Disaster with character saves!

[podgie_bear 184]

I have been struck by disaster, my personal world may never be the same again!

 

I had a problem with some corrupted files on my hardrive and as a result of deleting them and defragging the drive, Scared 2 became corrupted. So I uninstalled it, reinstalled it and applied the patches, everything went fine until I tried to upgrade to 2.34. Then the problems started, I got that famous error message that files have been altered so installation cannot proceed. After several attempts it was no good, so I checked the net to see what the fix for this is and was advised to wipe all instances of Sacred 2 from my machine, defrag again and do a fresh install. This time everything worked perfectly and I continued to patch up to 2.40 (I don't bother with 2.43 as it slows everything down for some reason). Once it was all up and running, I settled back to enjoy my gaming experience and that is when I discovered the horrible truth!

 

I had backed up my patches to flashdrive, BUT I HAD FORGOTTEN TO BACK UP MY CHARACTER SAVES!

 

All my hard work! My level 120+ Shadow Warrior, my level 90+ Inquisitor, my level 77 Seraphim, my 2 dryads, both level 60+. All of their unique mounts and all the specially modified equipment, set pieces and weapons, millions of gold pieces and all the + items I had been carefully collecting, all gone and irretrievable!

 

The hours I spent building and collecting everything, all wasted because I forgot to back them up in my frustration at the &$£*&%$ stupid patch 2.34 install checks!

 

I have to humbly accept that although I am now a broken man and that my heart may never heal, I must go on and try to rebuild my life and my characters.

 

But dear friends, learn from my pain and never forget to back things up, do not become so frustrated that in your anger you will cause problems for yourself that will cause you to plumb the depths of despair as I have done.

Edited July 28, 2010 by gogoblender

[locolagarto 15]

So sorry to here podgie, build them back again soon. PM me and I may be able to help you with some gear for you chest.

[podgie_bear 184]

Thanks Loco, but I am going to have to do this the hard way. I am stupid I know, but it just doesn't feel the same if I get given them. It is like as if I am collecting things, having them is nice, but having hunted them down and found them myself is special. For example I am trying to collect pictures of all the unique items in the game. When I find such an item, I take a screenshot to add to the collection. I could find those pictures on Sacred Wiki for example, but I would have just have copied them, 'I wouldn't have earned them', so they would mean nothing to me.

[Schot 407]

Oh gosh Podgie... That is SO sad. Could you maybe rollback windows to a previous date? Might that bring your saves back? Failing that I would suggest finding a nearby bridge. That's just too much pain to live with! ^^

 

Speaking of backups... I recently bought an external Terabyte drive that came with really nice backup software. Everything I do now is backed up and updated live to my external drive. It's a HUGE relief considering the years of valuable info I now have.

[darkvacancy 0]

I'm sorry to hear this and I wish you good luck rebuilding the characters !

I once had a simulair experience. I filmed some songs at a Manowar show in January this year. I put them on my laptop which then got a virus. In a hurry I backed-up my laptop but forgot those movies They wheren't of good quallity but they had personal value to me.

 

A 120 character seems pretty painfull to loose too xD

Good luck & cheers,

 

Tim

[FrostElfGuard 9]

Ohhhhhhh I feel your pain!

 

I would offer to email you some of my character files... but it just wouldn't be the same would it?

 

On the brigh... is there a bright side:)! At least you have experience under your belt and the rebuilds will be more efficient? A crumb. But still a crumb.

 

Thank you for sharing your cautionary tale. I'm going to backup my characters tonight.

[rnarchlord 0]

I will have to add one more caveat to this tale of woe: don't erase your backup copies until you are sure everything is working correctly! I did a back of all my data and saved game files in the move to a new machine. After I loaded everything on to the new system I ran into an errant program that caused me to delete and reformat my data drive. I tried to use system restore to restore the files on data drive. Unfortunately the restore point was before I moved my backup files to the new system and I had already erased the backup copies.

[Dragon Brother 619]

Tough break podgie...This makes me thankful I play online and dont need to worry about it.

[Grumpy Old Wizard 0]

Sorry to hear about your loss. If you decide that you wouldn't mind accepting some low level equipment I wouldn't mind sending you a mule with some stuff if you tell me what type of character you need it for. Oh, I use the community patch.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Grumpy Old Wizard

[podgie_bear 184]

Sorry to hear about your loss. If you decide that you wouldn't mind accepting some low level equipment I wouldn't mind sending you a mule with some stuff if you tell me what type of character you need it for. Oh, I use the community patch.

 

Thanks, but as I said to Loco, I have to do it myself or it is just not the same.

 

On a side note, does the community patch work for 2.40 without the Ice and Blood expansion?

[locolagarto 15]

Sorry to hear about your loss. If you decide that you wouldn't mind accepting some low level equipment I wouldn't mind sending you a mule with some stuff if you tell me what type of character you need it for. Oh, I use the community patch.

 

Thanks, but as I said to Loco, I have to do it myself or it is just not the same.

 

On a side note, does the community patch work for 2.40 without the Ice and Blood expansion?

 

I totally understand this. It's a very admirable character trait to have and I can complete appreciate the difference between earning something and just having it given.

 

good hunting podgie!

[belgarathmth 21]

Deepest Sympathy.

 

I'm sorry for your loss.

 

It's almost like someone died, isn't it?

[Groosum 1]

Not Good, been there and done that myself so I really FEEL for yourself.

 

One other suggestion I would make is apart from backing up your Game Save Data is to actually backup your installed folder 2 another Drive. Currently my install is just under 15 Gigabytes including Mods. I have this backed up twice on separate drives one being external.

 

If you can do this it enables you to do just the initial install and activation, once that is done I Manually delete the contents in the installed folder and then copy in my back-up. Good to go again.

[gogoblender 3,072]

I am sorry for your loss there Podgie. I have to say that I really admire and respect the way you approach this game. It's a kind of discipline that lends some real value to your posts, and now has me interested in what your collection of pix is looking like. Are they all on file somewhere in your comp, or are you uploading them?

 

I respect your decision to make do with what has happened, reconnoiter with only your own personal resrouces and your determination for the return.

 

Good luck

 

 

gogo

[colif 36]

I have been here myself, losing everything and starting again is painful. BUt you haven't lost your mind (I hope) and the experience gained from levelling all of those will help you rebuild.

 

I lost my hdd last year and in process of rebuilding pc I deleted all my characters. Now I make sure I have them on my mp3 player and only recently emailed copies of them to a friend as he had same problem as you have. I may start emailing them to him every month as its offline backup, the best kind, and its free.

[podgie_bear 184]

I am sorry for your loss there Podgie. I have to say that I really admire and respect the way you approach this game. It's a kind of discipline that lends some real value to your posts, and now has me interested in what your collection of pix is looking like. Are they all on file somewhere in your comp, or are you uploading them?

 

I respect your decision to make do with what has happened, reconnoiter with only your own personal resrouces and your determination for the return.

 

Good luck

 

 

gogo

 

They were on my computer, but when I removed all instances of Sacred 2 to try and get that bl**dy patch 2.34 to work, in my frustration I deleted everything to do with Sacred 2. So they went the same way as my character saves. Oh well, they say there is more pleasure in the journey than the arrival.

 

I am going to get another flashdrive and dedicate it to Sacred 2 I think.

Edited July 30, 2010 by podgie_bear

[colif 36]

How about installing your save folder on a flash drive permanently installed in a usb drive? I am not sure if windows lets you do this?

 

That would save more than just sacred 2 characters, unless you are like me and only have Sacred 2 installed anyway.

 

I hadn't thought of a flash drive so I have since copied them there too...

[podgie_bear 184]

I wouldn't keep the flashdrive permanently installed, I had problems with that sort of thing before. It was back in the days I was playing Sacred Underworld, my computer got hit with a powersurge that the surge protector didn't protect against. Fried the motherboard. It was months before I could afford another computer and when I did, I found that the extension drive was fried as well, so I lost everything including all the backups.

[rnarchlord 0]

I feel your pain as well as I lost mine (noted before). Now I keep automatic backup copies on a backup drive and download to CD-RW once a week. That way the worst can happen is loss of a few days play.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Thanks Loco, but I am going to have to do this the hard way. I am stupid I know, but it just doesn't feel the same if I get given them. It is like as if I am collecting things, having them is nice, but having hunted them down and found them myself is special. For example I am trying to collect pictures of all the unique items in the game. When I find such an item, I take a screenshot to add to the collection. I could find those pictures on Sacred Wiki for example, but I would have just have copied them, 'I wouldn't have earned them', so they would mean nothing to me.

 

Ok.. Slightly off topic - and likely a silly question - but I gotta ask. Whenever I hit the printscreen key to grab a screen shot with my inventory open, the inventory window, the controls at the bottom and corners vanish and the resulting screen shot shows nothing more than my character and his/her surroundings. Same goes if I've got the log book open. How DO you get a screenshot with the inventory open so you can get the stats of a weapon or of the log book?

 

Btw.. Extreme bummer about losing your characters. I've had a few issues myself with save games becoming unusable. I've lost a few characters that way so far. One level 29 TG, one level 40 TG and a level 26 Seraphim. But that's another issue all together - needless to say - I feel your pain. Sux having to go back to the start and schlep through the early parts of the game all over again.

[podgie_bear 184]

I could never work that out either, until I asked on this forum and some kind people told me how. So I am glad to be able to help you as they helped me.

 

You need to hold down the Ctrl Key as well. Print Screen just saves the screen itself, while Ctrl + Print Screen saves all the open menus and icons overlaid on the screen.

[wolfie2kX 528]

I could never work that out either, until I asked on this forum and some kind people told me how. So I am glad to be able to help you as they helped me.

 

You need to hold down the Ctrl Key as well. Print Screen just saves the screen itself, while Ctrl + Print Screen saves all the open menus and icons overlaid on the screen.

 

Sweet! I was kinda thinkin' about contributing a bit to the wiki myself seeing how there's a LOT of quests that come back to pages that don't exist... DOH! Seeing how I'm working my way thru the 3rd - 5th chapters now... That'll come in downright handy. Thanks!

[lildozer74 0]

wow that sucks. I poured a few 40's on the curb for ya if it helps any.