How to backup GameBoy and GameBoy Colour save games from retail cartridges

Hey
Thank you very much for your fast reply.

I tried it but it didn't work. Then I tried the same with other games like Pokemon cristall and wario land 2. Both worked perfectly and the VisualBoy could read the .Sav file.
I asked a friend the give me his Pokemon Red Game. I stored the savegame on my PC... and everything works fine..?

It seems to be the .Sav file at itself who doesn't work correctly. I tested all my games before I put them into the transferer and they all work fine. Maybe the game brokes just before I put it into the transferer...

It looks like I have to catch all 150 Pokemon again :D

But is there really no way to copy a .Sav file to an ORIGINAL Module? Do I realy have to buy one of these rewritable GB flash cards? I tried it over and over. The Game just don't want to read the file ;(

Thanks for helping and have a nice day!

domi
 
Maybe start a new game on an emulator and see if you can write the save to the original cart? you should be able to write saves to it fine. I guess something is just up with that save unfortunately.
 
Hey there and thanks again for your fast help.

I tried a lot of things today.

First of all I started 4 different games on the VisualBoy. Pokemon red, blue, gold and silver. I played a few minutes, then I stored the games on the PC.

Pokemon Red (VB).Sav
Pokemon Blue (VB).Sav
Pokemon gold (VB).Sav and
Pokemon silver (VB).Sav

Next I started the same 4 games on my Gameboy. I've also played a few minutes, then stored the game.
After that I removed all games from the gameboy and waited for a while. (to see if the battery still works)

Now I put the games back to the Gameboy. The Pokemon red and blue games were fine, the gold and silver one were already deleted..? (Is this possible? I mean Pokemon red and blue are much older than the gold and silver one..?)

So now I put Pokemon red and blue into the GB transferer 2 and stored them on my PC.(Pokemon Red (GB).Sav and Pokemon Blue (GB).Sav). I tried to load both files with the visual boy. Everything worked fine. The emulator could read the saves.
After transferring the files I put the games back to the gameboy to see if the games still have their saves. Both still works.

My first test object was Pokemon red.

I tried to load the Pokemon Red (VB).Sav to the original game. - doesn't work. The game couldn't read it.
Then I tried to load the original Pokemon Red (GB).Sav file back. It worked! the game could read it. :)

And now the same with Pokemon blue.

Pokemon Blue (VB).Sav to original game: - doesn't work.
Pokemon Blue (GB).Sav: works perfectly.

I tried it a few times. Each time the same result.


Both games could read their own original file, but not the one from the Visual boy.

There was a differenc between the original .Sav files and the one from the emulator. The .Sav files from the gameboy have always a size of 128kB.
The other saves are between 33kB and 35kB ..? Maybe that's a problem.


My last "experiment" was really interesting.

I tried to send the Pokemon Red (GB).Sav file to the Pokemon Blue module. And it worked! :D There are exactely my files from red in the pokemon blue game.^^


At least, as long as I can save my original games and load the files back to the original module everything is fine for me. I just want a backup of the original game files. To load a file from a emulator to an original game isn't important for me.

thanks a lot and have a nice weekend ;)

domi
 
The size could be the problem, ill have to have a look at my extracted save file sizes when i'm home to compare them.

Glad you have managed to do what you wanted though (Y)
 
Hi

I recently bought the GB transferer 2, and i had success in transfering my sav to my pokemon crystal cartridge.

My problem is when i want to do the same with my pokemon emerald (using the xlinker 4.1). i only stored my save to the pc (loading with 64k savetype) but i can't upload my save file from the VBA to my emerald cartridge.

I suppose that there's some problems with the save type, but i want to know if there is a way to do this successfully changing the set up when uploading (there was many options and i don't know certainly which of them work)
 
For the GBA games you need to use GBA Backup Tool in an Nintendo DS, with a DS Flashcard. That is compatible with a lot more save types, including the ones that the Pokemon games use.

For Pokemon games you also need to use a 128K save, otherwise they will corrupt after you beat the elite four.
 
InsaneNutter said:
For the GBA games you need to use GBA Backup Tool in an Nintendo DS, with a DS Flashcard. That is compatible with a lot more save types, including the ones that the Pokemon games use.

For Pokemon games you also need to use a 128K save, otherwise they will corrupt after you beat the elite four.
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for helping

i only wanted to transfer my pokemon form the sav file to my emerald cartridge, transfering the sav, but i thing that it will be imposible for now cause it seems GB transferer doesn't work for it, i don't have a DS and i don't know how to use this program and the DS Flashcard
 
I got one of these, ordered from djtransformer in january, arrived this week (yes, really..)
anyway, I got a new pc since then and no longer have a parallel port, so bought a pci to parallel port thingy but no matter what port settings I try on the program and by changing from LPT1, LPT2, LPT3 in windows device manager (on xp) all I get is a connection failed error... tried switching ports and turning the device off and on again and restarting the program and the computer. no go.

Maybe the pci adapter isn't compatible or not running at 0x378 even if I set it to LPT1, I have no idea. I really want to make a backup of the saves on my pokemon games before it's too late...
 
At a guess i would say the pci parallel card is not compatible. I cant think what else you can try to be honest.

I used a really old PC with my device and it appeared to work fine first time, maybe a friend has an old PC with a parallel port you can try?
 
Hello there!
Recently my pokemon blue cartridge's battery run out and i lost my save file and the ability to save. And now i want to change all the batteries from all my games because i dont want to loose them.
1st quest: is there any way to change it and not to loose my save file?

so i started looking up the internet for any tool that i can backup my save file and then remove the battery and then load back my save file.
I ended up with two choices
1st the gb transferer 2 that supports also gba
and 2nd the mega smart card with an extra 64M usb card.

2nd ques: is it possible to backup to my pc and then load it back to my original pokemon gace card with any of these?

3rd quest: from where can i buy any of these cheaply and come ASAP?



thank you!
 
You could do what you want with either the transferer 2 or the Datel Mega Memory for the Gameboy / Gameboy colour. That can still be purchased on Amazon UK.

The transferer 2 will backup the game to the pc, and yes you can also restore it to the original cartridge too.

As for where to buy, the Transferer 2 i dont know where the best place to buy this is, however the Detel Mega Memory is currently on Amazon.co.uk for £15 - Mega Memory: Amazon.co.uk: PC & Video Games

The Mega memory is pretty easy to use, the only downside is you can not copy saves to the PC with this. However you can back up your saves to it, change the battery in the cartridge and then restore the savegame.

Hope that helps!
 
Hello,
Nowadays it's difficult to make a GBTransferer (2) work on a machine without webs and dead spiders inside. I've recently come up with a configuration that is a bit annoying to set up. First, the only piece of hardware which can access the Transferer is a PCI parallel port with a Remap function​​. These cards let you open directly via hardware I/O ports 378, 278, 3BC, the ones you need for the Transferer. Unfortunately the internet is full of fake chinese replica of other chinese products, so don't be tempted by these cheap cards you see online on eBay. The standard cost is around 65$. If you live in Australia you're lucky enough to try a Sunix PAR5008R and give feedback to us. Otherwise, you may order a Startech PCI1PM, which I personally tested on my 2009 machine (motherboard is Asus Rampage II Gene).

Now, the second issue. The PCI card works well on my Windows 7 x64, but the EMS software isn't absolutely compatible (compatibility mode is useless, it's a matter of OS structure). So the only way is to create a little partition to install Windows XP x32 or older versions of Windows. Do it and install all your hardware's drivers. With this config I managed to get my Transferer work under 278 port both with GBSWE and Xlinker software. I really hope this will help everyone.

Tips: you may have to enable "hardware plug 'n' play" mode in your BIOS in order to properly install the PCI card in legacy mode. I had to do this on my PC, otherwise ports range would conflict in the OS.

These remappable cards are the only available solution for everybody who hasn't got an old PC with a native parallel port in the motherboard.​ Even if your PC is old, if you open it and see that the parallel port is an external device like a PCI or an adapter, and it isn't directly attached on the mobo, then you'll need this.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the useful post Artai, good to see it is possible to get this working on modern hardware, even if you cant use a modern OS.
 
I've just tested an upload of SRAM in Ruby and Sapphire and it worked perfectly.

This is how I did it: I launched Visual Boy Advance for Mac OS X, set 64KB save type under Preferences, created a new game from both Ruby and Sapphire, moved saves to PC and uploaded saves with Xlinker using Flash Memory Saver option.
I've also launched the ROMs using those saves batteries and editing a bit with pokesavs and gameshark codes. The transfer was also positive.

What I attempted unsuccessfully: doing the very same procedure with Windows' VBA. It's a totally different emulator. Even when I turn saves to 64KB type and create a new game, the original game fails reading and prompts deleted save message when started.
Filesize is the same, however VBA [win] is no use.

I'll try other emulators in the future, but I've got the feeling that none of them is useful in save type choise.
_____________________________________

I also tried a SRAM overwrite with GB games; this time the saves came from the original cartidges. Success with Gold and Silver, failure with Red. I guess I have to wait for my ordered MegaMemory to be delievered.
 
Artai said:
I've just tested an upload of SRAM in Ruby and Sapphire and it worked perfectly.

This is how I did it: I launched Visual Boy Advance for Mac OS X, set 64KB save type under Preferences, created a new game from both Ruby and Sapphire, moved saves to PC and uploaded saves with Xlinker using Flash Memory Saver option.
Click to expand...

The problem you have there is that Ruby and Sapphire need more than 64KB to save, when you beat the elite four your save will be erased.

Pokemon GBA games need the full 128KB, however you can dump them correctly with an Nintendo DS or DS Lite, using a NDS flashcard running the GBA Backup Tool homebrew app.
 
InsaneNutter said:
The problem you have there is that Ruby and Sapphire need more than 64KB to save, when you beat the elite four your save will be erased.
Click to expand...

It works this way. I believe the past issue of game reset after beating elite 4 was only a emulation problem of VBA[win].
I've tried right now beating the League both in the emulator (VBAwin) and on my GBA. The former only prompts a "The save file is corrupted. The previous save file will be loaded." message like it always do, but in fact it loads the current save in Littleroot. The latter has no error message and normally starts at Littleroot.

However, I don't personally recommend using this different file size. The only clean way is using the Backup Tool with 128KB saves. Maybe someone with programming skills can explain why it's not good.

Up until now my R/S/E 64KB size saves didn't fail me. However, Fire Red and Leaf Green cannot work in 64KB with this VBA OS X method; you just can't force this size.

Soon I'll get my hands back on my DSLite and try the Backup tool on a fake Emerald cartidge (the board has no 3V battery transistors and previous save file message prompts when started; it's useful when I trade pokémons because I can duplicate them this way).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

About Digiex

Digiex is a technology and gaming forum, founded in 2004 by InsaneNutter and Nimrod. Digiex has served the internet community with breaking news, detailed guides, exclusive downloads and a popular discussion forum. A small, friendly community of like‑minded people has developed over the years. People are encouraged to register and participate in on‑going discussions.

Get Social

Top Bottom