[davebo]

Well I screwed up my WinXP install and wanted to try Win7 RC1 anyway, so i saved my My Documents\Rockstar Games\ folder and formatted my drive. Once I got everything reinstalled I find out that that's not the folder where the savegames are. Apparently they're somewhere in AppData but it's a little late for that now.

My question is, since I can't just replace save games with ones you download, clearly Live checks the files. Well does it save them to some Microsoft server somewhere too? Can I retrieve my save games from somewhere?

I'd like to have a nice clean, unmodded installation, but if I can't, do I just get that Rick's xlive doohickey and look for a savegame around 97% (which is where I was because I swear I got every single pigeon but goddamn it still said I was missing one!! I'm not insane I got them all on PS3 rarrrrrr!!)

[Girish]

The server only stores your achievements and your progress, not your savefiles. Your savefiles are as good as gone. This is why you should have check the pinned FAQ before backing up/formatting your drive. Everything regarding to backing up your saves is properly explained in there.

If you want a save, you'll find it in the pinned FAQ itself. And yeah, you'll have to use the Xlive wrapper to get the save working.

[davebo]

QUOTE (girishb @ Jun 24 2009, 06:08)

The server only stores your achievements and your progress, not your savefiles. Your savefiles are as good as gone. This is why you should have check the pinned FAQ before backing up/formatting your drive. Everything regarding to backing up your saves is properly explained in there. If you want a save, you'll find it in the pinned FAQ itself. And yeah, you'll have to use the Xlive wrapper to get the save working.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately my computer was in such a wretched state that I could barely get to windows explorer to copy files over. I had no network access at all, or sound or much of anything, which made it the perfect time to give Win7 a whirl.

I ended up getting a 100% and that xlive.dll deal that lets me load it with no online support. So I guess I'll just drop that dll in when i want to play single player and remove it again when i want to play online. Fortunately gta3, vice city and san andreas DID put their savegames in the same area in my documents, so at least I've got those if i ever reinstall.

[Toxcity]

Can you not just move the save game files to the new position? I am sure someone running Vista/7 will tell you exactly where they need to go.

[nvs231]

QUOTE (davebo @ Wednesday, Jun 24 2009, 04:29)

Well I screwed up my WinXP install and wanted to try Win7 RC1 anyway, so i saved my My Documents\Rockstar Games\ folder and formatted my drive. Once I got everything reinstalled I find out that that's not the folder where the savegames are. Apparently they're somewhere in AppData but it's a little late for that now. My question is, since I can't just replace save games with ones you download, clearly Live checks the files. Well does it save them to some Microsoft server somewhere too? Can I retrieve my save games from somewhere? I'd like to have a nice clean, unmodded installation, but if I can't, do I just get that Rick's xlive doohickey and look for a savegame around 97% (which is where I was because I swear I got every single pigeon but goddamn it still said I was missing one!! I'm not insane I got them all on PS3 rarrrrrr!!)

I also only backed up "My documents" folder. I un installed the game and chose to completely remove all data. I was under the assumption that Live stored all of your save games, as you need to be loged on to save data, made sence to me. I am now using a data recovery tool to retrieve the lost data. I have mannaged to retrieve SGTA400 and SGTA402 and the directory they where saved in, what other files do I need to recover in order for this to work, I need to know names of files and extensions as data recovery tools just give you a list of files soted by extension type.

and next step is how do I make them work without moding or hacking the game?

[nvs231]

Cancel that, Lucky for me the xlive folder wasnt removed when I removed GTA4, I backed up my new Xlive folder, savegame file and E000xxxxxx folder, and relpaced them with the old ones. Game loads fine, but now I am getting "Unrecoverable Fault SMPA60" which I believe that it is because I had moded vehicles in my property save parking spots. lucky for me I only moded 4 cars, and will be easy to fix? I hope.