I was storing my dragon bones in my room in a chest at the college of winterhold. I went and bought my house and came back to move them and they are now missing. Anyone know if this is a bug or what? Im super pissed off because I was very tedious about my weight restrictions and moved stuff all over the place to come and find all my shit is gone.

Anyone else have that problem or know of a fix other than reloading which isn't an option seeing as it would take me back 3 hours!!!?

Only way is to re-load sadly.

I'm pretty sure they were stolen by an NPC. The game makes it pretty clear that you shouldn't store stuff in other peoples' places. They're just dragon bones, you get a million of those over the course of the game and they're not even the most lucrative thing you can sell. Just move on.

Didn't want to sell them. Wanted to craft with them. Thanks though.. DAMMIT!

Better save up on a home then (I recommend for starters to save up 5000 gold for the Whiterun home). I always wondered if the player had owned those containers. Guess not.

If they didn't clean out the cells every now and then, your save file would be absolutely massive. Pretty sure your houses are the only places that don't eventually reset.

I've had luck storing things in the Jorrvaskr or whatever it's called, but I was the leader of the Companions and had my own room there.

Shoulda sold those dragon bones, you don't get that crafting skill till you have 100 smithing and have the other perks on the tree, which takes an amazingly long amount of time unless you focus just on that. I tend to smith a lot and I feel like I put a lot of perks there, and I'm 42 hours in, only have 65 smithing with like 5 perks in it. You get dragon bones like candy anyway, those attacks are so common. I had three dragons try to fight me in like 30 minutes once.

@XII_Sniper: Hot tip: leather is cheap and gotten everywhere (vendors usually have a lot as well), and you get the same amount of skill leveling no matter what you smith. So you can just spam leather boots/gauntlets/helmets for quick smithing skill.

@XII_Sniper: FUCKING SPOILERS DUDE.

But as to the OP's concern...pretty much every box, chest, barrel, and crate respawns, with only a few exceptions. The easiest ones to be sure that they don't respawn are in houses, but there are a few others dotted around the world. A game guide or something would probably be able to identify them. But regardless, you just need to get a home dude.

Wow, that sucks. I thought since its your room it should also be classified as your house as well. Im storing all my stuff in my college room and they are still there after 40 hours, but ye im not gonna risk it and go buy a house just to be safe, thanks for letting us know OP.

@JimmyBones: The only 'safe' place to store items is a purchased house. Otherwise, the item staches may reset, and the stuff left around the room may disappear. It's something that has existed in TES since... forever. If it kept all that data, your save files would be astronomically-large.

I keep all my stuff in a chest at the Thieves Guild. Nothing taken yet and I'm about 20 hours in. I guess there is honor among thieves.