To make a long story short, my saves became irrecoverable after a random CTD. So I get Wyre Mash, in the hopes of either fixing the save, or removing the (temporarily) unowned references the mod gives so I can "start fresh" with it. Guess what? Wyre Mash doesn't work, despite my fixing it for the I:\ drive. So, here's the Bugdump I recovered, see if you can't make heads or tails of it. It's all Greek to me...

I:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Mopy> i:\python25\python.exe mash.
py 0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "mash.py", line 15, in
masher.InitSettings()
File "I:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Mopy\masher.py", line 6521
, in InitSettings
mosh.initDirs()
File "I:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Mopy\mosh.py", line 6633,
in initDirs
dirs['installers'].makedirs()
File "I:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Mopy\bolt.py", line 414, i
n makedirs
if not self.exists(): os.makedirs(self._s)
File "I:\Python25\lib\os.py", line 163, in makedirs
makedirs(head, mode)
File "I:\Python25\lib\os.py", line 163, in makedirs
makedirs(head, mode)
File "I:\Python25\lib\os.py", line 163, in makedirs
makedirs(head, mode)
File "I:\Python25\lib\os.py", line 163, in makedirs
makedirs(head, mode)
File "I:\Python25\lib\os.py", line 166, in makedirs
mkdir(name, mode)
WindowsError: [Error 13] The device is not ready: 'C:\\'

I'm not a Windows user, so I could be completely way off here, but "device not ready" sounds like an error related to removable media (CD/DVD). So is your "C: drive" a CD or DVD drive?

You say you fixed mash to use "I:", but I remember one user said that you had to edit masher.py, as there is a hardcoded C: in there.

Also, you might try http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1068986-wrye-mash-thread-5/page__view__findpost__p__16168399. It may be easier to set up for you, and I think he has fixed that bug. I'm sure he'd appreciate feedback.

Strange... the target for it's icon goes to my i:/ drive. My C:/ is unusable (damn HP and their idea for a locking clip on the C:/ Drive!) But I'll try that link- later (can't right now.) Keep the suggestions coming, people!

Allright, after a slight hiccup (where Norton didn't like Melchor's file downloading onto my computer... solved with a a temporary shut off for it's insolence) I've got it working. Now to see if I can recover the saves... but, the important thing is that I got it working.

And no, my game won't be a complete loss if Wyre Mash can't fix it. I managed to dredge up an old save... problem is, it's before I did all the guild questlines and main quests for Morrowind and it's expansions... but it's better than starting over.

If you don't have it already, be sure to install the http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19510.

Which will increase stability and prevent Save game corruption.

Allright- latest update.

After my save game got corrupted, I knew it was a problem with the mod I had most recently enabled. Problem was, I wanted to play that mod (as I had exhausted the quest content in Vanilla Morrowind, I can't NOT play it without suffering from Bordeom.) So, I disabled, reloaded, and here's the kicker -resaved it in a new slot for a manual clean.

Now, this didn't work, as it made the mod un-playable (well, extremely buggy) when I re-enabled the mod.

So, I get wyre mash (leading up to this point) and I was able to recover my game.

I didn't manage to recover the save from where the game crashed... which is bad, but I did manage to recover the manual save. Fortuantly, I wasn't too deep into the mod when I had the corruption. So, other than a few game-days later and some duplicated journal entries (which doesn't seem to be affecting the mod, thankfully) it's in full-working order.

So, basically, if you're trying to recover a save from an error caused by a much-loved mod, and still want to play the mod... disable the mod, make a save without the mod enabled, and fix it using Wyre Mash before enabling the mod. So you can have your cake and eat it too!

Thanks for all the help, guys!

-- New Update --

Save game is corrupted beyond repair. That means I've lost about 2 weeks of gameplay- still, better than going back to square one. It's not a fault with Wyre Mash- the save itself eventually got bad. Hopefully, between Wyre Mash and the MW Code patch, this incident will not happen again.

If you can upload the bad savegame somewhere. I'd like to take a look at it with some tools I'm working on. There may be something I can do to fix it, if it isn't too badly off.

I doubt you will- unless the tools you have can scrub all references of a mod from the save. My guess is that the Mod I want to play is getting some kind of interference from the fatal CTD that happened with it- when I hit a certain point, it CTDs whenever I move from an interior to an exterior, mothing I do will stop it. Heck, saving immedatly after I make the transition, it will immedately CTD when the new save fully loads... That means the mod is basically unplayable. And as I've been sitting on this mod for several years without playing... I consider 2 weeks to be "acceptable" for me to be able to have a stable save so I can give it a THIRD shot...

Well, I may not, but it's hard for me to improve my tools to fix problems like this unless I can get examples of problems like this. So it's up to you whether you want to help.

There are 2 kinds of "corruption". One is where the file has been overwritten with garbage in places, or truncated or otherwise physically damaged, and this is often unrepairable, although some data may be salvaged. But this sort of thing is very uncommon and you'd know that was the problem because the error you'd get would be about "bad form". The other kind of "corruption" is really just bad data, where some of the data values stored in the save game cause Morrowind to barf. I'm getting pretty good at being able to locate and remove bad data. So if you want a hand, upload the save game to sendspace.com, and I'll take a look at it. But it's up to you.

If you haven't tried already loading this savegame after installing the MCP, you might try that too. The MCP can fix at least one kind of crash that is caused by the "bad data" type of savegame corruption (the delayed spell crash fix).