Mission to restore 5-year-old same file

[ShadowDecidueye]

Hello! So I used to have a Pokémon Sun Cartridge until someone stole my game. However I owned a code junkies Powersave for my 3ds and added cheats all the time. Every time it created a backup. I recently modded my new 2ds (old one broke) and I realized that maybe if I find the old files perhaps I could get my first pokémon game, (besides Yellow), first starter, first shiny, and first event pokémon back. I found the old files and copied the backup to my hshop pokémon sun's checkpoint save. I renamed the new backup and deleted the one that was already there. When I loaded the game, it said the file was corrupted. I'll also say that the backup restored suspiciously fast. I decided maybe I could load the file on PkHex but after renaming it to main, it just said that my file was too big. I was told that I need to decode the file as it's linked to a specific save. Maybe that has something to do with it. I really need your guys' help; I won't stop till my file is restored in some way. Below are two files, the original latest back up and a slightly modified one where I changed the bytes I believe I replaced all the bytes in the copy past 0x9C with FF, as that was something I was told I should do at one point. (Not sure if that'll really help). Thank you!

BNEAc8f5961c_2020-04-20_15-19-30_(Automatic backup 042020 151930).bin Copy of BNEAc8f5961c_2020-04-20_15-19-30_(Automatic backup 042020 151930).bin

[Poke J]

10 minutes ago, ShadowDecidueye said:

Hello! So I used to have a Pokémon Sun Cartridge until someone stole my game. However I owned a code junkies Powersave for my 3ds and added cheats all the time. Every time it created a backup. I recently modded my new 2ds (old one broke) and I realized that maybe if I find the old files perhaps I could get my first pokémon game, (besides Yellow), first starter, first shiny, and first event pokémon back. I found the old files and copied the backup to my hshop pokémon sun's checkpoint save. I renamed the new backup and deleted the one that was already there. When I loaded the game, it said the file was corrupted. I'll also say that the backup restored suspiciously fast. I decided maybe I could load the file on PkHex but after renaming it to main, it just said that my file was too big. I was told that I need to decode the file as it's linked to a specific save. Maybe that has something to do with it. I really need your guys' help; I won't stop till my file is restored in some way. Below are two files, the original latest back up and a slightly modified one where I changed the bytes I believe I replaced all the bytes in the copy past 0x9C with FF, as that was something I was told I should do at one point. (Not sure if that'll really help). Thank you!

The unfortunate part of Powersaves is it encrypts the backup save file and that file is backed up is a way that it has to be to the same game card and not another of the same game. So to make it work in the first place you will need to break the Powersave encryption. I've been around here for quite some time and seen similar requests and unfortunately all of those requests remain unfulfilled. What I'm trying to say is don't get your hopes up that someone is going to be able to get your save into a workable state.

[theSLAYER]

To be precise, I believe it uses a cart unique key to encrypt the save. So if you lose the cart, and didn’t make a decrypted backup, nor did you make a ROM dump of that cart (the header/key is in the ROM), then you’re outta luck.

There were methods to brute force it previously, not sure it works currently, but in any case it would also require you to have the cart on hand.

[ShadowDecidueye]

On 2/5/2024 at 8:21 PM, Poke J said:

The unfortunate part of Powersaves is it encrypts the backup save file and that file is backed up is a way that it has to be to the same game card and not another of the same game. So to make it work in the first place you will need to break the Powersave encryption. I've been around here for quite some time and seen similar requests and unfortunately all of those requests remain unfulfilled. What I'm trying to say is don't get your hopes up that someone is going to be able to get your save into a workable state.

Alright, bit harsh in the end.... but anyway, do you think there is anyway to recover anything? If all I could recover would be my pokemon at least some, that would be enough. Thank you in advance!

[theSLAYER]

2 hours ago, ShadowDecidueye said:

Alright, bit harsh in the end.... but anyway, do you think there is anyway to recover anything? If all I could recover would be my pokemon at least some, that would be enough. Thank you in advance!

Sorry if it seemed harsh, had to emphasise how impossible it would be.

As for your follow-up question: Without the unique key (which is in the ROM of your retail cart) the data would look scrambled. IIRC there isn’t any cart-non-encrypted area. Meaning the save data would look just like garbage data. At this stage I reckon you should look at other avenues of restoring team data.

IIRC Gen 7 was the generation that introduced Rental Teams. Do you have the codes for your active rental teams?