Gaming Save question Harvest Moon/CFW

[ToolPunk]

*TL,DR*
Ok so a little back story first. We rented Harvest Moon from a game company that says you can buy it if you like it. Thing is, if they don't have enough stock or don't want to buy more, they are allowed to break that and demand the game back. I thought I would pull a smart one and grab an R4i Save Dongle and it almost worked. I successfully backed the save up (I know for sure because I saved in a different area of the game and then uploaded the save and it went back to the point of backup). The trouble came next.

We bought another copy of HM and went ahead with the save upload and nothing happened, Devastated! After much research I found out that there were multiple release versions of the game. At some point, certain versions had a 512KB save slot and others had a 1MB save slot. The chances right? The first one we had was a 1MB and the second ended up being a 512KB. So obviously, the save from the first Cart is too large to flash onto the second Cart.

*TL,DR*
We made the save for HM using R4i Save Dongle. My question is, (Now that we have CFW) is there anyway, if we got the digital copy of the game, could we convert, insert, salvage or save into whatever folder for it to be used? Or should I stop holding onto hope and hit DELETE?

 

[ToolPunk]

Wow more research left me losing hope quickly. The R4i Dumps into .sav and I have learned the Gateway saves in this format. Then I learned that the only way to convert from .sav into a CIA compatible save in order to import it with JKSM is to have a Gateway. So totally bummed... I will keep looking and hoping.

 

[lone_wolf323]

Wow more research left me losing hope quickly. The R4i Dumps into .sav and I have learned the Gateway saves in this format. Then I learned that the only way to convert from .sav into a CIA compatible save in order to import it with JKSM is to have a Gateway. So totally bummed... I will keep looking and hoping.

Ya, if you do not have the gateway card anymore or cannot make use of it, there aint anyway to pull the save from it. Only thing you could hope for at that point is providing the savefile and asking someone who uses a gateway card to convert it into a decrypted save.

 

[ToolPunk]

Wait though... I just read another thread and they ask the OP if it was from a Gateway or a Sky3DS.. and said if it wasn't from a gateway that you don't need to convert anything just use JKSM and import it. Since my save dump was a straight dump with the R4i Save Dongle then should I just try to import it?

I Never had a Gateway I am just trying to figure this out making assumptions and creating theories until I find answers. I assumed that since the R4i Save Dongle was from times ago that it dumped the Save into a "current times" format and I know .sav was a common save format. I have nothing to go on as to what the current gen dumps save files into and assumed it was different. By these assumptions I was trying to figure out how to get my .sav imported into a game using new methods which possibly involved converting an old format. It would seem my research is hinting at the fact that maybe, this is a standardized dump format that may have not changed and I need no conversion at all.

*Edit*
Tried importing it and nothing. Tried renaming the .sav to the name JKSM gave the backup of a save I created (save0.bin) and when I logged into the game it asked if I wanted to Continue. Choosing continue resulted in a System Crash.

 

[ToolPunk]

Well still looking for an R4i Save dongle .sav to CIA save filetype method for my game save...

https://filetrip.net/dl?jm0Z3hgbaX

 

[ToolPunk]

Ok so I have some recent knowledge that is confusing me on this topic again. During some recent issues I came to the realization that games installed to the SD card save to the SD card in .sav format. Now If I extracted a .sav file from a Cart with an R4 Save Dongle why can I not use this .sav in place of a save on the system? When doing so gives me yet a whole different error and crash...

 

[Negatronic]

Wait though... I just read another thread and they ask the OP if it was from a Gateway or a Sky3DS.. and said if it wasn't from a gateway that you don't need to convert anything just use JKSM and import it. Since my save dump was a straight dump with the R4i Save Dongle then should I just try to import it?

I Never had a Gateway I am just trying to figure this out making assumptions and creating theories until I find answers. I assumed that since the R4i Save Dongle was from times ago that it dumped the Save into a "current times" format and I know .sav was a common save format. I have nothing to go on as to what the current gen dumps save files into and assumed it was different. By these assumptions I was trying to figure out how to get my .sav imported into a game using new methods which possibly involved converting an old format. It would seem my research is hinting at the fact that maybe, this is a standardized dump format that may have not changed and I need no conversion at all.

*Edit*
Tried importing it and nothing. Tried renaming the .sav to the name JKSM gave the backup of a save I created (save0.bin) and when I logged into the game it asked if I wanted to Continue. Choosing continue resulted in a System Crash.

Are you sure you are restoring it to the same version of your game? I wasn't able to import my SC:NL save until I updated my SD version of the game. The SAV was created on a version with newer features than what I had installed on SD.