Could someone give me a run down on how saves work? I have one manual save just before the first dragon fight. Aside from that I have the auto save which always updates, which for me is currently after talking to the Jarl in Whiterun after the first battle with aldurin.

I want to start fresh so do I just start a fresh save game or what? Also if I play off the 1 manual save I have and it auto saves, will it wipe my current auto save progress?

One more question, will my game progress be more or less the same if I do the same stuff?

Edit: I'm on ps3.

Skyrim has three autosave slots that it cycles through. If you accepted the default settings for autosaves, the game will autosave whenever you sleep, wait or fast travel, and will also autosave whenever you go through a loading screen (say, when entering a dungeon). Whenever an autosave is triggered it automatically overwrites the oldest of the three autosaves you have.

You can also quick save by pressing the F5 key (by default). You have one quick save slot, and the save in that slot is overwritten every time you make a new quick save.

Manual saves are completely separate from autosaves and quick saves, and do not touch these. You need to get into the habit of making manual saves frequently, and having several recent manual saves on hand in case you need to roll back to one to fix a glitch (which, you'll find, tends to happen quite a bit). Do not just rely on autosaves and quick saves - these are known to sometimes get corrupted, and the only way you can save your character (or at the very least, possibly many hours of progress) is to roll back to a previous manual save.

Sorry I should have mentioned that I'm on ps3.

It should work the same on PS3 as it does on any other platform. Manual saves and autosaves are completely different things and do not overwrite each other.

If you do start a new character, though, your current autosaves will be overwritten whenever your new game autosaves. Likewise, if you go back to your first character's manual save before fighting the dragon, any autosaves that are triggered will overwrite the autosaves you currently have - you only have those three slots to use. Another reason why you should be frequently making manual saves when you play; even every 10 to 15 minutes is not unreasonable at all. You can always delete old manual saves that you no longer need if you want to free up disk space.

Thanks for the clear response, I just have 1 more main question, I can hire new followers but can't find Lydia anywhere, she not in the catacombs or dragonreach, haven't bought a house so that's out of the question, I don't understand what has happened. If she's dead she should be in the catacombs to my understanding, if she is alive she should spawn next to me once I fast travel (she doesn't), nor is she in the original spawn place. I've waited multiple days (in skyrim) and nothing.