I need help! I was downloading some mod for my Sims 3 like I always do, but this time when I went to see if the mods worked no joke everything was gone!
All the mods familys houses and it all reset or something like that. I asked my mum about it and she only plays Sims 2. But she told me it might have updated
and I did not know about this at all, is there any way to get my mods and familys back? Please help -from Sarah

Maybe you want to tell a little more about which mod you downloaded, where and how you downloaded.

Hi Sarah..

First of all, there's no way that your mods (or any files) can just disappear, from what you've told, it seems to me that your computer might be running in Windows 10, if indeed your computer is running Win 10 as its OS, you might haven't disabled the OneDrive, you need to disabled OneDrive so Win 10 won't move all of your Documents folder to OneDrive, I think that's the reason that your mods and other related stuff disappearing, to disabled OneDrive in Win 10, click here and go to OneDrive section..

But before disabling OneDrive, you will need to check your OneDrive folder first to make sure everything that you're looking for is there, and if it's there, copy all of them to temporary folder in your Desktop or some where else, then after you backed them up, disable the OneDrive, restart your computer, and check your Documents folder, if your TS3 Document folder isn't there after you have disabled OneDrive, you can copy them to Documents folder from the one you've just backed up in your Desktop.., and then test run your TS3 again

This is the site I have always gotten most of my hair and clothes from https://thesimsresource.com/downloa...ims3-sets-hair/
I have never had any problems with it before and I was just downloading the things I wanted, and I went to see if they worked and then it was all gone. It was like I was a new person and it was giving me help and tutorials. That`s all I know.

My daughter has dyslexia so I am helping out here. Her computer updated to Win 10 a few months back and I rolled it back to Win 7 and downloaded something to prevent it from doing so again. So she is on Win 7.

When she says mod I think she means both mods and cc, like hair etc.

Unfortunately she had no backup. When I looked in her files under Documents her save folder is empty and all her cc except that type of file that uses the loader? (sorry not too familiar with sims 3 terms since I only play sims 2) Those are there. She also says all her families are gone.

All her families and cc were there yesterday.

So if you're saying this was just happened yesterday and it happened in Windows 7, there are few possibilities that you can check for her;

1. If it's accidently deleted, open the Recycle Bin folder to check if it's there, if it's there.. you can just restore it from Recycle bin folder, unless she emptied her recycle bin then it's gone.

2. It may also accidently hidden, to check them, open windows explorer, change the Folder Options to show all hidden files and use search tools to explore and find it.

3. It may also possible that OneDrive was still active before you rolled back from W10 to W7 (even now you're back in Win 7), I personally don't have any experience using OneDrive but in my understanding of OneDrive, I assumed it's like a cloud folder, saved in your Microsoft account and stored in their server, so if this happened during when W10 was running, you may find a backup there, to check there from Windows 7, you'll need to install Windows Essentials 2012, login to your Microsoft account and then open your OneDrive and see if you can find it there and download it back. If you want to try this, you can download Windows Essentials 2012, click here to download it.

I hope that helps

PS: Don't forget to check under C:\Users\YourName\Downloads directory to check all the things she had downloaded.., it might help but not the Library from TS3 Documents folder..

Her recycle bin was the first place I checked. Her sims 3 folder is there in documents just that her save folder is empty and all package files have disappeared. I think that's what they are. The ones with the sims 3 logo on them are still there.

I don't know how to do do 2. I'll need some steps.

I've never even heard of OneDrive. Sorry I'm not very computer savvy except for the things that I use. I rolled back pretty much as soon as it happened. I did that by Googling and following a tutorial. I'll get my dh to check this tomorrow, it's night time here and he's already gone to bed.

I hadn't thought of that. I doubt a few hairs could delete the contents of her Save folder though. or is that a thing with Sims 3?

Thank you. I'll let you know how it goes.

Have you tried right clicking on it and then restore it? Once you restored her Sims3 folder, then go to her Documents folder and open her Electronic Arts folder, I don't think you can see anything inside if it's still in the recycle bin folder, you have to restore it first.. then double check it after it's restored..



We'll skip this one, it's unlikely since you found her Sims 3 folder in the recycle bin..



OneDrive is a Windows default feature that began from Win 8 or 8.1 and carried over to Win 10, in Win 10 this feature somehow moved everything you have from your *C:\Users\YourName\..* folder including your Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos folders, once you activated your Win 10 and verified your Microsoft account, this OneDrive also activated and start backing up your *Users* folder, what I personally don't understand, if it's suppose to backup (not moving) so we can access them from anywhere with any devices, why it moved everything we have here from local hard drive to OneDrive without letting us know.., moving and backing up are not the same terms..

You may have your Win 10 rolled back to Win 7, but anything that went to your OneDrive account while you're on Win 10 are still there (because Win 10 updates and downloads and uploads anything automatically by default if you don't alter it), one way to access them from Win 7 is for you to have Windows Essentials 2012 installed in your Win 7, this will let you access your OneDrive account once you have login to your Microsoft account..

And no.. few hairs can't delete any contents in any folder at all, and no.. TS3 also can't delete anything either, it can gives you something that you don't have from TS2 but not deleting or move anything..

She might forgotten may be it was deleted by accident or something like that (because you found her Sims 3 folder in Recycle bin folder), but in your case since you also mentioned about upgrading to Win 10 and then rolled back, I think the one that moved them (so she thought it was all gone) was OneDrive while you're in Win 10, rolling it back won't necessary make Win 10 copy them back to your Win 7 Documents folder, that's may be why when she checked her Documents folder.. everything wasn't there anymore..

PS: Installing Windows 2012 won't harm your Win 7, you can uninstall it anytime.. if you don't want to keep it..

No, you got confused. I never said her sims 3 folder was in the recycle bin, I said that was the first place I checked, meaning I checked there to see if her cc files were in there. They weren't. I said I went to Documents and opened her sims 3 folder and that her download folder is missing all package files and that her Save folder is empty. Anyway it's 11.30 pm over here in Oz I'll read and respond to the rest tomorrow.

I have One Drive on Windows 8, but it hasn't caused problems yet. I just need to be careful when I save a new text document so that I'm sure that I'm saving to the right Documents folder. Apparently,on Windows 10 it's even easier for the game to search for the Documents folder, find the one in One Drive, and start using it rather than the one on your hard drive. If this happened, her User Files in Documents would be over on One Drive, while anything installed after she no longer had access to One Drive would be in the new folder the game created when it realized that the Documents folder it was looking for was nowhere to be found.

Steps for showing Hidden Files in Windows 7

Select the Start button, then select Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization.
Select Folder Options, then select the View tab.
Under Advanced settings, select Show hidden files, folders, and drives, and then select OK.

Oops.., sorry my bad, I misread "documents" part that I thought you found your daughter's documents folder in the recycle bin, I knew I wasn't suppose to do few things while having my meal at the same time when I wrote those.., I guess this is part of getting older and thought that I'd still be the same as I was 20 yrs ago..

sorry about that, good night or morning to you in Oz then..

Heh, you and me both. I actually posted that at 12.30am not 11.30 pm.

Okay we have unhidden folders, what do I do now?

Search through them on the off-chance that the missing saves, etc. simply got hidden somehow. If they did, right click on them, go to Properties, and find an entry for "Hidden" There will be a box with an x in it. Clear that, Apply the change, and you should be good to go.

If they still aren't there, even with Hidden folders showing, the next step is to look for the missing items in One Drive.

I did find Appaloosa Plains from September (wasn't hidden) so I copied pasted that into her saves folder. I didn't find anything that looked like anything with unhidden folders.

So maybe this one drive thing, could her cc be on there? How do I get that, did you link me to something?

We'll have to do this later, we have to get on with school.

Okay in between I had her download and install from that link, what now?

If you've installed One Drive, you should have a One Drive icon somewhere to launch it. (Assuming you don't find it when looking for your Documents folder on your computer...) She will need to be signed into her Microsoft account, but then she should be able to activate One Drive with an online connection and find anything that got sent there.

I had her install whatever was on the link above. I've never used a Microsoft account so I know nothing about it. My hubby should be home in about an hour I think he should know about it.

Do you have any idea why the save folder would be empty and all her cc package files would be gone? They were there yesterday. People complain about sims 2 and corruption, but I honestly find the mysteries of sims 3 way worse.

Sims 3 came out before Microsoft started assuming that you want everything saved on its servers instead of on your own hard drive. It's not built with One Drive in mind, so it writes to the Documents folder it finds. If you have One Drive, that Documents folder can be the one for One Drive, not the one you expect it to be. If you're lucky, everything got sent to the cloud storage on One Drive, which means that she can get to them from any computer. Even if there is only one computer that she needs to get to them from.

If this is the case, the timeline would be something along the lines of
The computer upgraded to Win 10
The game found One Drive, and thought it was the regular Documents folder. Her Electronic Arts folder in Documents ended up in One Drive rather than the one in C
New package files, saves, etc. went into that folder
You rolled back to Win 7. Now you no longer have One Drive
The game can no longer find the folder it was using, and made a new one, Or went back to the first one since you do seem to have the contents of the DCCache.

But One Drive is accessed through the account with the login that you had to use once Windows 10 was installed, so everything -should- still be there if the game was putting it there.

If all else fails, you can run a search on the computer for *.package and see what turns up and where it is...

But her stuff was there yesterday, it updated to windows 10 a few months back and I rolled it back less than half a day later. Still it's worth a try, could be something on there.

She downloaded Windows Essentials 2012 that you linked to. So we need to also get this Onedrive? Dh says she doesn't have any Microsoft account.

Even if you only have a few hours running Win 10 then rolled back, the thing is as long as your computer connected to internet, what seems likely to happened (at those half day running Win 10), it may..;

1. Win 10 will activate itself because you're eligible for free copy upgrading from Win 7.
2. Win 10 will updates itself, downloads and uploads anything you're agreed on (anything that you ticked yes or used quick setup at the very 1st welcome screen).
3. Once all collected, Win 10 will start everything automatically without asking you any further, including activating OneDrive..

So if you have fast internet access and always connected all the time, then it's more than enough time.. for Win 10 to updates, downloads and uploads anything, it also by default will use peer to peer connection if you agreed to use the quick setup at the very 1st welcome screen.

Microsoft account is your email address that you use to registered to Microsoft when Microsoft asked you to verify that you're the legit owner of the computer that been upgraded to Win 10, so when you have installed the Windows Essential 2012 in your Win 7, use that email address you have registered to Microsoft account, the OneDrive feature from Windows Essentials 2012 will enabled you to access your OneDrive account you have when you're still in Win 10.

I know that you mean it was just there yesterday, but to find them there in your local hard drive will need to search all of the contents because we don't know what made them disappeared, and there's no guarantee it will be found either, therefore hopefully you may find backup that your daughter's looking for in OneDrive if you can't find them in your local hard drive.

If you're looking for an answer what happened to them or why they disappeared, I don't think there will be an accurate answer, but there is a possibility that Win 10 did moved them to OneDrive because you took the chance to upgrade to Win 10.

As for Windows Essentials 2012 it won't harm anything or your Win 7, this is the only way to access your OneDrive from Win 7, and it's not a big file to download and install so you don't need to re-install Win 10 just to access OneDrive, I personally used it because I need the Movie Maker (that I used to have from Win Vista and my Win 10 don't have that) but I just don't use or install the OneDrive, you can uninstall it anytime if you don't want to keep it.

Hopefully there's something you can find for your daughter either from your local hard drive or from OneDrive, btw.. since you already have Win 10 for your computer at least once (even then you rolled it back), your free copy of Win 10 is there for you forever to use anytime you want to use it in the same computer (motherboard), as long as you don't replace your computer motherboard (you can upgrade your processor or ram or anything as long as you don't replace the motherboard), you won't need a new Win 10 license or serial number to activate it later, just go online, it will activated back automatically.., so next time you decide to have Win 10 back, just don't use quick setup or agreed on anything if you don't agree at the very 1st welcome page, and don't forget to disabled the OneDrive if you don't want to use it, and set them all up manually from updates and security menus so it won't updates, downloads and uploads automatically..

I downloaded a mod that gets rid of the win 10 update button, so no button, no popups reminding or asking, I made sure of it. I find automatic anything very annoying. She didn't like win 10 at all. DH says he will look at it in the morning. We have four email addresses, got to be one of them. Thanks.

PS: I forgot to add..

Since you upgraded your Win 7 to Win 10 and then rolled back to Win 7, so you didn't have fresh new clean re-installation of your Win 7, I think there is a possibility you may find them in your local hard drive, go to your C:\ drive, and look for Windows.old folder, if I remember it correctly, you can browse and explore it in Windows Explorer, if you can open and explore it.. then go to Documents folder inside that Windows.old folder.., hopefully it's still there

I just found 'something' in a folder called dcbackup inside the sims 3 folder. I found those while looking for .package. I'm not sure if they are cc files or not since they are strings of gobbledygook. I had her copy paste those to her Download folder and she is loading the game.

I found the win.old but it had nothing. Rather strange, it had folders within folders ten deep which turned out to be empty.

Her CC is in DCCache folder not in DCBackup if you can find them, as for DCBackup you can copy and save them for backup if needed for later (if you can't find anything else except from DCBackup), you can use and put all of the *.package files from DCBackup to her Mods folder and run them as mods (except the ccmerge, leave this in DCBackup only), but if you want them in CC format, you'll need the ones from DCCache folder..

As for the Windows.old folder, you might need to change your folder setting to show all hidden files, it may be hidden that's why you can't see them, use what Ghost sdoj has described for you to show all hidden files, then go to Windows.old folder again, and then look for ...Users\YourName\Documents\ElectronicArts\TheSims3\..., hopefully it still there, this Windows.old folder are the backup from your earlier original Win 7 before you upgraded to Win 10, so in theory it should be there, just need to find a way to open it and copy them back so you can put them in the current Documents folder..

PS: As for her sims family household and house building, it will be under the Library folder inside TS3 Documents folder, so if you can find and open them, just copy the whole TS3 folder to your desktop as your backup before placing them into her current Documents folder..

I told her to come and ask because sims 3 cc is beyond me. Nothing that I placed in her download folder showed up.

We already did the show hidden folder thing this morning so they should be unhidden.

Okay DCCache, I'll tell her.

Ok pls tell her,

Any package files that found from DCBackup, are backup only to her CC, it won't work if she placed them in her Download folder, they can be use as mods (not CC or Custom Content anymore) if she placed them in her Mods\Packages folder, if she choose to do this, don't place anything in her DCCache folder as they would conflicts..

But if she found the DCCache folder from Windows.old folder, copy and backup them 1st, then also copy and place them inside her DCCache folder, it will automatically be installed to the game, she don't need to run TS3 Launcher anymore to reinstall them, to reinstall them then she would need to re-download them again as CC Sims3Pack files and placed them in download folder then run TS3 Launcher to install them.., so nothing from Windows.old folder goes to her download folder..

So.. she need to pick only one from anything she gets from Windows.old folder, either DCCache to DCCache folder, this will bring her CCs back, or package files from DCBackup to Mods\Packages folder and run them as mods files, can't be both of them as they will creates conflicts..