GTA IV's backup / saved game backup

[Gustavo]

has someone ever attempted to do this with GTA IV ? have you did it ?
Well, i never did it...
Every time that i have to reinstall the O.S. i lose all my saved game and i have to play it from de begining.
So, what i want to know is...is there a way to do it?

[J_Sno]

They should be in

C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Local\Rockstar Games\GTA IV\savegames

[Razorbak86]

You can do it, but you have to follow a very specific procedure to get it to work. First, you need to start a new game, play through to the first safe house (Roman's apartment), create a manual save, and then exit the new game. Once the new save folder is created, you can then copy over that new placeholder save file with your older save file containing your prior progress. Second, and this is very important, you also need to copy over the Xlive folder for GTA IV that matches the previous save. That's the only way you can use prior saves, since GTA IV is a GFWL game. It has to be matched with the same Xlive account. Google for more specifics.

[Gustavo]

Originally posted by Spankerer <1:

They should be in

C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Local\Rockstar Games\GTA IV\savegames

following this adress, inside my GTA IV's folder, there is no folder called "savegames". There is only one called: "settings".

[Razorbak86]

The game creates that folder when the first savegame is created (i.e., Roman's apartment at the end of mission 1).

[Gustavo]

Originally posted by Razorbak86:

You can do it, but you have to follow a very specific procedure to get it to work. First, you need to start a new game, play through to the first safe house (Roman's apartment), create a manual save, and then exit the new game. Once the new save folder is created, you can then copy over that new placeholder save file with your older save file containing your prior progress. Second, and this is very important, you also need to copy over the Xlive folder for GTA IV that matches the previous save. That's the only way you can use prior saves, since GTA IV is a GFWL game. It has to be matched with the same Xlive account. Google for more specifics.

i did this once, i started the game and waited for it to create those folders.
The created folders were: appdata\local\rockstar games\ GTA IV\ settings (inside this last, there is a file calld "serial.dat". nothing more)

And the other one were: appdata\ local\ microsoft\ Xlive\ titles\ in here there is a folder named with several numbers. there is nothing inside it.


anyways, i copied those created folders and pasted them in their right places... this didn't work.

[Razorbak86]

No, you need the ...\GTA IV\savegames folder. If it hasn't been created, then you have no place to transfer your old savegame file(s).

The ...\GTA IV\savegames folder will have several subfolders:

...\user_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
...\user_invalid

In the ...\user_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX subfolder, you will find the following files:

...\ControlMap.dat
...\SGTA400
...\SGTA401
...\SGTA402
...\SGTA403
...\SGTA404
...\SGTA405
...\SGTA406
...\SGTA407
...\SGTA408
...\SGTA409
...\SGTA410
...\SGTA411
...\SGTA412

Those latter files are your GTA IV savegame files. They correspond to the manual save and auto save slots in GTA IV.

[Gustavo]

I swear to you my computer doesn't have this folder.
After i failed to restore my game, i had to play it from the begining. So i played until i get able to save the game for the first time. And it's how the game is right now, and there isn't this folder.
Should it be due my O.S?

[Razorbak86]

What OS are you running? The situation I described above is Win7 64-bit. Perhaps you can search your drive for the SGTA4*.* files. Maybe in another OS, they are stored in a different folder?

[Gustavo]

Mine is Win7 64-bit Ultimate.

[PsychoManiac189]

i have multi saves in the game, but that directory doesnt exist for save files

[Razorbak86]

Ya mean the directory is no longer there after TEN YEARS?!? Shocker!

[Westcott]

i have the same problem too .. but, in this time i'm installed this game in new device. But my Social Club Cloud can't load my old save data. How i can get back my old save data with cloud ?