An odd filesize issue when moving steamapps folder back after steam repair

[anjenthedog]

So...my Steam apps folder had to be moved to repair Steam (broke during an overnight Windows update).

After much backnforth with steam to ensure I didn't f something up, the solution was to

a) move steam apps folder off the harddrive to another drive temporarily.

b) uninstall steam, then reboot

c) reinstall steam and verify it operates 

d) move previously moved steamapps folder back to the proper location in the (new) steam folder

So here's the problem. My system is telling me I don't have enough space on the target drive to perform the move edit: of the temporarily archived /steamapps/... folder back to its original location. This doesn't make sense to me, since there were 80-100 G free on the drive prior to any fiddling, and moving the (149G) folder out should have provided the drive with an additional (149G) of space to work with, so something like 230-250 G all told.

The target is a 500G card from a trad 5G harddrive I use for archiving.

 

Any clues would be helpful.

[7531Leonidas]

Which version of Windows?  I read that there was a bug in the latest W11 update, that set up a region that could not be deleted, resized, or otherwise removed.

[anjenthedog]

Windows 10.

And t'boot, I just archived whatever other files I could off the "root" drive (500G SSD) and got barely enough space to move steamapps and its content back into place, started up Steam, fired up SKSE Loader and...wamp wamp... no go. 

Steam is running now, but instead of the game booting up, I got a new bit of fun

Steam Error
Application load error: 6:0000065432

Like...wtf? SO I searched on that error. saw one (and only one!!!) post that had the same error code and suggested admin status was necessary.

Tried booting steam as admin. nope. Tried SKSE Loader as admin. nope. Tried both as admin. nope. 

PS> Sorry for the tone...I'm a bit frustrated. Seems like I've had to fight this game and its overlord Steam, since day one. Even vanilla was unplayable without massaging.  The millennial paradigm is warped and broken and corrupt. (ie, QC is postscript and documentation is hastily scribbled "notes to self".)

[7531Leonidas]

Maybe archive/dump ALL files from your target drive, reformat, and try again?

Have you used Partition Manager to take a look at the drive w/o changing it?

[anjenthedog]

Can't dump the whole drive. It contains my OS and ancillary applications (and associated "data").

Drive looks "physically" ok. No reported disk errors, no fragmentation. 

I also did a roughshod manual count of the contents of the drive without the steamapps folder, and the numbers shown for total disk space used, seem consistent with what's there, but adding the size of the steamapps folder to the reported disk space used exceeds the drive capacity. (why I had to move additional files, about 30G or so, off the target to make room for them to see if I could fire up the game).

Really makes me wonder if the /steamapps/ folder wasn't one of those optional folder "compress files to save disk space" things, although I have no idea why it would be. And if so, (wild speculation) I sure don't recall doing it anyway. In any case, before this all started, the drive had plenty of room still, (I wasn't worried about bottlenecking disk space, had plenty for any disk housekeeping) and /steamapps/ existed along with all the other stuff that filled the rest of the disk. Nothing changed in terms of disk space used (fundamentally) except the steam reinstall...  and how very little drive space was left once I got the old /steamapps/ folder back onto the drive.

I have to digest this slowly. It really is nonsensical.

Thanks for the reply. 

[SirCadsimar]

Are you using a downgraded version of Skyrim?  Steam went loco on me and metaphorically defecated the bed a few months ago when I was still using 1.6.640 downgrades... It was the downgrade method where user had to manually mess with some coding and such in Steam to downgrade 1.6.1170 to 1.6.640.

Edited October 21 by SirCadsimar

[anjenthedog]

31 minutes ago, SirCadsimar said:

Are you using a downgraded version of Skyrim?  Steam went loco on me and metaphorically defecated the bed a few months ago when I was still using 1.6.640 downgrades... It was the downgrade method where user had to manually mess with some coding and such in Steam to downgrade 1.6.1170 to 1.6.640.

Nope. I'm using 1.5.97 "classic", if that's a term.

Steam(prog) should not have been aware of any skyrim (or other) info, since as part of the whole "fix steam" procedure that Steam(inc) provided me with, after moving the existing /steamapps/ offboard to another physical drive, I uninstalled it, rebooted, then reinstalled it, so it had no games to alter or incidentally update. Hmm... Unless it now installs the latest SKSE as part of the Steam install... more questions for Steam sigh.... 

yeah, I am a bit worried they "udpated" something behind the scenes.