Question about corrupt character files

[IgnorantBliss]

So, it seems my harddrive had a stroke while I was at work, and a part of it has gone bad, "unreadable", and I think I need to get a new one. I'm not completely sure if the two issues are related, but while trying to back-up my game files today, I came up with two corrupt character files that couldn't be copied elsewhere. One of them is a townie, Marylena Hamilton (I only know because I had someone else look it up based on her character file name, N001_User00138.package), the other one I don't know because it's a sim born in game or something that came with the expansions (N001_User00285.package).

What I want to know is that 1) would it be possible to replace Marylena with a non-corrupt copy of her that I have from a few days ago in the form of a back-up without having to resport to the back-up otherwise and 2) if it would be very harmful to just get rid of these character files all together and keep playing the neighborhood. I'm going to buy a new harddrive and copy my neighborhood over to that one, and I would really like to be able to play this hood, I've put so much time and effort into getting it where it is now, and my previous back-up is so old it would take several days of play to get my sims to the point they are at now. But what kind of problems can it cause in the game to completely delete some characters? Serious enough to crash the game on a regular basis, or just cause some smaller errors? The rest of the neighborhood seems to be intact, other files copy over without problem and the game still starts up.

[J. M. Pescado]

What I want to know is that 1) would it be possible to replace Marylena with a non-corrupt copy of her that I have from a few days ago in the form of a back-up without having to resport to the back-up otherwise

That would probably work, provided nothing of importance has happened. Which is doubtful, with townies, they never change.

and 2) if it would be very harmful to just get rid of these character files all together and keep playing the neighborhood.

I don't recommend this, it creates invalid neighborhood entries.

[IgnorantBliss]

Ok, Thanks for the reply. I did some testing in the game last night, and Marylena Hamilton amazingly did not crash my game, but obviously there was something wrong with her. Every time she would come up on another sim's "known sims" list, opening the page would have a huge lag, and hovering over her thumbnail would show her name as "N001_User00138 - Marylena" or something similar. Calling her on the phone caused a similar lag while opening the "phone book". When invited, she appeared on the lot with seemingly no problems, other than the name issue:



According to advice I got elsewhere, I then killed her in the game (while she was burning to death, another sim was abducted by aliens, interestingly enough). I then deleted her urn, as well, but I suppose that won't get rid of the character file still, because it still shows up in the Character folder (and still can't be opened).

I still have no idea which sim the other corrupted one is. I went to all of my lots with playable sims other than original Pleasantview characters, but none of them seemed to cause any bugginess, and no other sims caused lag while browsing through their relationship panels. I suppose I may just have to try replacing this character with a back-up copy and see what happens. My SimPE will not work, either, so I can't take a look myself (I think the harddrive problem has corrupted my NET Framework installation, and it won't let me reinstall it).

[Regina]

No, it won't get rid of the character file, but that should be okay anyway--hopefully--maybe, ummm, I'm making this up as I go along?  LOL

Seriously, if she's dead leaving her file SHOULD cause no harm.  If I'm wrong hopefully someone else will point the way to a better solution.

[IgnorantBliss]

The problem is I can't copy the corrupt file anywhere, so when I install the game to the new harddrive and move my neighborhood onto that, I will either have to leave the character file out completely, or use an older back-up version of her. So, I'll probably have to use the version of the neighborhood where she's still alive to install on my new harddrive, and take an even older version of that character file that's not corrput yet to replace the bad one.

[Regina]

I understand your pickle.  You may be better off reverting to the back-up of your neighborhood, even though you've made quite a bit of progress since.  In any event, make sure to save it, just in case something goes wrong with the later files because I've found it's a whale of a lot better to have a back-up that's a few days old than to have none at all.

I created myself quite a mess with my favorite sims.  I eventually got it resolved satisfactorily, but if it hadn't been for the back-up of their old neighborhood they'd have all been lost.  I lost quite a bit of their lives, but was glad enough just to be able to 're-live' those parts and put the families straight again.

[IgnorantBliss]

An update: I went and used a version of the neighborhood that already did have the 2 corrupt character files, but replaced those two with older back-up versions. Marylena Hamilton disappeared from the relationship panel of a sim who used to know her, but other than that no problems so far. I found out the other corrupt sim was a University NPC that I'd never played, so, hopefully that won't cause any major problems, either.

[Regina]

*crosses fingers* and hopes everything continues well!