No save to back up..

[pbfan]

Okay, I'd first like to apologize in advance if my problem has been solved somewhere already. I've tried looking and figuring it out myself but it's been hours and I feel I've gained nothing but a massive headache and the desire to do some rather violent things to my laptop. If I didn't love this game so much, that is. So here I am 

I seemed to have had my most prized family disappear when the game stopped working. I tried the back up file approach, but the problem is my save isn't there at all. I've tried a few other things I've seen suggested but I'm not even 100% sure I knew what I was doing. So I decided to finally make my plea for help here for fear of making the problem worse. I have spent a lot of time with this family and would be really, really crushed if I couldn't get them back.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.

[MrsFlynn]

If you don't have a previous save that you can go back to.
C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves

NameofSave.sims3
NameofSave.sims3.backup

If for some reason you do find a NameofSave.sims3.backup. Make a copy of the file, and then rename the copy. NameofSave2 and try to load it.

You may try looking in the Household bin, or Sim bin to see if they've been save in one of those places?

The Household bin is the "white house" in the user interface - like in the photo below:

Household Bin


The fastest way to find the Premade Sims saved in the Sim bin, go into CAS and click the 6 Sim button (photo below) and then click the asterisk (*) up in the right hand corner of the menu. 2nd photo below.

Premade Sims


Show Custom Content

[Candyd]

So, if I understand well, your Saves folder is completely empty ?
Sadly, I can't provide a solution to this, but it can be prevented in the future. Once you've done something important and you know you don't want to lose data, quit the game and save the whole The Sims 3 folder from Documents to another location, if possible to an external hard drive. You may even keep a duplicate backup in cloud storage such as OneDrive.
There are also mods that will prompt you to save from time to time, if you need something to remind you to save. Save as regularly as possible. The Sims 3 has the entirely justified reputation of being unstable. Saving every 15 minutes isn't too much.
https://nraas.wikispaces.com/Saver

[pbfan]

Mrs Flynn:  I have the family in the household bin, but my current game with them is completely gone.

Candyd: my saves folder has other games I've played, but not this one for some reason. What kills me about this is that I was really careful with frequent saving, having been burned by that type of thing before. The game crashed minutes after my last save

I've seen other comments about Origin, and Windows forcing updates, but then I saw someone say it shouldn't be that. But that happened when the game crashed on me, and as far as I know my Origin is fine. I'm not ready to give up on them yet, but man is this discouraging for someone who's loved this game since the beginning

[MrsFlynn]

You mention you have a few backups of the particular save - if I understand correctly? Have you tried searching your hard drive for the game save?

1. Click the Start button

2. In the search box type in the name of the game save.

For example:
NameofSave.sims3
NameofSave.sims3.backup

3. If it does find copies of the game save, navigate to that folder and copy them back into C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves

I've actually had something odd happen once. Where the game saves were in a different folder than the default folder.

If nothing else it sounds like you can take the family and create a new game with them?