Trying to avoid a Corrupted Save

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RogsR34UK

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RogsR34UK
As far as I know (other than a hardware fault of course) there are two ways that your hard work on that save can get corrupted. Both involve the PS3 doing its Autosave.

If there is a Power Cut at the wrong moment then the Save process can get interrupted. This is unavoidable, but OK if your save is backed up to a USB stick of course.

The avoidable corruption, I suspect is caused by Quitting the game at the wrong moment. That nice little "Saving Data" appears in the bottom right corner of the screen and if you Quit while this is happening, I suspect that is the time when Saves can get corrupted. It is easy to get impatient when you want to leave the game.

Being overcautious with my saves, as I don't want to lose all the work I have put into the game so far, I now Quit GT Life when I have finished with the game. It takes about 10 seconds to get back to the main menu and from there it is a lot safer to Quit to the XMB. At least you can backup your save to a USB with reasonable confidence!
 
I manually save 1 more time at the GT Life screen, then exit to the main menu, THEN shut down the game.

I corrupted a high level save in GT4, I'm never gonna do that again!
 
I quit GT5 like this since day one.., it's the only way to make sure there's no autosaving going on. I do the same with other games.., exit to the very first menu, then quit to xmb.
 
I'm not sure (and I'd definitely NOT recommend testing this) but I think if you quit a game while it's saving by selecting 'Quit Game', it waits for it to finish saving before actually quitting. I think. I've played plenty of games that use an all-too-subtle autosave indicator and I'm pretty sure I've accidentally quitted a game while it's saving, but I've never seen nor had a corrupted save.

I'm not a big believer in superstition, but I think I'll just go and back up my GT5 save now...
 
neema_t
I'm not sure (and I'd definitely NOT recommend testing this) but I think if you quit a game while it's saving by selecting 'Quit Game', it waits for it to finish saving before actually quitting. I think. I've played plenty of games that use an all-too-subtle autosave indicator and I'm pretty sure I've accidentally quitted a game while it's saving, but I've never seen nor had a corrupted save.

I'm not a big believer in superstition, but I think I'll just go and back up my GT5 save now...
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It probably does that, I quitted a few times while saving (in other games) and quitting takes a lot longer than normal
 
The one rule that I follow is:
If the hard drive indicator light is not blinking, its OK to turn the system off.

What I always do when I am done playing, is either go to the main screen, or the main GT life screen and manually save. Then I just wait until the hard drive light stops blinking, hold down the PS button and turn the system off that way. I still have auto save turned on and I never quit the game and turn the system off through the XMB. This has always worked for me but I still keep a backup on a flash drive.
 
From the GT Life menu, I perform a manual save, then quit directly to the XMB via the PS button, then backup my save to a USB stick. I never turn off the PS3 while GT5 is still running.
 
tezster
From the GT Life menu, I perform a manual save, then quit directly to the XMB via the PS button, then backup my save to a USB stick. I never turn off the PS3 while GT5 is still running.
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I do exactly the same thing. I always save manually once i'm finished with the game.
 
Backup to USB
Backup to another dummy xmb user
Backup the USB to Computer every now and then, never delete old saves.
Export your Photos to XMB and copy to Computer...

What I'm missing is a PS3 system backup... which I hope to try soon...
 
Use your USB stick as your main backup that you do daily.

When you make any significant progress, backup that data into a folder on your PC, inside that folder make sub-folders that have the date of the save, and never delete an old save. This helps also if you realize you went the wrong way with your career and want to grab an old save from a while back.

Once you have it all setup its easy, just back-up your save data on the stick whenever you feel like it, then when you make good progress grab that save and toss it in the folder then go back to playing.
 
+1

Use a stick daily. Save from the Start screen before you quit the game, shouldn't have a problem. Export photos to XMB and back those up, should be good to go.

Buy a small external USB drive, do an XMB HD Backup once a month or so, you should have all contingencies covered.
 
My GT4 save has never corrupted and it's as old as my GT4 disk itself. I expect the same thing of GT5. I've still got back ups of both though, just in case.

The main reason people's saves get corrupt is because they're too impatient. Hardware problems, okay that's unavoidable, but after autosaving, do a manual save, then wait about 5-10 seconds after it's finished saving before turning the console off.
 
In my flat, my electric meter is so old that it takes £1 coins to top it up, always have a stash around so it never runs out. I never manually save, just always exit to GT Life screen, wait while the autosave has finished and quit either into XMB or just turn the PS3 off, never had a corrupted save. My guess is people quit while it is autosaving because they are impatient, or just not paying attention.
 
nemesis01
In my flat, my electric meter is so old that it takes £1 coins to top it up, always have a stash around so it never runs out. I never manually save, just always exit to GT Life screen, wait while the autosave has finished and quit either into XMB or just turn the PS3 off, never had a corrupted save. My guess is people quit while it is autosaving because they are impatient, or just not paying attention.
Click to expand...

Wait what?? Like the electric company comes and collects money from a box?

More on topic, I just backup often, and generally turn off the system using the PS button. I've never had any problems.

But I think backup is the key word here, trusting a computer with your files is like trusting a drug addict with your money/cheetos.
 

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