My Game Won't Start?! Please Help?

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

So, whenever I click on Play, in a few seconds a tiny window comes up with a big red X. I'm mostly heartbroken because I JUST redownloaded everything recently. I haven't downloaded any hacks, so that can't be it. I restarted and cleaned the disk, didn't help.

I am soooo upset, I REALLY want to play with my simmies and I haven't been able to actually play in a long long time.

There's no way I'm downloading everything all over again!!!!!!

[amc462000]

well. AL was the last ep you downloaded and not M&G?  and you have the right disk in?  if you do redownload, don't forget to pull your downloads folder out to the desktop...

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

Yes, AL was the last EP I downloaded and yes, I have that disk in.

I just moved all of my downloads into a different folder now I'm going to try to start the game.

It didn't work.
I JUST REMEMBERED! I DROPPED THE FLIPPING DISK! I BET THAT'S IT!! So I have to go buy a new one?
*Runs off crying*

[Joe_Debock]

This happens to me all the time and I just pull the Groups cache file as it sees a whole heap of new stuff and and falls over, the game regenerates a new one so no loss, if there is a file conflict the game will start but full over or freeze at the last stage of the boot up, then pull you down loads and then halve, quarter the volumne to putback into the game till you isulate the group that cause it and then you search through them, the conflicting file keep a record of it for future reference.

[amc462000]

Does it look damaged?  Rats, that is rotten luck.  luckily AL is only $15 now but still it is annoying.

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

Doesn't really look damaged, but that's the only reason it can be messed up. :/

[Engram]

Have you tried deleting groups.cach form the The Sims 2 folder in My Documents? Try that first. It's a lot cheaper than rushing out to replace a disk that may not be damaged in the first place.

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

No files named that. Now, my game loads fine, but whenever I tried moving a family in and loading it, it wouldn't load. ERGGGG!

Oh, I reinstalled my game, backing up my downloads, and when I put my downloads back and opened up the game, PleasantView, Strangetown and VeronaVille weren't there. 

[SimGirl20]

Hey Madi_Loves_Yew,

I just wanted to tell you that I let one of my neighbors/friends borrow my Sims2 DD Disk and she had a good time playing it for almost 3 months and when I went to go help her with her computer because she couldn't get her anti-virus to work and she had all these programs that she didn't need so I was trying to help by cleaning up her computer but we must have no we had to have deleted a main driver when I did a backup of her Sims2 before I did a System Restore because now when you push the play button she gets a white error box with no words only a red ball with a white X in it and we never could figure out how to get hers working again, how did you get yours to play again? because shes pretty upset about her game not being able to work anymore any help would be appreciated? oh yeah and you said once you got in the game all your base neighborhoods were gone?!

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

I had to reinstall Apartment Life (my latest installed EP) but I made sure to move my downloads so that I wouldn't lose them all.

So after that, I replaced my downloads, and I tried to run the game, and it worked. Then when it started up, I went through my hacks and deleted a random letters and numbers one, and it fixed my whole game.

Yah, all of the base neighborhoods were gone, except Riverblossom or whatever, and BellaDonna Cove and the other one, whatever it is.
They're still gone, though.
So, just tell her to reinstall it and that should do it.

[SimGirl20]

Hey Madi

I forgot to mention something in my other post, I figured that re-installing would help as well so we did that and when the installation got to 66% it just froze and you couldn't hear the tower making its roaring sound like it does when its doing something such as installing a game or whatever and then this error box popped up saying that a file was missing from a shortcut or something and it asked me if I wanted to ignore or abort so I said ignore and it went to 67% and just froze for about an hour and never even tried to install the rest of the way! wonder what was up with that?

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

Hmmm, not sure. Now I'm guessing it's either her computer or the disk.

[Jenna]

If you're still missing your three original neighborhoods, you can easily restore them:

Just navigate to 'X:/Progam Files/EA Games/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods' and in that directory you'll see N001 (Pleasantview), N002 (Strangetown), and N003 (Veronaville). Just copy and paste those into your Neighborhood directory under 'My Documents/EA Games/The Sims2/' and voila! Upon starting up the game, you should see those neighborhoods again.

...you can also find the same files on CD 4 or the DVD disc of the base game.

[Madison-Simple-As-That]

Ohh. Thanks Jenna!