Hey guys and gals, got a question or 2 about ...well about what the title says.

So my PC was getting the blue screen of death so we took it in to get it looked at. They phoned up and said our hard drive is on it's last legs and needs to be replaced.

They mentioned something about data transfer, which, as far as I know, is transferring as much stuff from my old HD to the new one.

They asked what was important to transfer and I said my games (duh) as well as others that aren't important here.

They said they may or may not be able to transfer my games and it's saves depending on where it's stored.

Here's my questions:

Steam games can be redownloaded, but does Steam hold my game saves?

Some games like Borderlands and Skyrim I bought on discs but they both required Steam to play, any problems I might encounter there?

Finally, my daughter has sunk some 200 plus hours into the Sims 3. They have all come off of discs so if the disc based games can't be transferred, can I simply stick in the discs and use them again? Or are the product key codes that come with these games a one-and-done kinda thing? And does Origin save the game save data?

Thanks guys, this is all kinda new to me and I'm kinda $h!tt!ng bricks here...

Some games support Steam Cloud Saves, some don't. You would have to look up each individual title to check.

Steam games can be downloaded via the client at any time you wish, on any computer, as many times as you want to. When you registered Borderlands and Skyrim with Steam since those are SteamWorks titles, they were added to your Steam Library. You'll be able to download them again.

Sign into your Steam account at steamcommunity.com and then go to your Games page to see what you have in your library.

I can't answer your specific questions about The Sims, but Origin games can all be downloaded again just like on Steam. The same thing applies there, just log in to your Origin account on the web and check your library.

For the future...it's a good idea to back up your game saves manually, or use a tool like GameSave Manager to back up and sync save games. It's free.

Here's what your Games page will look like at Steam on the web:

Yeah, we're definitely gonna be buying some USB sticks or an external hard drive this time around.

Thanks for the answers. With Skyrim and Borderlands, that's awesome that it's tied to my account, but as far as redownloading them, any idea if I can reuse the discs that the games came on to reupload them onto my PC? Reason is, here in Canada we have limited internet packages and I got pay 2 dollars for every gig I go over my 80 gig monthly allotment.

And if anyone knows about my Sims questions, my little one will be greatful.

So I just checked Skyrim and Borderlands, the Steam feature set lists Steam Cloud, so that means my game saves should be there? Do the saves upload automatically or was this something I had to set up in Steam?

Discs can be used as many times as you want as long as the CD keys are linked to your Steam account. Back when my internet was kinda poor I'd always uninstall Dishonored or Total War Shogun 2 first if I needed space temporarily since I could use the discs to easily and quickly reinstall them. Just know that there will still be some downloads for patches that Steam will do and sometimes those can get kinda big especially if you own the dlcs/expansions.

Checking your Origin library online is probably your best bet to make sure but if you had to launch the Sims from Origin/login to Origin then it should be fine to reinstall from the discs. Your CD keys are linked to the accounts on Origin or Steam, not the physical discs.

Also most if not all of your save games should be somewhere in your My Documents folder (C:\Users\<your username>\Documents on Windows 7) so you will definitely need that folder in case Steam cloud isn't set up right! Luckily any/all tech guys should copy stuff like My Documents/My Photos etc by default but make sure to mention it just to be safe.

Hope that helps and that your data gets recovered!

Thanks Syce.

It'll suck if I have to sink another 150hrs into Skyrim just to get me back to where I was, but as long as my girls can pick where they left off in Sims 3 200plus hrs, I guess that's the most important thing to me.

@rodent: Skyrim has Steam Cloud Save support. So as long as Steam was open and the PC was connected to the internet, there should be some saves there.

I hope so MB. Thanks!