Shutdown resets my steam downloads

Whenever I download a game and before it's finished, if I shutdown my computer, the download gets reset and I have to download the whole thing again.

Can someone tell me why this is happening and if there is a workaround for it?

This is happening because the partial-game is being downloaded into cache, and upon completion, its moved onto your system.

When you restart your PC, cache and temp files are cleared, thus losing the games download progress.

EDIT: Im not sure if there is a workaround, if there is, I wouldnt be familiar with it.

EDIT2 Try this

Load Steam

From the Library section, right-click on the game and select Properties from the menu. Select the Local files tab and click the Verify integrity of game cache... button.

Here's how I got it to work.

1.) Locate the folder of the game you are trying to install that got reset, if it's not there, let the game download re-download like maybe 50mbs or so, and it should show up.

2.) Go onto Program Files/Steam/Steamapps/downloading and you will see a bunch of files in there that were left from the download that stopped. If you are dling more than 1 game at once you may have to sort through them, if not, take all of those files and move them onto the corresponding game folder.

3.) Go onto your library and verify the integrity of that games cache, then start the download again and it should go back up to where you left off.

Hope this helps!