I want to say im not completely new to linux, but some messing around with mint and using a liveboot usb to get some old laptops running to help transfer data from old hard drives to newer, larger ones probably doesnt count.
(i was very surprised that those old laptops worked with no issues that i could tell, gotta say my favorite thing so far about linux is the live boot usbs and the fact that it can run on all of the computers ive come across so far)
anyway, im trying to get steam to recognize the drives i used on windows to store games, ive only got a limited mobile data plan, so i dont really want to have to redownload all of them.
one of those drives has a windows installation on it and one is just my hard drive that has photos, music anything i dont need on an ssd really
both are ntfs but i remember reading that linuxs ability to read ntfs has improved greatly.
i am somewhat comfortable using the command line, but if there is a gui option i would rather that if possible.
ive tried going into system settings> removable storage> removable devices and enabling automatic mounting of removable media and that hasnt seemed to work as i expected it to.
steam can now see my hard drive, but wont let me pick a specific folder in said hard drive to use as a library.
if it turns out i cant just get steam to load my already downloaded windows games via proton or whatever their fancy compatibility things name is than ill probably just go back to windows for now, at least until ive got proper home internet that isnt limited.
ive no idea if this post is too long, sorry if it is and thank you to anyone who can help me, im just not feeling like searching the depths of the internet to do something i can easily do on windows today.
(yes ive already done some searching, but it hasnt helped me i would give links but apparently im not allowed to)
No redownloads of games needed…except for necessary Proton runtimes to get the games running.
I transferred about 300GB of games with this method without any problems.
The Steam folder structure for Windows and Linux is completely different, so using the Windows folder structure in Manjaro won’t work.
Steam games work well with the above method (and of course you can use the Steam client on Manjaro to later change the library location to a pure data drive instead of your home directory)
Anyway, the actual more important question for you is how to properly mount ntfs drives.
However, since we don’t know anything about your PC and your intentions how to use it, any help is just pure guessing at the moment.
i didnt even think about using the backup feature thanks for reminding me, ive already got a few large ones backed up because steam likes to download updates when i dont want it to regularly, often breaking modlists.
here is what that command in that link output, i hope ive formatted that correctly
(ive just noticed it saying it didnt have root privliges, should i redo that with sudo in front of it?)
as for how i use my pc, i do a little bit of everything.
as for the stuff on the ssd with windows on it, its an ssd i bought recently because i was sick of juggling data between two 128gb ssds and a hard drive, so if there is a way to keep the windows installation on it and let both windows and manjaro access it that would be great.
i was thinking shrinking the existing partition and adding a second, larger one.
though you did mention that the folder structure for windows a linux is different, would i be able to set it up for linux, then just select the library in windows?
At the minimum, Linux is able to read and write to NTFS filesystem, but not other NTFS features. This is because there’s a discrepancy between Linux fileystem model and Windows NTFS model. Fileystem format like ext is designed for Linux filesystem model.
Reading and writing file from and to NTFS filesystem within GNU/Linux are generally safe, but anything related to running executable within NTFS isn’t.