Lost 2 toons worth of data (macros, etc) - help!

I'm not really sure what happened. :(

I'm leveling my first 5-toon team, approx level 48 on all toons. I was running an instance when all of a sudden my computer crashed. I didn't think too much of it - not really sure what the cause was.

However, upon rebooting and starting up, something happend with my ISBoxer and WoW Accounts.

Two of my 5 toons upon booting up were coming up as if I had never ever logged into them before, asking me to log into my battle.net account, etc. It took a while to just get the screen resolutions to look correct - (I ended up having to reset the defaults on the two and use the wizard to create a new team with these toons)

After logging in, I find that all my macros / add-on settings / etc are all gone for just these 2 toons. 3 of the others are as they should be.

So my questions:

1) Any idea what could cause this? And possible how to prevent this?

2) What files should I be backing up in order to keep settings for things like bartender 4, macros, etc.

I'm super confused because I kind of thought macros were saved on the WoW server (one of my old characters have macros from like 5 years ago when I've never even used this computer before with wow).

Any help to prevent something like this in the future would be helpful. I guess I could just periodically make a backup of my wow folder, but I couldn't see any clear indication as to where a lot of the character specific stuff would be stored (macros, bartender settings, etc). I feel so off balance now since I was just finally getting the hang of my set-up, and now am thinking I'm putting too much faith into add-ons / wow profiles... and thinking I should be doing more things through innerspace / ISBoxer

Thanks!

Can't tell you why it happens, but check the following files. Make sure your folders are listed as a "Details" view { rightclick a blank area > View > Details}. You will see the files listed with both the file name and another column with the file type. :

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME -

bindings-cache > type "OLD file"
config-cache > type "OLD file"
macros-cache > type "OLD file"
SavedVariables.lua > type "BAK file"


World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\SavedVariables -

anything named .lua > type "BAK file"

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\SERVERNAME\TOONNA ME -

bindings-cache > type "OLD file"
config-cache > type "OLD file"
macros-cache > type "OLD file"
SavedVariables.lua > type "BAK file"

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\SERVERNAME\TOONNA ME\SavedVariables -

anything named lua > type "BAK file"

These are backup files. They should all be the settings you had before the latest save. With any luck. they will be what you had before it all reverted to default.




1. Copy the following files to your desktop before making any changes {group them in folders so you don't lose where they are supposed to go}. They should all have the most recent date on them :

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME -

bindings-cache > type "WTF file"
config-cache > type "WTF file"
macros-cache > type "TXT file"
SavedVariables > type "LUA file"


World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\SavedVariables -

anything listed as type "LUA file"

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\SERVERNAME\TOONNA ME -

bindings-cache > type "WTF file"
config-cache > type "WTF file"
macros-cache > type "TXT file"
SavedVariables > type "OLD file"

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME\SERVERNAME\TOONNA ME\SavedVariables -

anything listed as type "LUA file"

2. Now open each of the backup files {OLD or BAK file types} in notepad. If it says "Windows can't open this file..." and asks "What do you want to do?" choose "Select a program from a list of installed programs". Chose Notepad or whatever text editor you normally use.

Go to File > Save As. The file should already list without the .bak or .OLD extension. Add the appropriate file type {.txt, .wtf, .lua} if it's not there. Select "All Types" under "Save as type". Click Save. Click Yes to overwrite the file.

3. If luck is on your side, you should be able to log back in to all your settings being correct and you can delete all the crap you saved to desktop. If not, you'll have to redo everything or you can try copying the files from toons that work to the toons that don't.

Files you'll want to backup are anything under step 1. After you have things set properly, of course.

Thank you!

It sucks because my "Old" cache files never updated a single time since I created my RaF accounts - so lost all that data =/

However, even though I looked, I apparently didn't notice the account folders near the WTF folders. Now at least, I'll hopefully be smart enough to make back-ups of these folders in case anything happens.

I still feel pretty naked in terms of feeling like I forgot to re-add a macro. I still wonder if I'm relying too much on WoW Interface stuff when I should be possibly relying on ISBoxer more.

For instance, 80% how I multibox right now is based around what spells I put in what keybinds. I've created about 30 dps key binds and often will use those slots on specific characters. I do use repeater regions for casting, and a few ISBoxer specific commands (for AOE and Moving Slaves)... but that's it.

I keep reading more and more, but I'm still learning and trying out new things. This was the first real set-back. Took me like 3 hours to start-up again. Should hit 60 on my first 5-man team by the middle of next week.