Sometime last week I was trying to back up my Sims 3 stuff but ended up deleting it all instead. Searched until earlier today for a file recovery program that could recover not just the files, but the folder structure too, without costing me anything. I finally found one. So I went through the recovery process and the game started up fine, but the saves were looking screwy at the main menu - no picture, etc, and the one save I really care about was inaccessible completely, telling me "This save can't be loaded. It may have been saved with expansion packs that are no longer installed on this system," Took that literally at first glance, installing the only EP I have that I haven't actually installed (because I am still not quite at the point in the story where Into the Future is required). That obviously did not work. I then looked up the error, which told me the Meta.data file might be missing. This is where my struggles really get puzzling. I looked. There were multiple copies of practically every file, including Meta.data. So naturally what was the next thing I tried? Deleting all the extras. That didn't work either. I then checked one of the other saves that actually would let me push play, and it gave me the "serious error" that we all hate. Is there anything I can do ?? Not having access to the saves for an entire week was frustrating enough but appearing to recover it all only to find it still does not work just makes things infinitely worse!