Pokemon Sapphire corrupted save - can it be repaired?

[yojc]

Hi,

I was playing Sapphire on my GBA with Everdrive X5, but right near the end of the game (IIRC right after the battle with Wallace) the save got corrupted somehow. I was getting the "The save file has been deleted..." message, and that's it.

I was able to copy the same from Everdrive to my PC, and the save doesn't work in VBA either... however, PKHeX loads it with no issues. With that said, veryfing this save in PKHex gives a message "Block 09 @ 02000 invalid.". Exporting the save seems to fix that, but it still doesn't work on VBA nor Everdrive.

I'd assume that since the save seems to be fine in PKHeX with all data intact, it should be able to repair it somehow... but how? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Pokemon - Sapphire Version (USA, Europe) (Rev 2).dat

Edited February 21, 2020 by yojc

[theSLAYER]

fixed, because it still contained yours save data:
Pokemon - Sapphire Version (USA, Europe) (Rev 2).sav

[yojc]

Yeah, it works now! Thanks a ot

If you don't mind, may I ask what went wrong with the save and how did you go about fixing it? Was the corruption my fault, or something that could be avoided in the first place?

[theSLAYER]

Each part of the save has a checksum, and that sector checksum is incorrect. (as noted by what you posted PKHeX said).

the solution for that is to really, save in PKHeX, cause PKHeX recalculates the checksums.

I also copied Block B of your save over Block A. (Typically, saves keep a duplicate as a backup.)

I don't fully recall, but your Block A looked mostly empty, so thus I duplicated Block B over Block A,
then used PKHeX to fix the checksums.

I confirmed VBA can load the savem, then I sent it to you.

What caused the corruption? No clue, maybe having too many cheat codes activated or something.
It is known that too many cheat codes active can mess with the save.

[yojc]

Okay, thanks for the explanation

I didn't use any cheats, so maybe this was just a one time fluke. Anyway, I'm glad it's working again.

[LuisKyouma]

Hello there I have a similar issue with my Sapphire version save. I was trying to make a trade between my Sapphire and Ruby versions and one of the gameboy froze in the process of transferring the pokemon I turned both gameboys off tried trading again and the gameboy froze again so I kept retrying and on the next reset my Sapphire save was gone and it gave me the"save file has been deleted" message. Am I still able to recover my save file?

POKEMON SAPP_2021.06.22-14.19.03.sav

[theSLAYER]

This?

The data is right there.

POKEMON SAPP_2021.06.22-14.19.03.sav

[LuisKyouma]

I just tried it on my cartridge and it works!!! Did you have to do anything to the sav file?

 

Thank you so much! Have a great rest of your day!

[theSLAYER]

51 minutes ago, LuisKyouma said:

I just tried it on my cartridge and it works!!! Did you have to do anything to the sav file?

Loaded it into PKHeX, and it could view the file. Then I saved, and loaded it into my emulator, and saved twice in it.
Besides that process, nothing.

38 minutes ago, LuisKyouma said:

Thank you so much! Have a great rest of your day!

you too.

[PKHex_User]

Hello, @theSLAYER

I have the same issue with my Leafgreen save

My GBA SP run out of power at excat the time I was saving the game so now my game says "save file has been deleted"

But I know its not really deleted as how you helped the previous people fix theirs

So could you also help me to fix my save files? It would be A great help!

POKEMON_LEAF_BPGE01.sav

Edited July 31, 2021 by PKHex_User
update information

[theSLAYER]

8 hours ago, PKHex_User said:

Hello, @theSLAYER

I have the same issue with my Leafgreen save

My GBA SP run out of power at excat the time I was saving the game so now my game says "save file has been deleted"

But I know its not really deleted as how you helped the previous people fix theirs

So could you also help me to fix my save files? It would be A great help!

POKEMON_LEAF_BPGE01.sav 128 kB · 2 downloads

looking at the data in your sav, I don't even think you dumped a save, It just looks like garbled data.

How did you extract this? and is your GBA cart a fake/repro?

[PKHex_User]

5 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

looking at the data in your sav, I don't even think you dumped a save, It just looks like garbled data.

How did you extract this? and is your GBA cart a fake/repro?

I used an NDS with a R4 cart to extract sav by backup tool. Is there any other way to extract? Im not sure if its fake or repro

Edited July 31, 2021 by PKHex_User

[theSLAYER]

4 minutes ago, PKHex_User said:

I used an NDS with a R4 cart to extract sav by backup tool. Is there any other way to extract? Im not sure if its fake or repro

where did you buy your GBA game from?

[PKHex_User]

5 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

where did you buy your GBA game from?

I bought from Amazon. I am doing some research here, too. So what if maybe they are the fake, is there any way to rescue my data still?

 

Hi theSLAYER

I figured it out! It does a bootleg, but according to this article which seems also your guide, I exctracted two sav from the ROM, I also attach the ROM with it. Could you help me again? Thank you!

 

save0-2021-07-31 11-48-13-0x740000.sav save1-2021-07-31 11-48-14-0x1740000.sav

[theSLAYER]

@PKHex_User please read our rules and not upload a ROM again.

Also, even if a save could be restored (from supposed corruption) in any way, there is no easy way to inject back into your fake game, so there isn't much of a point really.

edit: For curiosity sake, I looked at the saves, and there's no usable data in them anyway..

[PKHex_User]

No need to infect back, as long as it can be load normally on emulator is fine

I also found there are 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF.... strings in the .gba ROM, is there any way about it? like fix the checksum something?... Im not an expert about this so maybe a stupid question. Just trying my best to rescue the data...

[theSLAYER]

56 minutes ago, PKHex_User said:

No need to infect back, as long as it can be load normally on emulator is fine

I also found there are 00 00 FF FF FF FF FF.... strings in the .gba ROM, is there any way about it? like fix the checksum something?... Im not an expert about this so maybe a stupid question. Just trying my best to rescue the data...

There's no usable data whatsoever.

The identifiable sections in each block is missing.
It's not as easy as a checksum fix; this line sounds like you were just trying to repeat what I've said previously back to me.
And based on what else you've said, you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

I don't enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but it doesn't look good

Maybe this would visually explain to you what's happening:

It looks like all of the left half (for pretty much the entirety of both files) has been wiped clean.
(Note: in case you don't understand what you're looking at, first, draw a line right down the middle. Then, compare both halves. It's as though the right side persistently have varying values for multiple rows, and the left side has nothing but zeros. This is the abnormal part, for this section of the save)

Each Pokemon takes up about 4 complete rows, from left to right. With half of it literally missing, no Pokemon can be reconstructed. (Do remember the entire data for Pokemon itself is encrypted, so we cannot decrypt the data if it's not fully there)

I cannot conceive of how the data is written like this. Maybe the data is cleared column wise before it is copied from the RAM, hence losing power caused the clearing to only work halfway through?


In any case, while some remnants of data remains, there is no realistic way to use them.
I hope this is enough of an explanation, and provides some closure to why no Pokemon can be extracted from the save.

[PKHex_User]

29 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

There's no usable data whatsoever.

The identifiable sections in each block is missing.
It's not as easy as a checksum fix; this line sounds like you were just trying to repeat what I've said previously back to me.
And based on what else you've said, you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

I don't enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but it doesn't look good

Maybe this would visually explain to you what's happening:

It looks like all of the left half (for pretty much the entirety of both files) has been wiped clean.

Each Pokemon takes up about 4 complete rows, from left to right. With half of it literally missing, no Pokemon can be reconstructed. (Do remember the entire data for Pokemon itself is encrypted, so we cannot decrypt the data if it's not fully there)

I cannot conceive of how the data is written like this. Maybe the data is cleared column wise before it is copied from the RAM, hence losing power caused the clearing to only work halfway through?

OK I get it. Guess I have to start a new journey. Thanks for your explanation

[theSLAYER]

Just now, PKHex_User said:

OK I get it. Guess I have to start a new journey. Thanks for your explanation

from what I can see, I've made some edits to that post while you were replying, and you didn't see them.

It's just further elaboration for the most part. But yeah, it feels pretty definite to me. I tried looking at both saves and they were the same. My program was able to recognize them as saves due to the right halves still existing, but without the left halves we can't really obtain useful data.

Yeah in any case good luck with the new journey. And remember not to tempt fate and let the battery die. Cheers.

[thegu100]

Hello, @theSLAYER

I have the same issue with my Sapphire save

My GBA SP run out of power at the time I was saving the game so now my game says "save file has been deleted"

I use an EZFLASH OMEGA to play.

Can you please help me?

Pokemon - Sapphire Version (USA, Europe) (Rev 2).sav

[theSLAYER]

 

1 hour ago, thegu100 said:

Hello, @theSLAYER

I have the same issue with my Sapphire save

My GBA SP run out of power at the time I was saving the game so now my game says "save file has been deleted"

I use an EZFLASH OMEGA to play.

Can you please help me?

Pokemon - Sapphire Version (USA, Europe) (Rev 2).sav 128 kB · 0 downloads

how far did you progress into the game? did you save multiple times inbetween?

 

edit: your save is effectively screwed.
There's a repeating pattern of this more or less across the entire save.


That pervasive pattern eats up even Pokémon. Given Pokémon is encrypted, having any change in the bytes make decryption practically impossible, and I can't even salvage Pokémon