Save Might Be Corrupt or Bloated Maybe?

ButterWafflesAR

So, I recently had to do factory reset on my laptop, so I moved my two sims 3 saves onto a usb. After the reset, I reinstalled the game and all of the content, then moved my saves from the usb, onto that sims 3 files. When I tried booting up the save that I've been working on the most it doesn't fully load. It gets to a certain point then stops trying to load. Even the background music stops playing. But the screen isn't frozen, at least I don't think, because my curser is still doing that spinny thing. I tried cleaning out the cache files, then tried loading up the save and same thing happen again. The game loads fine, no issues there it's that save specifically. So, I looked up what might be the issue and I read that a save could either be corrupted or could be bloated. And the post had links to fix the bloated problem, which I was going to try, but both links sent me to error pages.

Just in case, you have to talk to me like I'm not smart. I'm completely brand new to technical problems with the sims 3. I only recently started using nraas mods. I know people mentioned making a backup to the save, but I don't know how to make backups to a save that won't load. If anyone knows how to fix this or at least has answers to what happen to my save and that I am most likely going to have to cut my losses and start a brand new one, its will all be greatly appreciated. Please?

hummingbird41556

Whenever I have to reset the computer or anything like that, I save the family I want to keep playing as an export and then save that export to an external hard drive. I might try saving the town I was using but as long as the family is safe, if the town is bloated or corrupted, I still have them. Sometimes you just have to lose the town, at least I do!
I'm having issues with other things in my game, and just set up a new hard drive so I understand the loss of a town, fresh in my mind! Still, if you save the family, or families if there are more than one, at least it isn't a total loss.