...so I had to do a complete wipe of it. :(

Looks like I won't be finishing Mass effect for a second time...

That happened to me when I was 3/4 of the way through Ice Wind Dale, the entire hard drive just melted on me. I lost a lot of stuff and other saves but the IWD really killed me and I haven't had the heart to start over.

Yeah, the saves are whats important. At least in the other games i was playing either i didn't get too far or they're sandbox, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Damn that's harsh. I don't recall how big the Mass Effect download is....I assume you can start again but it must seem like an awful lot of effort.

Assuming you therefore have an Origin account, why don't you try Dead Space which was, and I assume still is, free.

edit> I must learn to read before posting...

OP, thats terrible man. Mass Effect is a really good game though, hope you have the energy to start it again. I remember buying that years ago when it came out, I loved the character art and box art (actually still have the boxed game http://imgur.com/a/gaAcr) but I couldn't get into it. If a sale ever comes on I'll grab both of them to give another go.

What did you think of it?

I really dont want to get involved in a series that i hear has progressively gotten worse and worse. That'd be even worse. Plus, my computer still isn't even fixed yet, so I'm using my mac laptop right now. Not exactly the best computer for gaming.

I played through all 3 of them just recently, Mass Effect 2 (IMO) was the high point.

Yeah, understandable. I would really recommend playing all 3 in order, the story will make more sense that way. And I believe you can import your character from 2 into 3 afterwards as well.

There are apps that can upload your saves to dropbox and sync them. Razer's GameBooster thingy for example, though that's a little annoying/bloated. But it's easier to remember to do if you have something that makes it easier to do and bothers you to do it.

Well, since you indicated you're playing through it again, why not just go to masseffectsaves.com and download a character save for ME2 that has done all the things you were doing? It's a great way to get the character import you want without having to play through the game again if you don't feel like it.

EDIT: Incidentally, you may now be interested in considering some programs that will allow you to do incremental backups (just the stuff that changes) of your data. Try a review website like, say, this one (or whatever you prefer) and check out which ones fit your budget (plenty of free options) and requirements.

Itll be easy to find a match. I was using the default Shep face (as the custom made ones for the first are soooooo ugly), and i was going for complete paragon. At least now i wont have to do all the mining missions. :P

Yeah, and if you're playing a male Shep, why wouldn't you want to look like Mark Vanderloo? Stupid male models always looking better than me.*

*most show dogs also look better, so it's not an inherently high bar

I need to start a thread about using imaging software and the benefits. It seems that I read a lot of posts from gamers saying they had to reinstall Windows for various reasons, sometimes minor reasons. Or in this case, the OP states a "complete wipe", which I assume means that he/she reinstalled Windows, I don't know.

Also, if you install your games on a separate HD or partition than the OS partition, then you don't lose the game when something like this happens, and you keep your OS partition small.

So if you had made a clean system image with your games installed on a separate HD or partition, along with all of your other important files and images that take up a lot of space, you could have restored that clean OS image and been up and running in a few minutes, and you would be playing ME right now.

You can rip out your hard disk and transfer the files via another computer, I would think, but yeah, that does suck. :(