NDS: How to Backup/Restore your retail cartridge save file for DS games

[tommo999]

so i would like to back up my Pokemon MD Blue, so i can learn how to speedrun it, is there a way to use my R4 which has a Micro SD card to back up the data?

[XerneusGuy]

I believe there *may* be a homebrew app on the DS that can extract saves but don't hold me to it

[leedsunited123]

I'm having a little problem transferring, I will do my best to explain:

My tools:

DS Lite

3ds

R4 cart with Save Game manager 0.2.4

Pokemon black and black 2 cart

I am trying to take a saved game file from my desume and transfer it to black cart, then upload my pokemon to the pokebank to drop into AS. I first tried the wifi option of smallftpd option of switching the carts while loading, but I assume my apple router isn't under the WEP default (if this is easy to do please explain and I will give that a try)

Is the only other option to get an EZ-Flash 3-1 and put that in the GBA port? What would I do in that scenario? Thanks in advance.

[evandixon]

I'm having a little problem transferring, I will do my best to explain:

My tools:

DS Lite

3ds

R4 cart with Save Game manager 0.2.4

Pokemon black and black 2 cart

I am trying to take a saved game file from my desume and transfer it to black cart, then upload my pokemon to the pokebank to drop into AS. I first tried the wifi option of smallftpd option of switching the carts while loading, but I assume my apple router isn't under the WEP default (if this is easy to do please explain and I will give that a try)

Is the only other option to get an EZ-Flash 3-1 and put that in the GBA port? What would I do in that scenario? Thanks in advance.

Try using TWLSaveTool with your 3DS, if you can.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-twlsavetool-v1-0.412887/

[leedsunited123]

Try using TWLSaveTool with your 3DS, if you can.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-twlsavetool-v1-0.412887/

Unless I'm missing something, I can't use this because my R4 is for ds, not 3ds.

[evandixon]

Unless I'm missing something, I can't use this because my R4 is for ds, not 3ds.

If you have a way of running homebrew on your 3DS (not with your R4), and if you have a copy of either PokéTransporter or Pokémon Dream Radar, then you should be able to use TWLSaveTool.

http://smealum.github.io/3ds/

[leedsunited123]

Thanks. Unfortunately I just updated to 10.6 by accident so I'm out of play. Will just buy the 3-in-1 and try it on the Lite.

[popal]

Hello,

I only own a New 3DS,

I want to backup/restore DS saves from/to DS cartidges.

What is the cheapest way to do so?

[evandixon]

Hello,

I only own a New 3DS,

I want to backup/restore DS saves from/to DS cartidges.

What is the cheapest way to do so?

This will work for the majority of games. It requires either CFW or a copy of Pokemon Transporter or Pokemon Dream Radar.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-twlsavetool-v1-0.412887/

[popal]

This will work for the majority of games. It requires either CFW or a copy of Pokemon Transporter or Pokemon Dream Radar.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-twlsavetool-v1-0.412887/

Thanks, I will be trying this.

[captn_bananapants]

I've read the "instructions" but i'm still slightly confused.

what exactly will i need to a download a save file from the internet & transfer it to a retail white 2 cartridge?woi

i have a original 3ds & dsi, action replay 3ds which is ds compatible. will i require an R4?

whats the easy/cheapest way to accomplish this?

7

Recently I've lost my 3ds with all my trained competitive,bred, shiny & event pokemon.... pretty much the last 10 years of my life haha

not in a big mood to re-do everything but i want to "catch em all" in time for sun & moon!

[evandixon]

I've read the "instructions" but i'm still slightly confused.

what exactly will i need to a download a save file from the internet & transfer it to a retail white 2 cartridge?woi

i have a original 3ds & dsi, action replay 3ds which is ds compatible. will i require an R4?

whats the easy/cheapest way to accomplish this?

7

Recently I've lost my 3ds with all my trained competitive,bred, shiny & event pokemon.... pretty much the last 10 years of my life haha

not in a big mood to re-do everything but i want to "catch em all" in time for sun & moon!

What firmware version is your original 3DS on? If you're not on 11.0, you can downgrade to 9.2, install CFW, and use TWL Save Tool. If you're on 10.5 or below you can use the browser, otherwise, you'd need another homebrew entrypoint.

[captn_bananapants]

What firmware version is your original 3DS on? If you're not on 11.0, you can downgrade to 9.2, install CFW, and use TWL Save Tool. If you're on 10.5 or below you can use the browser, otherwise, you'd need another homebrew entrypoint.

My apologies! I meant I have an original ds, I haven't purchased a new 3ds yet.

[evandixon]

My apologies! I meant I have an original ds, I haven't purchased a new 3ds yet.

Does your Action Replay have a microSD card slot on it? I'd guess so, since they stopped making those a while ago.

Here are your options:

-If you have compatible Wi-Fi (unsecured or WEP), you can use a flashcart. If you bought one, I would recommend something 3DS compatible since it sounds like you might get one in the future. Note: wifi backup and restore might be a bit unreliable based on previous posts, and I lost my DS lite, so I can't confirm

-Get a USB backup adapter plus, or another compatible backup adapter

-Get a 3ds that's on or below firmware 10.5 (10.7 if you have cubic ninja, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time + powersaves, or whatever the latest exploit game is (Freakyforms Deluxe I think)) and use TWL save tool. If you want to backup or restore PMD: Explorers of Sky, this won't work for some reason.

These options are in order of price and ease of use. In this case, they directly correlate.

[captn_bananapants]

Does your Action Replay have a microSD card slot on it? I'd guess so, since they stopped making those a while ago.

Here are your options:

-If you have compatible Wi-Fi (unsecured or WEP), you can use a flashcart. If you bought one, I would recommend something 3DS compatible since it sounds like you might get one in the future. Note: wifi backup and restore might be a bit unreliable based on previous posts, and I lost my DS lite, so I can't confirm

-Get a USB backup adapter plus, or another compatible backup adapter

-Get a 3ds that's on or below firmware 10.5 (10.7 if you have cubic ninja, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time + powersaves, or whatever the latest exploit game is (Freakyforms Deluxe I think)) and use TWL save tool. If you want to backup or restore PMD: Explorers of Sky, this won't work for some reason.

These options are in order of price and ease of use. In this case, they directly correlate.

My action replay doesn't have micro sd, I planned on using my regular ds or dsi just to upload a save file to my retail cartridge then load to pokebank.

Will I just need a r4 and ez flash 3 in 1 for this hardware?

[evandixon]

My action replay doesn't have micro sd, I planned on using my regular ds or dsi just to upload a save file to my retail cartridge then load to pokebank.

Will I just need a r4 and ez flash 3 in 1 for this hardware?

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the EZ Flash+Flashcart option. In my experience, that's more stable than Wi-Fi. You'll also be able to dump ROMs and play GBA games.

If you go this route, I recommend getting a flashcart that's 3DS compatible too.

[Guest]

Keep in mind, phat-sized 3in1 have been out of production for -years- now, so they are very hard to come by.

3in1 is still in production, but only the lite-sized one. It's pretty easy to find, but you will need to jump through additional hoops in order to use it.

I'd recommend looking for EZ-Flash IV instead. It's also stopped being produced a couple years ago, but -should- be a lot easier to find than a phat-sized 3in1 because more of them were produced, and they continued being produced for a lot longer. Don't get the new EZ-Flash 4 microSD that came out in 2015, because this one uses a newer kernel which does not have a DS mode, and I'm pretty sure that it is also incompatible with the older kernels for the previous EZ4 which had a DS mode (if you do decide to get one of those, do so at your own risk.)

Alternatively, you could do some hardware modding to get the lite-sized 3in1 to fit in a DS phat. Or, if you own a GBA Action Replay or Gameshark, you can use that to 'bridge' the connection between your DS's slot-2 and the lite 3in1.

Then you can get savegame_manager, properly dldi patched for EZ4, and run it as DS homebrew from Slot-2. It'll pull the save file from the game you have in Slot-1 and save it to your EZ4's microSD.

(If you decide to go the EZ4 route, I had a lot of trouble getting sgm to work properly in Slot-2 mode, but I figured out how to make it work and I can upload the files here if you need.)

The advantage is that NDS Backup tool Slot-2 is a lot more convenient than the 3in1 version for backing up DS roms. If you have absolutely no interest in that, though, then it doesn't really matter.

Not to mention the ability to play GBA games on it. The 3in1 can do it too, if you have a Slot-1 flashcard, but it doesn't do it nearly as well because as soon as the internal battery of the 3in1 runs dry, you can't save at all anymore in GBA games. This can happen a lot faster than you'd think, because they sometimes sit on shelves for a while before being sold. The batteries are non-rechargeable, so they won't even recharge while playing. In my own experience, I've had two different 3in1's and both of their internal batteries died within just a few months (though I've also heard from people who have had theirs last for quite a while. It's pretty hit-and-miss.) The battery can be replaced if you have the know-how, though.

Another thing to mention about the internal battery in the 3in1, if you were interested in backing up DS games. Rudolph's tools don't work with 3in1s that have dead batteries. I'm not sure about Wood Dumper, though, and that might work.

But as far as backing up and restoring save files goes, sgm works fine even if the battery ran dry.

Otherwise you could get just the DS flashcart and backup/restore everything via FTP, but that will require you to have an unsecured/WEP network available, as mentioned by evan.

This would be the cheapest and the most hassle-free option.

Although... if you're already getting a 3DS anyway, the -vast- majority of 3DSes sold in stores come with an exploitable firmware, so you could just install CFW on that and use TWLSaveTool.

[evandixon]

NDS Backup Tool doesn't support cartridges with IR ports, but savegame_manager might run on slot 2.

[Guest]

Rudolph's tool doesn't, no. But SGM supports Slot-2 mode since 0.3.0

It took longer than expected, but the next version is finally here. Version 0.3.0 RC1. This version is essentially feature complete, it does everything I know how to do. Unfortunately, all my attempts to get it working on the DSi have failed. DLP mode should have worked, but unfortunately, you can't run homebrew via DLP on the DSi, and no one bothered to update this method after the success of Flash Cards. Some other ideas also didn't work as expected, and now I am 99% sure that we will need a System Menu/Launcher-level exploit to get it working on the DSi (or the 3DS). Nintendo did indeed learn its lessons, pretty much everything that is not required by an official game/app is simply switched off.

But enough bad news, here is what is new in this version:

- Adds the ability to translate most parts of the user interface.

- Adds Slot 2 backup mode (you will need a Slot 2 flash card; anything that has a DLDI driver should be supported).

- Enables FTP restore mode for saves bigger than the memory buffer (usually 2 MB), it now uses multiple passes in this case.

- Various stability fixes, especially aimed for R4 clones.

- Adds a list of unsupported games to the instruction file. So far, these games are: Band Bros DX, WarioWare Inc ("big" saves, 8MB+), Pokemon Typing DS (Bluetooth device?)

If anybody figures out something new, wants to start his own fork or try something out, or knows how to access one of the few remaining unsupported games, I would say that the time to start doing these things has finally come. The code is sufficiently stable so that I will not refactor significant sections of the program in the forseable future. You can still expect bug fixes though, and I intend to collect translations and pack them in the official release at some time in the future.

Switching languages is as easy as adding a line to your ini file and copying an additional file to your folder. Adding a translation simply requires to take the template file included in the archive and translate the lines. I have commented the template quite heavily, so you should be able to see what the individual lines do. Unfortunately, I do not know if special, language-specific signs are available in the default font used by the program. German Umlaute (Ä,Ö,Ü) do not work, and I am afraid that other specific letters might be missing as well. Anyway, this should only be a small nuisance, so feel free to translate anyway. (If somebody knows how to use a custom font font, or maybe even how to add color in the test, please contact me.)

I've been using it.

It can be a bit finicky with black screen on boot issues (it would work half of the time on my DS Lite, while on my phat, it would always get stuck on a black screen.)

But I just found out earlier today while I was writing that post and trying stuff out, that, for some reason, the program doesn't load the text properly. It should have English text strings as hardcoded into the program with the option of loading a different language through language files, but it turns out that doesn't always work and results in black screen on boot.

Program comes with a lang folder in the zip, turns out you can just take the template.ini file and use that as an English sgm locale file. Then you can just have "language = template.ini" in sgm's ini file, and now it loads 100% of the time, on my lite, and even on my phat where it consistently got stuck on a black screen every time I tried to run it.

[BolMag]

Hello, I hope Someone here can help me to know what can I do to play my 4gen Pokémon games in my CFW 3DS? only appear a black screen. My game work perfectly, I tested in other 3DS. But, on my CFW 3DS doesn't run.

[theSLAYER]

17 minutes ago, BolMag said:

Hello, I hope Someone here can help me to know what can I do to play my 4gen Pokémon games in my CFW 3DS? only appear a black screen. My game work perfectly, I tested in other 3DS. But, on my CFW 3DS doesn't run.

Don't think your post is related to the thread.

I'm assuming you aren't using Luma? This thread covers why
https://gbatemp.net/threads/3ds-with-cfw-ds-cart-doesnt-work-properly.431459/

[FabioJoose]

Everytime I tried to restore my save with the save_manager it got stuck in 99%, with the message "FTP is too slow, please wait".

 

Finally I was able to restore my save doint these steps:

1) Load your save in DesMume

2) Save your game using the emulator

3) "File" > "Export Backup  memory" > Export the .sav to the folder where your FTP directory is

4) Restore you save using the manager, it shoul work fine

I noticed most of times when I backup my save with the manager, it comes in 508K, but when I do this process my save comes back to 512K.

Edited October 19, 2019 by FabioJoose