Hacking GBA saves

[Eyeck]

Hey everyone, I've had a m3 real perfect bundle using sakura for about a year now and haven't had any problems up till now, but today when I tried to run a GBA games for the first time in a while I saw my saves were gone ( .SAV file still there, but my only option in the game was new game). I started playing, saved multiple times, turned it off, turned it back on, loaded the game again, same problem. save gone. I checked my other GBA games, they've all lost their save data too. I've tested sakura, touchpod, fast load, patch load, rts on and off, I can't save.
The weirdest part was when I tried it on Fire Emblem, I chose suspend game and went back to the main menu, and there was no resume option. Only new game. So it seems I can't write to the .SAV file at all, even when I don't turn the system off. Any help at all would be appreciated.

Just saw something I missed on my first search of the forum, seems Pi3ce0fmind had the same problem in this thread but it never got resolved.

 

[Fel]

Well supposedly it has battery, maybe if you let it recharge for a day inside the DS (and have the DS turned on), then it will save again?

 

[Eyeck]

Yeah I read that the battery can be a problem so I tried charging it but no luck. And the games have no problem loading or playing, saving is the only issue. So I don't think it's an issue with the battery. Could my gba expansion pack be dying?

 

[DunkrWunkah]

Maybe the battery inside came DOA.

 

[Eyeck]

Couldn't be, like I said it worked fine when I got it about a year ago. Anyone know what type of battery it is? maybe I can find a replacement for a few bucks somewhere...

btw, after a google search it seems I'm definitely not the only one with this problem, and no solution yet that I've found. People reported the same thing at a number of other forums, here, here, and here. Anyone have any idea what's going on?

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

You can use the tape method listed on the site to swap a new battery in or you can use the maintaince section in the first link in my sig.

 

[Eyeck]

Thanks for the info, I bought a new battery and switched them out today but still no luck. I'm starting too think it's just a bad cart. Unless anyone has any other suggestions I'm about ready to throw in the towel on this one. It's a shame, looks like I wasted 20$