Question about saves and Alpha Sapphire.

[Viridiannn]

First of all, please forgive me if this is not the place to post this.

So I recently lost my Alpha Sapphire game, and I have given up on looking for it, as I've looked everywhere humanly possible. I was planning on getting a new one so I could restore my save there, but unfortunately, the saves are encrypted so that it only works on a specific cart (thanks Nintendo >:T). I did see a save decrypter on here, and I wanted to know this: Could I decrypt my save so it works on different Alpha Sapphire carts? Thank you.

[Guest]

What do you mean, saves are encrypted to only work on one specific cart?

If you have a "main" file backed up, that is a decrypted save file which you can safely re-import into any AS game, be it retail cartridge or digital.

If you only have a Powersaves backup, then you might be out of luck, not sure. Doesn't hurt to try, though.

[evandixon]

So I recently lost my Alpha Sapphire game, and I have given up on looking for it, as I've looked everywhere humanly possible. I was planning on getting a new one so I could restore my save there, but unfortunately, the saves are encrypted so that it only works on a specific cart (thanks Nintendo >:T). I did see a save decrypter on here, and I wanted to know this: Could I decrypt my save so it works on different Alpha Sapphire carts? Thank you.

Whether or not you can depends on what save backups you have. If they were made using homebrew tools on the 3DS, then you might not have to. If they were made with Powersaves, then it depends on whether or not you have enough backups to do this, which is unlikely.

What do you mean, saves are encrypted to only work on one specific cart?

Most 3DS cartridge saves are encrypted so that they can only be read by a particular cartridge. While most homebrew tools (like JK's save manager) get around this, older ones (especially USB adapters like Powersaves) do not.

[Guest]

Most 3DS cartridge saves are encrypted so that they can only be read by a particular cartridge. While most homebrew tools (like JK's save manager) get around this, older ones (especially USB adapters like Powersaves) do not.

Yes, I know. Read more than the first sentence of my post

I asked because I know that if they have a backup, if they have a "main" file then it is decrypted and will work regardless. I was thinking that maybe Viridiann had that and mistakenly thought that it was encrypted to work on only one cartridge. So I asked which kind of backup they have.

[Viridiannn]

Yeah, I have powersaves, and I used that for the backup. That's why I was asking. Could I decrypt it and bring it over to another save file? Or do I need homebrew?

I also have 2 other backups if that matters.

[theSLAYER]

Yeah, I have powersaves, and I used that for the backup. That's why I was asking. Could I decrypt it and bring it over to another save file? Or do I need homebrew?

I also have 2 other backups if that matters.

what you need is this: https://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?44175-Pokemon-Gen-VI-Save-Decrypter

However, I doubt it'll work since you're missing your original cart.

This May be a long short, but if you have the Private header for your original cart,

using it on a rom will convert the rom to your "original cart"

(though this only works for gateway or sky3ds)

[Guest]

Loosely related question, does anyone know how svdt decrypts the save files? Does it require information from the matching retail cartridge in order to read the save file as a decrypted "main" file?

I may have an idea, but without knowing exactly how save file decryption works, I wouldn't be able to know if it could work. Could they possibly restore the Powersaves backup to a new cartridge, then, without running Alpha Sapphire again yet, access the Homebrew Launcher via any way they can and run svdt to extract a decrypted "main" file? Or would svdt error out and be unable to read the save file since it isn't encrypted for the right cartridge?

If it would work, it would require access to the Homebrew Launcher still, which Viridiann may not have, though.

I don't have Powersaves and I don't have two cartridges of the same game, otherwise I would definitely try it out myself.

Or does Powersaves itself prevent you from restoring a Powersaves backup from a different cartridge?

I know the save file would be encrypted to a different cartridge, so if you started up the game, it would see it as corrupted and prompt you to erase the save data. But if svdt could read it and extract it as decrypted save file, there could be a chance of recovering it.

This is all conjecture based on my limited knowledge of how things work, not saying it will work, but I'm just trying to think of possible ways of saving your save file.

[theSLAYER]

Loosely related question, does anyone know how svdt decrypts the save files? Does it require information from the matching retail cartridge in order to read the save file as a decrypted "main" file?

I may have an idea, but without knowing exactly how save file decryption works, I wouldn't be able to know if it could work. Could they possibly restore the Powersaves backup to a new cartridge, then, without running Alpha Sapphire again yet, access the Homebrew Launcher via any way they can and run svdt to extract a decrypted "main" file? Or would svdt error out and be unable to read the save file since it isn't encrypted for the right cartridge?

If it would work, it would require access to the Homebrew Launcher still, which Viridiann may not have, though.

I don't have Powersaves and I don't have two cartridges of the same game, otherwise I would definitely try it out myself.

Or does Powersaves itself prevent you from restoring a Powersaves backup from a different cartridge?

I know the save file would be encrypted to a different cartridge, so if you started up the game, it would see it as corrupted and prompt you to erase the save data. But if svdt could read it and extract it as decrypted save file, there could be a chance of recovering it.

This is all conjecture based on my limited knowledge of how things work, not saying it will work, but I'm just trying to think of possible ways of saving your save file.

(this post also applies to OP)

As far as I know, SVDT and SDF uses information from either the 3DS or the cartridge (the private header found in the rom) to decrypt and encrypt the rom.

(which is primarily how a 3DS reads saves files)

Also, given that powersaves dumps and injects the raw save, I'm not sure if they block using a different save on a different cartridge.

But even if they don't block it, the transfer you mention would render the save file corrupt,

as the 3DS would attempt to read/write it based on the wrong header.

If I'm not mistaken, I think that the save dumped by powersaves has the private header

read: https://gbatemp.net/threads/tutorial-get-your-private-header-using-powersaves.385511/

I have a theory in mind:

If you could send someone who has a gateway/sky3ds the private header and the save you got from powersaves,

that person could change their rom's private header to match yours,

and use SDF/SDVT to extract the main (which should work, cause the headers now match)

[Guest]

How would svdt use information from the cartridge's header though, if you can't read cartridge header in userland?

If we could read, we would have a way to dump private headers from userland, which we can't do. Or does userland have permission to use cartridge header without actually being able to "read" it, if that makes sense?

Maybe I should ask the people who made svdt directly.

Turns out svdt starts the game in Slot-1 and takes it over, so that it can access its save data. It doesn't do the decryption on its own.

I forgot that Powersaves backups could contain the private header, not a bad idea. Some modifications will have to be made to the Powersaves backups before they can be imported to a rom of AS, since it adds a 156-byte header to the save data afaik, but as long as the Powersaves backup is header + raw save data, that should work.

For reference purposes, the size of the save data used by GW/Sky is exactly 1MiB (1,048,576 bytes)

[evandixon]

For reference purposes, the size of the save data used by GW/Sky is exactly 1MiB (1,048,576 bytes)

This isn't necessarily the case with Card 2 games like Alpha Sapphire, as the save is stored in a writable region in the ROM (usually because the game needs more than the standard save size despite the cartridge costing more).

[Guest]

This isn't necessarily the case with Card 2 games like Alpha Sapphire, as the save is stored in a writable region in the ROM (usually because the game needs more than the standard save size despite the cartridge costing more).

I know, but if you wanted to use the Powersaves backup through Gateway or Sky3DS, you need to inject it into the rom using Gateway's cart2sav tool. That requires a 1,048,576 raw save image.

I believe the same tool can be used to extract the save data from Card2-type games as well as inject.

The idea here is to use Viridiannn's Powersaves backup, extract the private header from it, apply it to a rom of Alpha Sapphire, write the save data from the backup to the rom, then use svdt or SaveDataFiler to extract the decrypted "main" save data so that it can be injected into a newly-purchased copy of AS.

Note: I may be wrong about the size of the save file, because I could only find GW saves for X and Y. I assume it would be the same size as OR/AS, though. And I've only looked at Ocarina of Time 3D Powersaves backups where the header was 156 bytes long, I'd assume it would be the same for everything. But I may be wrong.