Managing GBA Saves: Extracting and Injecting Save for Bootleg GBA Pokémon Carts

[Yuya]

Hiya, just want to check if anybody has experience this one, i followed the instructions here, it worked for a while, then suddenly the injector tool does not work anymore. It can still extract the save file but injecting it back does not work. There's no error message, the message that it injects successfully is still there. however if you extract the save file again, the save file was not really injected back. if that makes sense

[theSLAYER]

6 hours ago, Yuya said:

Hiya, just want to check if anybody has experience this one, i followed the instructions here, it worked for a while, then suddenly the injector tool does not work anymore. It can still extract the save file but injecting it back does not work. There's no error message, the message that it injects successfully is still there. however if you extract the save file again, the save file was not really injected back. if that makes sense

And how would you know the save file wasn’t injected back?

also, don’t rename the extracted save.

[Yuya]

14 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

And how would you know the save file wasn’t injected back?

also, don’t rename the extracted save.

didnt rename the save file. here's photos of what i've recently done. as you can see, the deoxys ive placed in box 1 using pkhex was not carried over to the save file as seen on the last screenshot

another thing i used to quickly verify, is on the same gba extractor, after injecting the save file, i extract it again and run on pkhex to see if there are any changes on the extracted save file.

 

previously the injector works fine. dont know what happened.

Edited March 22 by Yuya

[theSLAYER]

7 hours ago, Yuya said:

didnt rename the save file. here's photos of what i've recently done. as you can see, the deoxys ive placed in box 1 using pkhex was not carried over to the save file as seen on the last screenshot

another thing i used to quickly verify, is on the same gba extractor, after injecting the save file, i extract it again and run on pkhex to see if there are any changes on the extracted save file.

 

previously the injector works fine. dont know what happened.

Can you try making a copy of the save bin to your desktop, rename the file (maybe to ruby edited.bin), then try to use the tool, then afterwards send the save back to your cart?

If that doesn't work, may need to get files from you (we will need to trim it and take the part after the ROM, to make sure I don't get the ROM)

[Yuya]

On 3/22/2025 at 11:20 PM, theSLAYER said:

Can you try making a copy of the save bin to your desktop, rename the file (maybe to ruby edited.bin), then try to use the tool, then afterwards send the save back to your cart?

If that doesn't work, may need to get files from you (we will need to trim it and take the part after the ROM, to make sure I don't get the ROM)

yeah it didnt work either, whats the next step how do i trim it/

[squall1989]

This tool is really good, but it doesn't work on gb and gbc file, are there any tool that work like this for the gb and gbc file ? i got a bootleg pokemon blue and gold that work the same way as these gba rom, i don't know how to get the save out or flash new save back in, i do have access to a gbflash to dump the rom and write the modified rom back in

[theSLAYER]

1 hour ago, squall1989 said:

This tool is really good, but it doesn't work on gb and gbc file, are there any tool that work like this for the gb and gbc file ? i got a bootleg pokemon blue and gold that work the same way as these gba rom, i don't know how to get the save out or flash new save back in, i do have access to a gbflash to dump the rom and write the modified rom back in

not that I know of.

[7_Erik_7]

On 1/5/2025 at 11:56 PM, 7_Erik_7 said:

EDIT: SOLVED MY ISSUE

I recently focused on setting my R4 firmware right, so I tried out different alternatives. In the end I installed one with the Twilight Menu and decided to solve this bootlegs' issue. To my surprise GBABF now works.

So this is my advice for anyone having trouble: set your R4 like this guy here https://youtu.be/PCtKQXIWbbM?si=uRyigsKB80j5XmSm.

Just wanted to share that the likely cause of my issue appears to be the R4 firmware setup rather than a new wave of bootleg cartridges. @Leif6174 this might work for you too.

Edited April 19 by 7_Erik_7
Added more context to my answer

[Thoran]

On 3/22/2025 at 7:20 PM, theSLAYER said:

Can you try making a copy of the save bin to your desktop, rename the file (maybe to ruby edited.bin), then try to use the tool, then afterwards send the save back to your cart?

If that doesn't work, may need to get files from you (we will need to trim it and take the part after the ROM, to make sure I don't get the ROM)

I am also having this issue, for some reason the injector tool can't inject the save data back into the bin file

[theSLAYER]

8 hours ago, Thoran said:

I am also having this issue, for some reason the injector tool can't inject the save data back into the bin file

Try this: 

On 4/26/2025 at 6:57 AM, theSLAYER said:

Someone on the main page of the repro cart program mentioned GBABF worked after they changed their R4 cart setup, maybe give that a try (do backup the original setup that worked for you. When I get time I shall upload my setup..)

 

[Thoran]

3 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

Try this: 

 

Getting the same result, can dump and extract just fine no matter the software used, it just seems for whatever reason the injecting isn't working

[7_Erik_7]

On 6/24/2025 at 3:28 AM, Thoran said:

Getting the same result, can dump and extract just fine no matter the software used, it just seems for whatever reason the injecting isn't working

Out of the few repros I tested, one seemed like it couldn’t be injected—just like yours.

At one point, I accidentally reflashed it with an empty file. The cart was bricked and wouldn’t load anymore. Simply reflashing it with its original ROM made it work again.

This confirms -> flashing works.

The issue might be either:

1. Injection doesn’t actually happen—the ROM isn’t overwritten (though I’d expect some kind of error message in that case), OR
2. The save data being read is stored elsewhere in the ROM, and the injector targets the wrong section.

Try comparing the two ROM versions (before and after injection) to check if the injector is making any changes, by checking file size or using another method.

[theSLAYER]

3 hours ago, 7_Erik_7 said:

Out of the few repros I tested, one seemed like it couldn’t be injected—just like yours.

At one point, I accidentally reflashed it with an empty file. The cart was bricked and wouldn’t load anymore. Simply reflashing it with its original ROM made it work again.

This confirms -> flashing works.

The issue might be either:

1. Injection doesn’t actually happen—the ROM isn’t overwritten (though I’d expect some kind of error message in that case), OR
2. The save data being read is stored elsewhere in the ROM, and the injector targets the wrong section.

Try comparing the two ROM versions (before and after injection) to check if the injector is making any changes, by checking file size or using another method.

Another way is to play the modified ROM on an emulator. See what game is loaded and what save is being shown. After all, maybe for a particular type of cart with a particular type of ROM, it’s possible that there more than one save. I mean, you evidently *could* reflash, but maybe the save is stored differently then expected.

For that game, what is the name of the save extracted using the program, and how many saves do you get? (I want to determine the hex address of the save and then ask you to use a hex editor to extract everything after that point; I don’t want any ROM data to be accidentally extracted and sent)

[Thoran]

On 6/25/2025 at 1:27 PM, 7_Erik_7 said:

Out of the few repros I tested, one seemed like it couldn’t be injected—just like yours.

At one point, I accidentally reflashed it with an empty file. The cart was bricked and wouldn’t load anymore. Simply reflashing it with its original ROM made it work again.

This confirms -> flashing works.

The issue might be either:

1. Injection doesn’t actually happen—the ROM isn’t overwritten (though I’d expect some kind of error message in that case), OR
2. The save data being read is stored elsewhere in the ROM, and the injector targets the wrong section.

Try comparing the two ROM versions (before and after injection) to check if the injector is making any changes, by checking file size or using another method.

funnily enough, when I first started on this Emerald repro I wanted to make a small change, couldn't inject it, I accidentally flashed it with something that wasn't the rom and bricked it. When I flashed with the injected rom it worked. I attempted the steps I took last time and the results aren't replicating this time. I am new to this so how would I go about comparing the roms?

[Thoran]

On 6/25/2025 at 5:03 PM, theSLAYER said:

Another way is to play the modified ROM on an emulator. See what game is loaded and what save is being shown. After all, maybe for a particular type of cart with a particular type of ROM, it’s possible that there more than one save. I mean, you evidently *could* reflash, but maybe the save is stored differently then expected.

For that game, what is the name of the save extracted using the program, and how many saves do you get? (I want to determine the hex address of the save and then ask you to use a hex editor to extract everything after that point; I don’t want any ROM data to be accidentally extracted and sent)

I tried a couple of different dumps from this guide and the guide you linked in your previous reply, with this guide it was extracting 2, and with gba backup tool it is extracting 2. The name of the save is "save0-2025-06-23 20-53-51-0xFC0000-halfpatched" and if it had 2 saves it would have one that would be the same but have a 1 so "save1-2025-06-23 20-53-51-0xFC0000-halfpatched".

[jokerbokerpalala]

Hey ive gotten to the point of successfully extracting the save from my repro ruby, I want to be able to play my save on my emulator but when I load my save i get the save corruption message and while everything seems to work I can no longer save the game anymore. I ran the checksum with PKHex which turned out fine and exported the save but that didnt fix the issue. Is this an expected behavior? Is the only way i can use my save to simply reinject it into my repro copy?

[theSLAYER]

1 hour ago, jokerbokerpalala said:

Hey ive gotten to the point of successfully extracting the save from my repro ruby, I want to be able to play my save on my emulator but when I load my save i get the save corruption message and while everything seems to work I can no longer save the game anymore. I ran the checksum with PKHex which turned out fine and exported the save but that didnt fix the issue. Is this an expected behavior? Is the only way i can use my save to simply reinject it into my repro copy?

might be an issue with the settings of the emulator, or settings related to importing the save. It probably is importing the save in the wrong size (given PKHeX can read it..)

[jokerbokerpalala]

16 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

might be an issue with the settings of the emulator, or settings related to importing the save. It probably is importing the save in the wrong size (given PKHeX can read it..)

I tried mGBA and VBA same result from both, what size should a ruby save be? the size i have is 128 KB (131,072 bytes) 

 

[theSLAYER]

5 hours ago, jokerbokerpalala said:

I tried mGBA and VBA same result from both, what size should a ruby save be? the size i have is 128 KB (131,072 bytes) 

 

I think the size you're looking at should be right, to problem may be what save size the emulator expects.

For VBA, it should be something similar to this

(I'm saying similar because I'm aware there's different versions people use)

Once you're done, launch the game. Even if the save doesn't launch right, select "Import Battery File" (it is currently greyed out for me as I am not playing anything) then soft reset the emulator.


I don't use mGBA so can't help there, but the options should be something similar I reckon.

[jokerbokerpalala]

I downloaded the same version of VBA you have and set the flash and file size and then imported the save but it still hangs when i try to save the game. 

[theSLAYER]

1 hour ago, jokerbokerpalala said:

I downloaded the same version of VBA you have and set the flash and file size and then imported the save but it still hangs when i try to save the game. 

I’m assuming you’re using the ROM of your bootleg card, and maybe there’s issues relating to saving for the bootleg ROM. You’re gonna have to check that out yourself

[KinoTabi]

Whenever I try to inject a save file, it doesn't work. If I try to load it in VBA it either completely freaks out and just doesn't read my save or it loads a previous save. Whenever I open up my bin file, it states that there's currently four saves on it. Is there any way to inject a save onto a blank .bin file? Whenever I try, it just doesn't let me do anything in the program.