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[ColonelTEE3]

Well i'm right now contemplating suicide simply because i just wanted to make a back up folder of an adventure mode save file since it's predeccesor fell victim to the dreaded inflate error. So after spending a good long time retraining my skills back to legendary ambusher and legendary wrestler, i found a cave of kobolds, and having remembered many stories of them ending adventurer's lives, i decided i would save and make a back up folder. So i saved, quit, and went to copy the file. Some how i made a mistake and took the data out and put some other data back into the folder. When i tried to start it up, i got an error of corrupted files and went to go and try to undue what i had done. Low and behold, that didn't work either. Thereafter a long sequence of copying folders, moving folders out of other folders, renaming folders and then moving them out, left me now with 4 folders i named "data" with different tags so they could all be on the desktop at once.

Not only will i have to completely redownload dwarf fortress, i'll lose a 34 year old world, in it was a 17 year old fortress with a population of 200 dwarves, not to mention my little legendary ambusher, thrower, wrestler.....

Morale of the story... you cant change fate; adventurers die. And when you try to stop that fate from happening, the world can be destroyed, litteraly.

[ March 18, 2007: Message edited by: ColonelTEE3 ]

[AlanL]

Actually, i've cheat-continued numerous times. The trick is to end-task the game before it erases your saves. That trick works on almost all 'permanent-death' games too as far as I know. (I think the word for it is scumming?)

[ColonelTEE3]

Yes, i was doing that, but when you do that you eventually get an error called the inflate error and that makes it so you cant load the game at all. Thats why i tried to make a back up file incase that happened, but i failed and it backfired like none other..

[Jaqie Fox]

First, whenever you mess with database files (that is what they are) never, ever backup a live database it can corrupt it and the backup. Second, when you backup the database, you should if possible back up the entire program using it, no telling how the programmer coded it.  Third, whenevery ou backup something important especially when the file size is small, you should never delete a save, and date them (such as gamename_backup-4-14-2007.rar) and store them in a location that is backed up automatically to a second medium (in this case you could burn them to CD every month. CDRs are very inexpensive and you could concieveably make a new one every month with ALL your backup games).  All of this would yield a way to restore from backup ANY save point you wish, and minimize any possible file loss and/or corruption.

The only time I have ever lost data it was due to me not having the space to back it up (I have over a terabyte of data I haven't backed up right now, data storage in those quantities is expensive!)

And please, please check your spelling once in a while? (I do not say this to be rude or anything, but it gets very difficult to read people's posts when they horribly misspell most words...)

Please keep in mind that I posted all of this to try to help, my personality and demeanor is just abrasive, my intent is to help not to berate.

[Slartibartfast]

quote:Originally posted by Jaqie:
<STRONG>The only time I have ever lost data it was due to me not having the space to back it up (I have over a terabyte of data I haven't backed up right now, data storage in those quantities is expensive!)</STRONG>

May I ask (and receive an answer), how the hell do you have so much data? Especially considering how this is just your data that needs backing up and not the whole lot of it.

[Jaqie Fox]

I have lots of data for several reasons.

The biggest reason is that I never delete *ANYTHING*. I still have a copy of winamp 1.83 here, for example, and my DOS 6.22 install disk images.

The second reason is that I like everything spinning. Ever try to find an old file you wanted off of backup CDRs and DVDRs? I have about four hundred here total to look through, and it's a royal b---h to flip-flop that many CDs.  So... everything is on hard drives.  My main machine has nearly a terabyte of storage alone. (120GB+200GB+320GB HDDs at the moment)

~edit~
The third reason is I absolutely detest wear and tear on my optical drives, so I run everything off of CD/DVD images and daemon tools (think alcohol 120% but freeware).

[ March 19, 2007: Message edited by: Jaqie ]

[herrbdog]

What I do is copy the whole damn DF folder, that way, it always works. Until Toady has more features for moving games and stuff, just be safe and dupe the whole folder.  

[ctrlfrk]

If you want to save scum safely, do this:
1: When you feel like backing up a game, save and exit dwarf fortress.
2: Wait for dwarf fortress to be completely closed.
3: Go into your "Data" directory and find the "Save" folder.
4: If you only have one world running, it is fine to just make a copy of the "Save" folder.
(I have many "Copy (n) of Save" folders in my data folder)
5: If you want to back up just a single world, i find the best method is to .rar the RegionX folder and the RegionX.sav file. (Just as you would when sending a save to Toady. If it is all he needs to play the game, then it should be all we need)

Whatever you do, do not interrupt the saving process, if you do, the game will be b0rked. It might just take a few years for the inflate error to appear.

[Zaratustra]

Don't be sad, the next version of DF isn't savefile backwards compatible anyway.

[ricemastah]

backward compatible or not it doesnt really matter does it? All the new features look like they are more then going to make up for losing my world. I mean the z axis? We're talking veritcal forts here! Towers of doom with catapults on the top raining doom upon the doomed heads of my doomed enemies? To good to good...