Scrivener has been dormant on my laptop for a bit because I was working on another project in a different program. Finished with that, I returned to Scrivener today to work on my current novel and found that the program said it couldn’t open my project. I’ve attached the message I keep receiving. I also tried to open older projects and the program wouldn’t open those either. I had a ton of research information in the folders I need. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
salarsen~
As I recall, this message appears when a specific newer version of Scrivener (maybe 1.9 and later) tries to open a project created by an older version. The file structure changed for that update, and older projects have to be converted. It’s perfectly fine to say yes to that dialog–Scrivener will convert the project to its new file structure and open it for work; you shouldn’t lose anything. Out of an excess of caution, it would be a good idea to back up the projects to another location before you open them; but give it a try, and you should be OK.
I did that and when Scrivener opened none of my information was there. Scrivener opened with the preset descriptions of each section of Scrivener. The last time I opened Scrivener on my laptop was in October. Was that too much time to leave the program closed? Should that matter? Any idea where my files are or if they are lost? 
I had all sorts of links in my research file, chapters developed along with the ones already written, and a ton of info on the corkboard. The file (project) was backed up, too. I tried to open other files that I’d backed up and they opened in the same way - to Scrivener’s blanket wordage & explanations not my material. What could I have done wrong?
As I recall, when Scrivener does the conversion to the new format, it automatically makes a backup of the file in the old format, so your stuff should be there somewhere.