Anyone got any tips to load save backups in Virtual Families 2?

I've been playing Virtual Families 2 and Virtual Villagers 4 on my laptop running Windows 10. After closing the game how as I usually do (going back to the main menu and exiting from there) my active family was gone when I wanted to play again. Had a similar issue with Virtual Villagers 4 and was able to fix the issue following what I read in this thread but when trying to do the same with Virtual Families 2 it'll wipe the "Virtual Families 20.ldw" file every time I boot up the game...



The files look to be in the right place, I'm not sure what could be going wrong!

I remember something like that happened to me. Try this:
Run the game. Make a copy of Virtual Families 21.ldw and renaming it to one of the other 4 save files (22-25). Close the game and reopen it. Does the file load?

Or you can try making a new game in a different slot first, then doing the above steps.

Just tried this- the new Virtual Families22.ldw file I made with a copy of Virtual Families21.ldw still isn't being recognized. When I made a new family and repeated the process, it worked... but only with the new family.

Starting to think something bad happened to my original save and I didn't back it up soon enough.

Aw man that's too bad. I hope you didn't lose too much progress