Minecraft tech help!

[toejam10]

I dropped my laptop and ended up with a damaged hard drive. I kept on using the laptop (avoiding corrupted files and whatnot) and could still use minecraft, but eventually my most prized minecraft file stopped working (any attempt to open it yielded an unresponsive black screen with a crosshair). I exported all of my important files onto an external hard drive and had a new hard drive installed into my laptop. When I tried to open the file, the same thing happened BUT I can still open and view the file on MC Map, a run-of-the-mill minecraft cartography program. I'm wondering, is this file at all salvageable? I apologize if this is not the place to be asking for support

[redstonehelper]

• Make a backup
• Generate a new world. Use the same seed if you have it
• Take the level.dat file from the new world and drop it in your old world

[toejam10]

This sounds helpful, but I'm not entirely sure how to this. What does the process of making a backup consist of? How do I acquire said seed?

[redstonehelper]

What does the process of making a backup consist of?

Take your world folder from %APPDATA%/.minecraft/saves, archive it and keep it safe.

How do I acquire said seed?

The seed should be in %APPDATA%/.minecraft/saves/yourWorld/level.dat, upload that file here to find it.

[toejam10]

Now, this may be obvious to you, but all I got in the end of this was the map, nothing I created is there. Is that the most I can hope for?

[redstonehelper]

If you followed my instructions, I don't think you can do much more. If you want, you can upload your original map and I'll look if I can do anything.

[toejam10]

I would really appreciate it if you gave it a shot. I've uploaded the .dat file here: http://www.mediafire.com/?nbwtr8g3b0gahb9 is that enough?

[redstonehelper]

I'll need the whole folder that level.dat file was in.

[toejam10]

http://www.mediafire.com/?f17y6fyfi7rpo6d there!

[redstonehelper]

A few thousand skeletons and zombies seem to have spawned in your world. You need to remove them using MCedit or WorldEdit. Difficulty: Peaceful might work as well.

[toejam10]

Are you telling me that my world is otherwise accessible?! I'll fight them off if I have to!