Hey guys,

A week or two ago, I got a nasty virus (that's been jumping to a lot of computers, lately: "Antivirus Action"). Well, I had to backup my crucial data, and format the partition I forgot I had my morrowind saved game files on.

I've recovered important .txt and .doc files in the past, post-format, but never something as complex as a save file. Put simply, I found some software that managed to recover 10-15 save game files--name, date, file size, and format in tact. However, after I reinstalled morrowind, tribunal, and bloodmoon again, I get some errors:

When going into data files, it says: "LoadTESInfo() in constructor failed with error: The operation completed successfully" for each individual save game file I put in the Saves folder. Upon clicking the .ess files found in the "data files" (which I thought it was peculiar they were there, maybe I just never noticed before), the summary lists "Saved in (blank), Day 0, Health 0/0. Saved 6/12/2010 10/37", etc.

When I try to open the files with Enchanted Editor, I get either "Subscript out of Range," or "7: Out of Memory"

When I try to load Morrowind and go to "Load Game," I get a pop up error, saying "Save "savegamename.ess" is not a valid TES file, continue running executable?"


Obviously, the save files are corrupt to a degree. I don't know crap about programming, but it appears from what I'm uncovered on the internet, the file headers are messed up? Is there any way to fix this through hex editing or something or another?

I used EASEUS Data Recovery to find it. I know they're there, but maybe there's another data recovery program that can find the .ess files and use a different algorithm for recovering them (with better luck). TestDisk/PhotoRec doesn't see .ess.

Note I also had a substantial amount of mods/add-ons to these save files beyond just the main morrowind/tribunal/bloodmon.esm files.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
-Jake

Your saves are corrupt, probably beyond recovery (although I can't be sure without the files).

There are no recovery apps I know of that will specifically save ESM/ESP/ESS files. It would be very simple, they're clearly-defined and have a nice block format, so data carving would be simpler than most formats. I'm not familiar with any tools to do that, however.

Appreciate the response. Here's an... *mouth drops*.

...As I was beginning to host the save files for you, I wanted to give you a batch of saves which gave me separate errors. To my extreme surprise, Enchanted Editor suddenly managed to open without error most of the save game files. I have no clue what changed between now and my last final of the semester (haha), but they now load--of course, my "file missing" list is a mile long when I try to load since I don't have tamriel rebuilt installed, or any of my other mods... Nonetheless. Success!

The only thing I can think I did was try the partition recovery mode rather than format recovery (different algorithm as I was hoping?); I then found the exact same save files and transferred them into the save folder. They don't run by default, but if you attempt to open them in EE, it seems to reset the file structure or something.

Appreciate the help--and if someone has a similar issue with their files, I have gained a great deal of knowledge on how to deal with this problem--point them my way.

-Jake

Opening and resaving a slightly corrupted file can fix it, but watch for missing bits and pieces. It may truncate/leave out corrupt records. I'd say the solution was recovering them in a slightly different way, or just that finals were over.
The ESD format is well-documented, though, so there's a chance with some manual reconstruction, files could be rebuilt. Slow work though.