visualizing what is using your hard drive space on windows is WinDirStat

1 Stone Pwn · **Posted:** September 13th, 2010, 2:46 pm

Ooh, thanks, Mike. I've been looking for something like that. Unfortunately, over 1/3 of my hard drive is music

Probably about time to buy an external hard drive.

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

At this point, Regnenth, I'd suggest getting an external hard drive or a larger internal hard drive. 64 gb isn't that much esp. if you are like me and have music, games, programs, and other stuff to store. Even if you just get a 320 or 250, it will be a great improvement. I'd suggest getting a newer hard drive. Formatting really won't solve your problems. If you end up reinstalling most of that stuff, you will still have 64 gb of space to use again. The answer should be get more space, not reformat your computer, although that would help and probably work in saving a little extra space. I'm afraid it just won't be enough.

Regnenth · **Posted:** September 13th, 2010, 7:07 pm

hmm, ill look into external hardrives then, and thanks for the program suggestion

EDIT: I found a folder that is taking up 4GB of space. its a folder that was put on my computer when i installed a free trial of AutoCAD from AutoDesk. the folder WILL NOT delete. also when i try to uninstall AutoCAD itself, it says certain components are missing and cannot uninstall. any suggestions?

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

I've come across a similar problem in the past with Warcraft III. Pretty much the same thing happened, where the program and folder existed, but I couldn't remove it from my computer for one reason or another. A format is guarenteed to fix that, but I'd still try to shift-delete it or something else first.