So I recently reinstalled FO3 on my PC after putting it off since my Win 7 update. Started a new game and have been playing off and on for the past few days.

Just last night I popped back on and FO3 was acting like it was run for the first time (ie auto graphics configuration and such). Upon loading the game, I noticed that the UI and controls had been reset to default, but worst of all, the Continue and Load options were grayed out. I know from my past experiences that if your game was started when logged into a Live account, you'll have to wait for FO3 to log you in before you can load those saves. I'm certain Live was logged in the last few times I was playing simply because I was messaging my XBL friends at the same time.

So I jumped out of FO3 to take a look at the save games directory, ...My Documents\My Games\Fallout 3\Saves\SPARTAN VI and the bugger was EMPTY. According to the interwebs, games that are saved when not logged into a Live account are simply stored in ...My Documents\My Games\Fallout 3\Saves, and there's nothing of the sort there as well. Decided to test it anyway, loaded FO3 again, and manually logged out of Live to see if there were any changes. No luck.

So is there any other directory FO3 might store save games? More importantly, does anyone know why my save games would arbitrarily vanish? I didn't get very far in the last game, but I obviously don't want this to happen again. The only thing I can think of is that Win7 recently patched, but I cannot remember if it was exactly at the same time this issue began.

I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium x64, C2Q Q6600, GTX460 latest driver, 8GB RAM. My Fallout 3 installation isn't in the default directory, I put it in G:\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout 3 per "archive invalidation invalidated!" instructions.

TIA!