City disappeared completely!

[SC4BOY 20]

A backup is a file copied to a different location (the more "separate" the better.. ie another hard drive is better, an external drive is better, a remote location is even better, etc) than the game default. It is possible with a "raw harddrive reader" that you could rescue some version of your city. I haven't played with that sort of thing since DOS days, but I know they exist.. You'd have to google it to find something.. Unfortunately SC4 is poorly designed for saves from a "rescue" point of view.. that's why true backups are so critical.. Some programs (for example MS Word and most programming editors) maintain "version saves" but SC4 doesn't. In fact many games don't.. those that do include Alpha Centauri, Civ II, etc.. but that won't help you much.. sorry.. unfortunately when a "save" fails in SC4 it is a system "overwrite" so the failure is semi-final.. (barring raw editors) It is likely that somewhere on your drive is a copy of the city, but it isn't recoverable by "standard" methods.

BTW, I also make it a habit of routinely making a backup before I install a new set of downloads, or a major mod like starting CAM, or a big update like all new NAM releases, etc. The frequency or incidence of making a backup should be determined by how much you're going to be annoyed by that loss.. I believe there is even a mod that reminds you to "save" every so many minutes.. you could just make it a habit to "backup" every 3rd save or whatever (you don't have to quit SC4 to make a backup.. just  pause the game, alt-tab to a folder, and copy your region .. or at least the city you are doing all that work on) 

[SC4BOY 20]

A backup is a file copied to a different location (the more "separate" the better.. ie another hard drive is better, an external drive is better, a remote location is even better, etc) than the game default. It is possible with a "raw harddrive reader" that you could rescue some version of your city. I haven't played with that sort of thing since DOS days, but I know they exist.. You'd have to google it to find something.. Unfortunately SC4 is poorly designed for saves from a "rescue" point of view.. that's why true backups are so critical.. Some programs (for example MS Word and most programming editors) maintain "version saves" but SC4 doesn't. In fact many games don't.. those that do include Alpha Centauri, Civ II, etc.. but that won't help you much.. sorry.. unfortunately when a "save" fails in SC4 it is a system "overwrite" so the failure is semi-final.. (barring raw editors) It is likely that somewhere on your drive is a copy of the city, but it isn't recoverable by "standard" methods.

BTW, I also make it a habit of routinely making a backup before I install a new set of downloads, or a major mod like starting CAM, or a big update like all new NAM releases, etc. The frequency or incidence of making a backup should be determined by how much you're going to be annoyed by that loss.. I believe there is even a mod that reminds you to "save" every so many minutes.. you could just make it a habit to "backup" every 3rd save or whatever (you don't have to quit SC4 to make a backup.. just  pause the game, alt-tab to a folder, and copy your region .. or at least the city you are doing all that work on) 

[SC4BOY 20]

A backup is a file copied to a different location (the more "separate" the better.. ie another hard drive is better, an external drive is better, a remote location is even better, etc) than the game default. It is possible with a "raw harddrive reader" that you could rescue some version of your city. I haven't played with that sort of thing since DOS days, but I know they exist.. You'd have to google it to find something.. Unfortunately SC4 is poorly designed for saves from a "rescue" point of view.. that's why true backups are so critical.. Some programs (for example MS Word and most programming editors) maintain "version saves" but SC4 doesn't. In fact many games don't.. those that do include Alpha Centauri, Civ II, etc.. but that won't help you much.. sorry.. unfortunately when a "save" fails in SC4 it is a system "overwrite" so the failure is semi-final.. (barring raw editors) It is likely that somewhere on your drive is a copy of the city, but it isn't recoverable by "standard" methods.

BTW, I also make it a habit of routinely making a backup before I install a new set of downloads, or a major mod like starting CAM, or a big update like all new NAM releases, etc. The frequency or incidence of making a backup should be determined by how much you're going to be annoyed by that loss.. I believe there is even a mod that reminds you to "save" every so many minutes.. you could just make it a habit to "backup" every 3rd save or whatever (you don't have to quit SC4 to make a backup.. just  pause the game, alt-tab to a folder, and copy your region .. or at least the city you are doing all that work on) 

[urmomology72 0]

I still (luckily) haven't had that happen to me, and the only time that I hve ever seen a hole in one of my worlds was when I was tinkering with a config file and messed it up. But still, I have never made backups of my cities, but after reading this maybe I should. 

[joni 0]

for me it was also the first time someting like this happend in 7 years! I have a backup, but it's half a year old

[SC4BOY 20]

Originally posted by: urmomology72

... never made backups of my cities, but after reading this maybe I should. quote>

Nah.. just keep ignoring it.. then WHEN (not IF) you have a disk or save or system problem, you can ask "Why isn't that a 'stickey' somewhere?"  

[nycsc4 5,250]

Funny, I assume CTD means "Crash to Desktop" this happens to me on a daily basis, probably 7-8 times per day (i play a lot of SC4 btw, have been since the orginal SC). Never had this "hole" problem. Though occasionally I will re-open the game and in my region, instead of my recreation of Downtown Vancouver BC, I get an empty city tile, however after opening that blank city tile, everything returns to normal, always wondered why.

Having said that:

BACKUPS ARE ESSENTIAL. I would think thats common logic for any computer user. Weither you play games or not, computers can crash at a moments notice. Backups are key.

And for any custom content users out there you should know that crashes are frequent and part of the game. I suppose that could depend on how much custom content your using, 98%, if not more, of all cities I currently build are all custom content. I will rarely use the occasional Maxis civic lot, and a few of the utilities. I do use Maxis buildings, however those came from the Plop all Maxis mod, which means they are pretty much custom content as well, and lets not forget all of the custom content I make personally. Basically if your like me and you not only download a HUGE LOAD of custom content on a regular basis and are batting and lotting your own lots, it can become a pretty big burden on the game, and you should be backing up on a FREQUENT basis. Frequent saves in game are good too. Especially after any major projects you've been working on.

Good Luck, I wish you the best, I can recall MANY times where I permanently lost cities because of crashes and other issues. IT SUCKS!

[SC4BOY 20]

ummm.. just an added thought that might be helpful to some.. I also maintain "version" saves of my larger cities by appending a date to the citynamesave.. for example Centralia04-20.sc4,etc. I usually only maintain a few "key steps" in this way.. for example the raw city, after say 100k, then as time passes, etc. A small city may only have 2 or 3 saves while a large city where I have put in a lot of work may have 10 or more saves. I can then recover or restart any city at any level I wish. It sounds like a lot of work but I probably spend less than 1/10 of 1% of my SC4 playing time making backups.. it's really rather simple.. I usually put them on another drive and every once in a while.. say every 3 months I may save to an online backup. In this fashion I am well backed up.. (I also make system disk images at intervals for the same reason... and those of course include the SC4 backups as well) .. after you've been in the business as long as I have (and I mean business.. a lost drive may well mean lots of lost money on work).. Things just fail too often to ignore this.. that for example is what happened to Wounagaine (the guy who wrote a number of special apps including DatPacker and SC4Mapper).. someone stole his laptop and that was his only resource.. so he lost ALL of it. How many times does something like that happen?

A little effort is worth a LOT of time spent and agony over lost effort.. it's not that my stuff is "so precious".. I just get really pissed when I lose a lot of my work! And trust me I learned these lessons the hard way over the years.