Able to restore (parts of) a bootleg save file?

[Chonke]

Hey all, 

A while ago I tried the GBA - DSLite backup software (which works awesome on all my legit games) on my bootleg Emerald cartridge. I know, on the page it stated explicitly that it won't work on bootleg cartridges, but I figured since it just backs up the data might as well give it a try. Well, as you would've guessed: the .sav doesn't flash back on the cart, won't load in PKHeX, and doesn't work on emulators (yep, I did change the name, as the bootleg one stores saves with a different name) 

The thing is: I really want to buy an authentic Emerald cart, but I am quite far on my bootleg one now and I'd love to transfer this savefile. 

I was just wondering if someone who knows a lot about the way pokemon data is stored, could take a quick gaze at my (now quite old) bootleg-backup to see if any transferring of sections from bootleg - legit is possible. I tried to take a look myself but even with the wiki and some awesome screenshots/explaination from theSLAYER I can't get the hang on hexed.it 

I also added a screenshot, in case an expert looks at it and knows from this very glance the whole file is useless. 

Many thanks in (Gameboy) advance! 

POKEMON_EMER_BPEE00.sav

Edited April 15 by Chonke
Minor adjustments for reading comprehension

[theSLAYER]

1 hour ago, Chonke said:

Hey all, 

A while ago I tried the GBA - DSLite backup software (which works awesome on all my legit games) on my bootleg Emerald cartridge. I know, on the page it stated explicitly that it won't work on bootleg cartridges, but I figured since it just backs up the data might as well give it a try. Well, as you would've guessed: the .sav doesn't flash back on the cart, won't load in PKHeX, and doesn't work on emulators (yep, I did change the name, as the bootleg one stores saves with a different name) 

The thing is: I really want to buy an authentic Emerald cart, but I am quite far on my bootleg one now and I'd love to transfer this savefile. 

I was just wondering if someone who knows a lot about the way pokemon data is stored, could take a quick gaze at my (now quite old) bootleg-backup to see if any transferring of sections from bootleg - legit is possible. I tried to take a look myself but even with the wiki and some awesome screenshots/explaination from theSLAYER I can't get the hang on hexed.it 

I also added a screenshot, in case an expert looks at it and knows from this very glance the whole file is useless. 

Many thanks in (Gameboy) advance! 

POKEMON_EMER_BPEE00.sav 128 kB · 2 downloads

If you've read what I've shared before, then you'll know, there's no save data in that file. And just to be sure, I checked. Nothing of use there.
What you should be doing is dumping the ROM, and not the save, of the bootleg cart. (and don't share that ROM here)


Only then, would you be able to extract the save.

 

[Chonke]

Hey man, 

Thank you for your quick response. Sorry I haven't read everything about bootleg cartridges and thus not knowing the save doesn't contain any useful data. A friend suggested "hex editing" so I figured I'd just try and read into that

Love that there is also a tool specifically for my case and that I can use the same GBA backup software for it!

Many many thanks 

[theSLAYER]

5 minutes ago, Chonke said:

Hey man, 

Thank you for your quick response. Sorry I haven't read everything about bootleg cartridges and thus not knowing the save doesn't contain any useful data. A friend suggested "hex editing" so I figured I'd just try and read into that

Love that there is also a tool specifically for my case and that I can use the same GBA backup software for it!

Many many thanks 

For some of the Gen 3 bootleg carts, the save data is actually stored in the ROM.

So using the bootleg ROM dump with that program just may extract the save for you.

Godspeed!