How much would you pay to save your FM game!!??

I have found myself in a regrettable position!

After a night out i was sick on my laptop :s and after taking it to the local PC guys i found out it was dead!

Unfortunately i was enjoying one of my best ever FM journeyman saves, ending up with Yeovil, and taking them from league 2 obscurity to premier league and fa cup winners! The season i was currently halfway through i was making a serious assault for the champions league, having beaten barca 3-0 away from home in the group stages!

The PC guys said they could recover my data for £65. However, being a student, which means that a) there was little else of much value on the laptop besides the FM game and b) saving money is a necessity, especially as i have to buy a new laptop! i told the PC repair guys, with a tear in my eye, that no i did not want them to recover the data.

That got me thinking. If, for some inexplicable reason, you lost your current FM game(s) today, how much would you be willing to pay to get it back?

P.S Before i give up all hope i am going to have a go at recovering the hard drive myself!

P.P.S If anyone has seen a good laptop deal around some info would be much appreciated! Budget £300-£500 needed to run FM comfortably, browsing the internet and uni work!

Thanks!

Personally, £0. Simply because I always back up my FM saves on my external hard-drive and Dropbox. I have saves going back to CM 02/03!

Terms of laptops though, look at Amazon, then if you find one at a decent price, Google it and see if it's cheaper elsewhere. As i'm at university student, I hate spending money, and that's how I found my laptop £100 cheaper elsewhere.

I'd just take the hard drive out of the dead laptop and get an external usb case for it and then recover the data myself.

External USB cases are about £10-£20.

You just use it like an external drive and you should be able to recover the data.

That being said my saved game is backed up online by saving my game into my Dropbox folder.

www.dropbox.com

You will get a folder in your MyDocuments called "Dropbox" - when up put files in here it will back them up online automatically.

Be warned: You need a good internet connection for faster up/downloads of large files - plus you might end up exceeding your allowable upload data rate - check with your Internet Service Provider if there is a limit and how you can monitor it.

eBuyer usually has some pretty good deals. Here's a list of Core i3 and i5 laptops between £300-500. [/url]&filterca35=Intel+Core+i3|Intel+Core+i5&filterca53=6"]Click me

Hope that helps.

I'd just take the hard drive out of the dead laptop and get an external usb case for it and then recover the data myself.

External USB cases are about £10-£20.

You just use it like an external drive and you should be able to recover the data.

That being said my saved game is backed up online by saving my game into my Dropbox folder.

www.dropbox.com

You will get a folder in your MyDocuments called "Dropbox" - when up put files in here it will back them up online automatically.

Be warned: You need a good internet connection for faster up/downloads of large files - plus you might end up exceeding your allowable upload data rate - check with your Internet Service Provider if there is a limit and how you can monitor it.

This and This, I always have an empty HDD caddy somewhere in the house, the other option would only work if you had a pc as-well, stick into the pc and get the stuff off then use it for extra storage. External HDD caddy is the best option though.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/IOMAX-External-Enclosure-Laptop-Powered/dp/B001EEQQ8Q

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/9467106/Dynamode-USB-2-0-2-5-inch-SATA-Hard-Drive-Enclosure/Product.html?_%24ja=tsid:11518%7Ccat:9467106%7Cprd:9467106

I would have payed £65 in a heartbeat to get my saves back. If you start calculating how much money FM cost you per hour, you will see that the cost of FM + recovering your saves is still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment you can buy. That said, if you can get it back for free by recovering the data yourself, go for it

I got one of these for £12, so far I have 4 drives recovered from laptops that would have gone on the tip, so really it's a no boner.

http://www.dynamode.net/english/pages/product/Datacom%20Products/Docking%20Stations/USB-HDK-E.html

It is SATA only and not the old IDE though, so be sure what you have in the laptop.

I think I'd just start a new game (with a different setup) in that case.

Thanks for all the advice guys, guess i should have backed up my game!

That looks like what i need Kriss! Is it easy to use?

I think I'd quit drinking all together.

Thanks for all the advice guys, guess i should have backed up my game!

That looks like what i need Kriss! Is it easy to use?

Hardest part is probably getting the hard drive out. It does require knowing how to use a screwdriver ;-) Should be no trouble, as long as you're not drinking!

Best of luck, hope the hard drive is still in good shape.

Pay the £65 in a shot. If you know your football, it's easy to win that amount in a bet.

Thanks for all the advice guys, guess i should have backed up my game!

That looks like what i need Kriss! Is it easy to use?

As said, you take out the HD and slot it in, Vista and Win7 auto detect it, it comes with E Sata cable which is best as transfer rate is much faster than USB.

It then becomes just another hard drive on your PC.

Thanks, i have a dell xps so that should work great! Turns out i would pay around £12 to get my FM game back! In a a flash!

Thanks, i have a dell xps so that should work great! Turns out i would pay around £12 to get my FM game back! In a a flash!

You also get a hard drive worth quite a lot as a bonus (somewhere to back your save up to;))

Ahhh i like your thinking

One last question! Do i have to transfer it to a desktop or could i transfer the files to anther laptop? I guess it doesnt matter but just want to be sure! And thanks a lot, you have been a big help!

Ahhh i like your thinking

One last question! Do i have to transfer it to a desktop or could i transfer the files to anther laptop? I guess it doesnt matter but just want to be sure! And thanks a lot, you have been a big help!

You can connect the dock to any computer and transfer the files, it acts just as an external hard drive, but once you've recovered what you want to wherever you can then just use a USB stick to move them around.

Don't get hung up on E Sata, USB connection will be fine.