Game saves just mysteriously disappeared

[AussieWolfhound]

I have exactly 12 Steam games all up and because i only have a 500gb HD on my mid-range PC, i have all of them installed to my external 1tb HD. It makes no difference in performance though - all games work perfectly and no lag at all... however for some strage reason now the save files for 3 of the games (which i had all completed) have just vanished but yet the save files for the rest of them are still there. The games with missing save files are - The Evil Within, Ghostbusters and Dead Space... but as i said all the rest haven't gone anywhere. I don't really know much about Steam and really only the basics when it comes to PC's in general so i would really appreciate some help and/or advice here. Thanks.

[Creep]

not all games save the same way , you always must research every game for the location or use a tool.

[AussieWolfhound]

@Creep, like what tool?

[Creep]

gamesave manager
http://www.gamesave-manager.com/

[AussieWolfhound]

@Creep, the thing is even though i have my games installed on the external drive, i still know Steam saves games in the My Documents folder and i just went to My Documentsa, Electronic Arts... well actually there was 2 Electronic Arts folders which both had a Dead Space folder inside and one was empty and the other simply had a text document which looked like it was saying which keyboard keys match which buttons on a controller. Now i know for a fact there was a save file there before and i definitely haven't touched or changed anything, so where did it go?

[Creep]

if it is still there it did not go anywere.

try asking in the game discussion how to fix it.

[The Giving One]

It is not recommended to install Steam on an externel drive. Many do it and have no problems with it, but Steam still recommneds against it. What is your OS ? Is this Windows 10 ?

[AussieWolfhound]

@The Giving One

My operating system...

Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Processor/CPU : Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
Video Card/GPU : AMD Radeon HD 6800
Memory/RAM : 8GB

P.S. Please no "Your PC is old nah nah" jokes like other people... i've already gotten the point :)

[The Giving One]

I was not going to post anything about how old your PC is at all. I actually have an older board in a bulid that uses a QX9650. Those quads that Intel made back then are still good processors for sure.

Have you done a search from the box under your Start menu for the missing saves ? Type in the name of the save folder or file and see if Windows can find it for you. Also, try this but I am not sure it can help you....

Boot your PC into safe mode and search for the files and saves that way to see if you can find them. Can you remember anything that you installed or did on your PC before the saves went missing ?

[Tev]

Originally posted by wolftatt:

@Creep, the thing is even though i have my games installed on the external drive, i still know Steam saves games in the My Documents folder and i just went to My Documentsa, Electronic Arts... well actually there was 2 Electronic Arts folders which both had a Dead Space folder inside and one was empty and the other simply had a text document which looked like it was saying which keyboard keys match which buttons on a controller. Now i know for a fact there was a save file there before and i definitely haven't touched or changed anything, so where did it go?

If you right mouse click your Documents folder; then navigate self to Properties.

Do you see a [Previous Versions] -tab there? Maybe your save files can still be recovered from a past location; or by using a recovery program.

[AussieWolfhound]

@Teutep, Nope.

@Creep, Thanks for the info about that program. I downloaded it and found the save file for The Evil Within (which was in the Users folder actually, I'll just re-play Dead Space and Ghostbusters and then make sure to back their saves up when finished) Alrighty... so i found the save files for TEW - now what do i do? How do i get the game itself to "find" it's own save file?

P.S. Just incase you might want to know - i launch all my games through Steam itself, i don't even bother putting shortcuts on my desktop or start menu. Just saw something about that on other forums so thought i'd mention it.

[AussieWolfhound]

Forgot all about this but yeah... i still require an answer, if anyone has one, to my last post there. Would be very appreciative if someone could. Thanks.

[Creep]

an answer to what question?

[Jesstapher]

Originally posted by wolftatt:

I have exactly 12 Steam games all up and because i only have a 500gb HD on my mid-range PC, i have all of them installed to my external 1tb HD. It makes no difference in performance though - all games work perfectly and no lag at all... however for some strage reason now the save files for 3 of the games (which i had all completed) have just vanished but yet the save files for the rest of them are still there. The games with missing save files are - The Evil Within, Ghostbusters and Dead Space... but as i said all the rest haven't gone anywhere. I don't really know much about Steam and really only the basics when it comes to PC's in general so i would really appreciate some help and/or advice here. Thanks.

I have heard of game saves disappearing before. Usually from people screwing with the settings. But a tiny error could also have caused it. If you have the original game saves still saved somewhere. you could easily put them back.

[AussieWolfhound]

@Creep Umm... the post directly above my last one - how do i make my Steam games actually "find" their saves? Like where exactly do i put the save file that i found using that program that you yourself gave me?

@jesshoel702 In response to you... basically what i just said to Creep :)

[Creep]

I did not suggest it to find your lost files that was an added bonus.

can't you just run the game make a save and than look for the same file names as you found in the backup?
than you know the location to copy the old saves to.

or just research for every game were the location is look in the forums for those games.?