MR 1&2 DX Automatic Backup Scripts for Steam

Create complete and total backups of your Steam MR1&2DX game saves on Windows or Linux. These backups can be restored to your live game data at any point in time.

How It Works How To Set It Up Restore from Backup Optional Methods Download Scripts Credits

Steam game saves have had a rare issue with becoming corrupted. If you've ever seen someone say that their Steam save files became corrupted, or have had this happen to you personally, these scripts will help create restore points for your game. Additionally these can be used to create full point-in-time backups for specific use cases like saving competitive monsters that you may be running out of room with with the default 15 save slots the game provides.

Backup Scripts and How They Work

PowerShell (for Windows) and Bash (for Linux) scripts were made to help automate backing up your Steam save files for Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX.

By itself the script is not automatic; When launched it will run once, then stop.

Automation and Frequency: are based entirely on how you set up Windows Task Scheduler, or Cron job in Linux. After setting this up, and pointing to the script, you will have a fully automated incremental backups that you can restore from any time you want to.

Example: You set Task Scheduler or Cron job to run indefinitely every 15 min. The Task/Job will launch the script at your specified time increment, and checks if the game is running.

Monster Rancher 1 or 2 DX is NOT running:
- The script takes no actions, and simply closes.
Monster Rancher 1 or 2 DX is running:
- The script will copy the Documents\KoeiTecmo folder to the location specified in the script.
- The folder is dated and time stamped at the moment it was run. (Because it is time stamped the folder will not overwrite the previous backups when future backups are saved)
- The script closes.

Will backing files up frequently use up a lot of disk space? A fully backed up save directory (which includes every save slot in MR1 and MR2) is about 700kb. less than 1mb. If you want to keep incremental backups long-term you can zip them as well, which will bring it down to 70kb. You can always delete older incremental backups that aren't needed. The backups are primarily there in case something goes wrong either with your monster raise (and you want to go back to an earlier point) or an event happened that caused save file corruption.

These scripts can be modified however you see fit, but out of the box they will create a copy of the saves folder with the date and time that it was copied.

How to Set it Up

Complete set up instructions are included in each script's comments. Both PowerShell and Bash scripts are included in the download. Open in any text or script editor to view the script and read the instructions.

It is IMPORTANT to note the save location in the script: Be sure to change the drive letter or path to a location that exists on your computer!

Windows Task Scheduler

Setting up Task Scheduler to run the Automatic Backup Script.

Open Task Scheduler (WinKey and search Task Scheduler) and click Create Task.
Give the Task a Name and Description. Set to Run whether you are logged in or not and enter your password so that the script can run without manual intervention.
Click the Triggers tab and click New.
Set the task to begin At startup. Check Repeat Task box and choose how often to run it. Set it to run Indefinitely. and check Enabled box.
Click the Actions tab and click New.
Set Action to Start a program. In the Program/script field, type PowerShell.exe. In the Add arguments field add the -file switch, a space, and the full path to the MRDX backup script in quotes. Example: -file "D:\mr-stuff\mrdx-backup-script.ps1". (If you're not sure, you can always Right-Click on the script and choose "Copy as Path".)
Double-Check that the Drive letter and folder location exists as indicated in the backup script.
- You can either change the path in the script to your preferred location, or...
- create the folders on your computer to match the script.
Lastly, Reboot your PC. Remember that we've set the task's triggering event to run at Start-Up, then continue indefinitely afterward. From the time the computer boots, the task will run at every interval that was specified in step 4.
(So if you set it for 30 minutes and booted up at 8:35am, the next time it will check is at 9:05, then at 9:35 etc.)

Linux Cron Job

Setting up the Script and automating with Cron

Make sure the Bash script is executable with:
chmod +x /path/to/script/MRDXSaveBackup.sh
In a Terminal, type crontab -e
Specify the schedule (every 15 minutes for example):
*/15 * * * * /path/to/script/MRDXSaveBackup.sh /path/to/destination
- /path/to/script is where ever you have saved the Bash script.
- /path/to/destination is any other location where the backups will be saved.

Please see the script comments for additional info from the script author.

Restoring from Backup

Restoring from a backup is very simple.

Because it is a backup of the entire KoeiTecmo folder, all that needs to be done is to replace the entire contents of the Documents\KoeiTecmo with the entire contents of any particular backup.

If you have backed up a previous save that has every save slot filled with your favorite monsters, whether you manually delete everything from the game or a power outage corrupts all your game saves, you can restore everything from a backup simply by replacing the original folder contents with the backed up contents.

Monster Rancher DX Restore: Delete contents of KT folder.

Monster Rancher DX Restore: Select and go into a Backup Folder you want to restore from.

Monster Rancher DX Restor: Copy the contents of the backup folder into the KT folder

Optional Backup Options

Do I need to run backup scripts? No! These are completely optional.

The scripts are a convenience for the absent minded or the unlucky or both. They were written by the community to help out a few folks that were running into save file corruption, and additionally as a means to just have restore points or a complete and total backup of all 15 save slots.

With backups even if your save data was completely erased, you'll able to restore to any previously backed up point in time or toggle between as many different saves as you'd like. This can be very handy too, if you're doing a meticulous tournament raise and you often forget to save your progress at critical decision points for correcting a raising error.

Other backup methods:

Manual Right-Click
- Without any scripts, simply Right-Click your Documents\KoeiTecmo folder and make a copy.
- Pasting it somewhere (typically naming it in such a way as you can identify it later).
- Downside is usually when you think to do this, is after you've had a problem. So if you're doing it manually this way, be sure to do this at specific milestones in your play.
Lexi's Advanced Viewer for MR2
- AV for MR2 has a button you can click that will make a backup of your KoeiTecmo folder and time-stamp it for you.
- This is still a manual process (clicking the button) but it will always save with the time stamps and you can rename them later if desired.

Credits: MonsterFenrick for PowerShell script, V (The Squirrel of Damocles) for Bash script.

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