Hardware Backing up savefiles from actual GBA carts

[Trapster]

I guess the short story is that I need something to back up the saves on my GBA games. It needs to be able to back them up to the computer or something like that and also write them to the cart again if needed. IF I also get a flash cart, it needs to be compatible with the Gameboy Player.

At first I thought I only needed a flash cart and began looking for that. Found out that EZ Flash IV is one of the best but it's almost impossible to find it in stock.

Then I realized there's more to it than that and came to the conclusion I mentioned first.

Do I actually need something like this crazily expensive contraption?
http://www.ezfadvance.com/cards/EZ-Flash_II_Power_Star.htm

 

[loco365]

If you have a DS and a proper flashcard, you can use Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool to dump saves and flash new saves.

 

[Trapster]

If you have a DS and a proper flashcard, you can use Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool to dump saves and flash new saves.

Ah, so that can add them to the actual carts? Hm. It'd be nice to have a GBA flash cart that works with Gameboy Player too, though.

I have a CycloDS Evolution but I'd hate to use my DS phat since the screen isn't very good on that one.

I've been looking at the EZ-Flash VI and SuperCard DS TWO regarding flash cards for the DS consoles

 

[loco365]

Ah, so that can add them to the actual carts? Hm. It'd be nice to have a GBA flash cart that works with Gameboy Player too, though.

I have a CycloDS Evolution but I'd hate to use my DS phat since the screen isn't very good on that one.

I've been looking at the EZ-Flash VI and SuperCard DS TWO regarding flash cards for the DS consoles

The CycloDS Evolution should work, providing it autio-DLDI patches (although most cards do that anyways). iirc, most of the operations are done on the touch screen, but if you can borrow another DS, you should be fine to go. The controls are fairly simple.

 

[FAST6191]

Five main ways to back up GBA save games (and dump the games themselves I guess)

1) A proper old linker, the "easiest" way once things are set up. Good luck finding an old commercial one, you can build one http://www.ziegler.desaign.de/GBA/gba.htm#cart reader

2) An old multiboot cable. These might be easier to find in shops (I doubt it will be easy though) and you can build your own without too much hassle- http://www.ziegler.desaign.de/GBA/gba.htm#Multiboot

3) Old cheat hardware, some of these had save grabbing abilities. Not sure what goes here as far as getting them onto the PC though many were hard to do anything more than back saves up to the device and restore them later. http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/SendSave/index.html has some software but depending upon the cable you have you might be better suited going for the software it comes with.

4) A DLDI capable GBA flash cart, some luck (sometimes the current draw causes it to reset which means it does not work) and http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/SendSave/index.html#cart_save
For the record a nice shop with a matching flag to your own and a long history of being a great shop (they are a former sponsor of this place) has some nice DS lite ones (bonus is they take microSD which saves finding a miniSD).
http://shop.01media.com/info.asp?ProductID=33290
http://shop.01media.com/info.asp?ProductID=16632
With a tiny bit of modding (some sandpaper being the most outrageous part of it all) they will fit and work fine in a normal size GBA slot. Best if you add a ribbon or some tape to pull it back out though.

5) A DS Slot cart and a DS or DS lite and the tool Team Fail linked up. That would be where I started if I did not still have my old old GBA gear.

 

[Trapster]

The CycloDS Evolution should work, providing it autio-DLDI patches (although most cards do that anyways). iirc, most of the operations are done on the touch screen, but if you can borrow another DS, you should be fine to go. The controls are fairly simple.

Oh, right. I forgot to mention that I have a DSi and a 3DS aswell.

Five main ways to back up GBA save games (and dump the games themselves I guess)

1) A proper old linker, the "easiest" way once things are set up. Good luck finding an old commercial one, you can build one http://www.ziegler.desaign.de/GBA/gba.htm#cart reader

2) An old multiboot cable. These might be easier to find in shops (I doubt it will be easy though) and you can build your own without too much hassle- http://www.ziegler.desaign.de/GBA/gba.htm#Multiboot

3) Old cheat hardware, some of these had save grabbing abilities. Not sure what goes here as far as getting them onto the PC though many were hard to do anything more than back saves up to the device and restore them later. http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/SendSave/index.html has some software but depending upon the cable you have you might be better suited going for the software it comes with.

4) A DLDI capable GBA flash cart, some luck (sometimes the current draw causes it to reset which means it does not work) and http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/SendSave/index.html#cart_save
For the record a nice shop with a matching flag to your own and a long history of being a great shop (they are a former sponsor of this place) has some nice DS lite ones (bonus is they take microSD which saves finding a miniSD).
http://shop.01media.com/info.asp?ProductID=33290
http://shop.01media.com/info.asp?ProductID=16632
With a tiny bit of modding (some sandpaper being the most outrageous part of it all) they will fit and work fine in a normal size GBA slot. Best if you add a ribbon or some tape to pull it back out though.

5) A DS Slot cart and a DS or DS lite and the tool Team Fail linked up. That would be where I started if I did not still have my old old GBA gear.

Building stuff myself sounds like a bit of trouble. I don't know anything about programming either. But the GBA flash cart needs to be compatible with Gameboy Player if I get one of those.

 

[Rydian]

DSi and 3DS don't have Slot-2, and cart-swapping Slot-1 doesn't work, so they're useless for any save manipulation (even DS games).

 

[Trapster]

DSi and 3DS don't have Slot-2, and cart-swapping Slot-1 doesn't work, so they're useless for any save manipulation (even DS games).

Terrific. Just when you thought it couldn't get more complicated. Now what? Suppose I could use my DS Phat for the save stuff.

 

[Trapster]

So yeah...that Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool thing. The readme file is full of gibberish.

"Slot-1—p‚ÌŒ¤‹†ƒc[ƒ‹‚ð—˜—p‚µ‚āAGBA ROMƒJ[ƒgƒŠƒbƒW“à‚ÌSAVEƒf[ƒ^‚Ì
ƒoƒbƒNƒAƒbƒv/ƒŒƒXƒgƒA‚ÆROMƒCƒ[ƒW‚̃oƒbƒNƒAƒbƒv‚ðs‚¤ƒvƒƒOƒ‰ƒ€‚Å‚·B
GBA ROM‚ÌSAVEƒf[ƒ^‚ª”j‘¹‚·‚é“™‚Ì•s‹ï‡‚ª”¶‚·‚邱‚Æ‚ªl‚¦‚ç‚ê‚Ü‚·‚Ì‚Å
Ž©ŒÈÓ”C‚É‚Ä‚²—˜—p‚‚¾‚³‚¢"

That's only a small part of it but all of it looks like that. Even the name of the text file is weird:

"ôÃé±é+âl".

Any way to get a proper one?

 

[Rydian]

It's not in english, so use a fancier text editor (like Notepad++) and change the text encoding. SHIFT-JIS (japanese) is the character set, then you can run it through google translate or something.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Instruction for it are in english on the program itself at all times (assuming your default language is not set to Japanese), bottom screen.

button and function are laid out like this

(button you press) : What it does

If you don't know what mode your in, it is titled for you on the bottom screen.

Spoiler

 

[nintendough]

Hey guys, I just got back into an EZ Flash IV and games n my GBM. I was wondering if I could play Pokemon and flash the saves onto real carts when I'm done (save space while traveling) in order to transfer the Pokemon to my DS games? I still have a DS Lite sitting around.

Or is there something else I would have to do? I have a M3 Real + GBA expansion and a SuperCard DSTwo for my DSi XL. Do I need mo hardware to pull this off and is there a program that lets me convert GBA saves? I pulled all my oldGBAsaves when I briefly had a M3 Lite Perfect (foolishly returned due to RTC never working on that one) and have since had those actual carts stolen...

 

[FAST6191]

You can use the inbuilt link options of the EZ4 with some of the earlier DS games though that gets tedious.

Cory1492 made a program called pokepatch that allowed you to patch the DS games (naturally you will be running a DS ROM from a DS flash cart) to read from GBA flash carts.
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/rom-hacks/download-pokepatch-42-f27240.html

From there you could probably even transfer the DS saves back to regular carts if you wanted.

GBA saves should not need converting save for the AKAIO ones I believe which have a small extra header. Other times you made need to pad out or trim the GBA save to match what it actually is but that is not so bad.