I am at wits end, folks. I am fresh out of ideas and am tossing my problems at my fellow Simmers in hopes one of you will understand. I'm not even sure I'm wording my query correctly to Google it. Here we go:

New Computer. Download Sims from Origin. Trusty External Hard-drive. Plug in my old Neighborhood save files into my new game. Right as rain. For three neighborhoods.

For the other three, I'm having a very strange issue... when I decide to play them, I click and load up the neighborhood, only to see a "fresh" game. Like a brand new install. Only ... it's not really. If I go to the connected college town (because all the subhoods are already connected and established) I can see the dorms I've built my Simmies. They're named the names I've given them - but they're all empty. My "storytelling" folder is weird, too. All the pictures are there of my old game and saves, but the Sims themselves? Lost, I suppose.

So I've been calling them Ghost Towns. There's evidence of my past games, but I can't actually "play" them.

Has anyone seen this? Am I crazy? What is going on!?

Thanks for taking the time to try and read through my mental breakdown. I'm ... I'm just beyond flustered at this point.

I don't have any suggestions, but sending virtual hugs. That sounds like a REALLY frustrating issue with your game. I hope someone can help.

That sounds awful. D:
Can you open any of the three wonky hoods in Simpe?

You know, I don't even have SimPE downloaded right now. Let me get back to you.

You say you copied your old hoods from backups into a new game. Did the wonky hoods have the same names as the pregenerated hoods, e.g. N001 for Pleasantview (even if you’d renamed/deleted the original hoods and created new ones with the same number in your old game)? If so, did you delete those before putting your backup in, or overwrite/merge the two sets of files together?

Definitively a Delete / Copy Paste situation.... is that not the best way?

I avoided having that issue myself by testing my install with a newly generated folder before I backed it up into another directory to have back ups of the neighborhoods in their original states.I copied everything out from a SIms 2 folder with my old content and replaced the neighborhoods folder with a copy from the new folder before loading the game up and starting a new town.
I'd try setting the TS2 game folder aside by moving the folder into a new folder forcing the game to generate a new TS2 folder which would have the neighborhoods in their original states and you can rename yours or add a letter or number to the name to stop it from overwriting the other version.I'd change the folder name or at least one letter of number in the name to stop that from happening.

Okay .... I think I fixed it.

I opened the Sims 2 folder. Navigated to Neighborhoods. Opened the folder to Strangetown (the one I've been having the strange issues with).

Then I did something terribly desperate that I've never heard of anyone doing.

I deleted everything inside that folder and replaced it, with the insides of the Saved Strangetown folder. Not replacing the folder itself, but all the innards if that makes sense.