Hacking GBA saves on M3 Sakura ignored - Workaround?

[Riddler9884]

FOR WORK AROUND SKIP TO +WORKAROUND+

I had bought my m3 ds real with with the m3 GBA Expansion more than 1 year ago, and for whatever reason I never used it. Last week I cave in and decide to start playing some of my gba games, and as long as I didn't mess with the setup too much the card would save and reload, but it would ignore saves I would bring in from VirtualBoy Advance (export battery method) or no$gba (uncompressed saves). I tried loading both from
- Touchpod
- Sakura
see http://gbatemp.net/threads/the-m3-quad-boot.205001/ for version

- Oldest entries are from 2011, so either it was fixed or people just gave up...

- I searched all over the net, Sakura's FAQ is now a message of the last update being issued for my card, the info I was looking for was not there(I think)

- I read up on the Exporting the battery file from VBA and the uncompressed tweak in the no$gba tweak. (Still ignored but would be useful later)

- I tried messing around and only leaving the gba and save file(exported battery) and launching from Sakura/touchpod.

- I noticed that if you removed the is0 file Sakura/touchpod start ignoring the save file created by sakura/touchpod .... (face palm)

- I did read that Sakura/touchpod back up the save file on rebooting back into Sakura/touchpod

- GbaExploader v58 and v57 were no help

I finally figured out how to load it back in when i decided to try YSMENU by accident:

+WORKAROUND+

You need the Quad boot version found here
http://gbatemp.net/threads/the-m3-quad-boot.205001/

1. Create a folder with just the gba and the save file
Note: The save file should either be originally created Sakura or a Battery Export from VirtualBoy Advance No$gba (you need to go into the ini and and make sure it says the following SAV/SNA File Format == Raw)

2. Create a copy with that save file and rename the extension to ".bak"
(This will save you if you frequently go between emulator and M3 Expansion pak

3. Boot into Sakura and then Load YSMENU
(Found out that if you remove the GBA expansion until just before you launch the game you can skip strait to 6. I would still double check the date on the save before loading)

4. Open the game folder and press the (Select) button, changing the display mode to save file mode

5. Find the back up file. It will say < Backup > under it. Press A and it will ask you if you wish to restore the bak file to the sav file? yes

6.
****If you came here from step 3 now is when you plug the gba expansion, before loading the game****
Press the (Select) button, changing the display mode to Games mode and load the game.

7. Save within the game and after the game is done saving, restart the DS and boot into Sakura/Touchpod.

8. Start the game from Sakura/Touchpod, and the save file should still be there.

+Notes+

- Pressing A+B+X+Y on boot when you see the m3 logo on the lower left brings back up the Touchpod or Sakura select screen. (I didn't search too hard for this, but I did not run into it)

- Enabling the cheat option seems to make Sakura/Touchpod ignore the save file, turning it off seems to let you use the save file again.

-Tested on Megaman Battle Network and Pokemon FireRed and Leaf Green.

+Update+

- Just discovered if you stop playing Pokemon Leaf Green and start FireRed there is a chance your save file from leaf green might stick round, So again load from YSMenu save the game before loading from Sakura

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

Roudolph banned M3 slot1s from using any of his homebrew after the M3 group sent him a C&D. That was well before 2011, you either knew about it or didn't. You would have to get the hacked version of the GBA Exploader to get it working on a M3 slot1. Filetrip already has the hacked versions up for download for a while now.

The patch for Exploader 0.58: http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/applications/download-gba-exploader-058x-m3-patch-f4135.html
The patch already applied: http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/applications/download-gba-exploader-058b0mx-f10382.html

As for the issue of not being able to use saves from VBA, is more than likely a misconfigured save type setting in VBA or you don't know enough about the save types and the issues that come with it.

 

[Riddler9884]

Sorry If I didn't mention it, GBA Exploader which I have used in the past with my 3in1 from ez flash does not work for this one. I tried that file and it just gives me a message saying "Hardware is now available (A) confirm."after that it locks up.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

It is suppose to give you that error every time, it normally means the battery on it is bad or going bad and needs replacing soon.

The locking up issue is likely do to ExpLoader identifying it as a 3in1 (v2 or new3in1) instead of SDRAM. I don't know of any fixes for that.

 

[Riddler9884]

Well I think I have worked out more of why I have to jump through the above hoops to get it to work and its not a proper save type issue.
Sakura has the habit of backing up saving whatever is in the gba expansion memory on next boot which I read somewhere around here.

So by loading it in Ysmenu first saving and then reloading Sakura, I trick Sakura into saving from gba memory whatever I put up there with YSMENU. However I am missing a step in the above walk through.
which is basically place my save file in the card and then create a copy with the extention bak and from ysmenu restore the save file from bak....

Well time to run to work Ill update it later.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

I'd rather use the Sakura interface just for the gba cheat code support it has rather than use YSMENU.

 

[Riddler9884]

I would too but I haven't figured out how to backup or restore saves in Sakura.

I have been digging around and I noticed the following about the m3 patch for gba exploader

GBA Exploader works with the M3 DS Real and the EZ 3in1
GBA Exploader Does not works with the M3 DS Real and the M3 GBA Expansion
I can get the M3 GBA Expansion to work with Sakura

I wouldn't be doing this in such a round about method If I could control when Sakura decided to back up the GBA file or if there was a way to rename save files within Sakura.
I want to load my save file and not the one Sakura just put back in the card.

 

[Riddler9884]

Does anyone know in Sakura when does it back up the save file and If its possible to bypass it?
YSMenu does it when you boot up the the YSMenu system but I have never seen any indication under Sakura. Unless it takes care of that when its flashing the game into the Exp pak?

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

It back up your save when you restart you DSL.