Recovered .sol files, but they "disappear"...

Recuva
1

Hello, All,

First, I'm new to Recuva, but it seems great so far. Second, I wasn't sure how to describe the problem in one word, so "disappear" might not quite be accurate. We'll see.

My comp is Windows 8.1, and I am using Chrome.

My wife has been playing games at www.coolmath-games.com. I ended up deleting cookies the other day, and, in so doing, I deleted the flash cookies that had the saves from her games -- the .sol files.

I tried to restore my PC to a previous point after someone suggested that. Now, I wonder if that did more harm than good as far as file recovery goes.

Anyway, I discovered Recuva -- have been a CCleaner user for many years, and have been satisfied with that, by the way.

I ran deep scan, and it found many, many deleted items. I was happy when I saw that it also found the .sol files associated with the coolmath games she played. Many of them were "unrecoverable", which again I wonder if the restore lessened my chances here.

I found where Chrome puts the save files, and I recovered (I suppose) a couple of the "excellent" .sol files and put them in the folder.

The flash game allows for three saves. So, in the "save" folder, there will be, for example, papasfreezeria_1.sol, papasfreezeria_2.sol, and papasfreezeria_3.sol. I started a new game just to see where the file would be created, and there was a new papasfreezeria_1.sol. So, now I figure I'll plop the recovered files in the same place and voila!

However, after doing that, and going into the part of the game where you choose your save profile, the one that I created is there, but the other two are not. Annnnnnd, my real perplexing question concerns the fact that not only were they not in the profile screen of the game, they also "disappeared" from the save folder. And I do mean disappeared. I resized the window so I could watch what happened, and when I clicked on the button to go to the profile screen, the .sol files that I dropped in the folder winked out of existence.

Does anyone know why this would occur? Again, Recuva says the files are excellent. Am I not doing something I should to recover them properly? Why would the game not recognize the files I placed there, but have no problem with the one it made?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you to everyone that comes here and helps.

2

I know absolutely nothing about the games software. Can we assume that using Explorer the three files are seen, but when viewed through the game only one can be seen?

I think I would put the recovered files in a safe place (if you haven't already), then create three saved profile files using the game, then using Explorer rename the new created files to oldpapa.. or something and copy in the recovered files.

Then if the game can see the recovered files you can check to see if the contents are valid.

3
For future reference if you're using CCleaner to clean Adobe Flash Player you can protect the .sol files by excluding them in:
Options -> Exclude -> Add -> File
I exclude the settings.sol file to keep the Flash Player settings intact while still allowing CCleaner to remove the downloaded Flash content/cache.
4

First off, thank you both for the replies. I appreciate it.

I know absolutely nothing about the games software. Can we assume that using Explorer the three files are seen, but when viewed through the game only one can be seen?

I think I would put the recovered files in a safe place (if you haven't already), then create three saved profile files using the game, then using Explorer rename the new created files to oldpapa.. or something and copy in the recovered files.

Then if the game can see the recovered files you can check to see if the contents are valid.

This is an interesting way to look at it. I am going to try this out and see if it makes any difference. I'll update when I do -- probably just for grins, but we'll see! Thanks again for the reply and the perspective.

For future reference if you're using CCleaner to clean Adobe Flash Player you can protect the .sol files by excluding them in:
Options -> Exclude -> Add -> File
I exclude the settings.sol file to keep the Flash Player settings intact while still allowing CCleaner to remove the downloaded Flash content/cache.

Yeah, I have definitely considered segregating or otherwise backing up these files, just in case. For the record, I didn't use CCleaner to erase these. It was all done in Chrome. I cleared out everything, maybe too much looking back on it. Anyway, I didn't know that these games saved via a cookie. I just figured they had a little save file on the HD somewhere. Learn something new every day, and, in my case, it's always the hard way! :) Thanks for the reply.