Tutorial
Updated
Use NDS Homebrew to Extract Repro Pokemon Save
Have a gba pokemon repro cart and want to use the save with your legitimate cart? Try the following (courtesy of Sanni, check out his cart reader project: https://github.com/sanni/cartreader).
This appears to work because the repro carts use a modified version of the game that saves to included non-battery backed up SRAM as a temporary save location before copying the save to the same flash memory that contains the game data.
1. Backup your reproduction cart using GBA_Backup_Tool or similar (make sure it has a different filename from your legitimate game cart)
2. Transfer the repro cart backup to your computer
3. Get visualboyadvance-m2.0.0Beta1 (other versions may work as well)
4. Open up visualboyadvance and select "Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure..." and change the save type to SRAM
5. Start the backup of the repro game.
6. The game will load with the error message "The previous save will be loaded" (or similar)
7. Select your game save and start the game. Save the game using the in-game save function. The game will try to save and will create a 64 kb save file but will then freeze (since it is trying to save to the repro's weird flash ram location) (wait until visualboyadvance displays a message in red that the save was written to the battery)
8. Close visualboyadvance, find the 64 kb .sav file that was created
9. Open visualboyadvance and select Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure... and change the save type to Flash and save size to 128 kb
10. Load up your legitimate game cart in visualboyadvance
11. While the game still displays year information, choose "File -> Import -> Battery File..." and import the 64 kb save you made previously.
12. The game should continue starting and will display a message like "The save file is corrupted. The previous save file will be loaded"
13. Select your save file and start the game
14. Go to Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure...
15. Change flash save size to 128 kb
16. Save the game using the in-game save function. (Wait until the message is displayed after that the save was written to the battery)
17. Restore the game save to your legitimate cartridge using GBA_Backup_Tool or similar.
Note: If a 64 kb save is still created in step 16 try to set an Override to force saving to 128 kb. While the legitimate game cart is running select Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure... and select the "Game Overrides" tab. Then set the override to be Save Type: Flash and Flash Size 128 kb. Exit visualboyadvance, delete the 64 kb save that was created in step 16, and try again from step 10.
This appears to work because the repro carts use a modified version of the game that saves to included non-battery backed up SRAM as a temporary save location before copying the save to the same flash memory that contains the game data.
1. Backup your reproduction cart using GBA_Backup_Tool or similar (make sure it has a different filename from your legitimate game cart)
2. Transfer the repro cart backup to your computer
3. Get visualboyadvance-m2.0.0Beta1 (other versions may work as well)
4. Open up visualboyadvance and select "Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure..." and change the save type to SRAM
5. Start the backup of the repro game.
6. The game will load with the error message "The previous save will be loaded" (or similar)
7. Select your game save and start the game. Save the game using the in-game save function. The game will try to save and will create a 64 kb save file but will then freeze (since it is trying to save to the repro's weird flash ram location) (wait until visualboyadvance displays a message in red that the save was written to the battery)
8. Close visualboyadvance, find the 64 kb .sav file that was created
9. Open visualboyadvance and select Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure... and change the save type to Flash and save size to 128 kb
10. Load up your legitimate game cart in visualboyadvance
11. While the game still displays year information, choose "File -> Import -> Battery File..." and import the 64 kb save you made previously.
12. The game should continue starting and will display a message like "The save file is corrupted. The previous save file will be loaded"
13. Select your save file and start the game
14. Go to Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure...
15. Change flash save size to 128 kb
16. Save the game using the in-game save function. (Wait until the message is displayed after that the save was written to the battery)
17. Restore the game save to your legitimate cartridge using GBA_Backup_Tool or similar.
Note: If a 64 kb save is still created in step 16 try to set an Override to force saving to 128 kb. While the legitimate game cart is running select Options -> Game Boy Advance -> Configure... and select the "Game Overrides" tab. Then set the override to be Save Type: Flash and Flash Size 128 kb. Exit visualboyadvance, delete the 64 kb save that was created in step 16, and try again from step 10.
Last edited by ootnes2,
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