Issue with Repro GBA FireRed Save File Injection (Bootleg GBA Save Extractor and Injector)

[AceGrimwood]

I am currently trying to make my Charmeleon Shiny. To do that i am using theSlayer's Bootleg GBA Save Extractor and Injector, which worked well for extracting the save, but when i tried injecting the modified save it just, didnt do it.

It says that the Injection is complete, but when i extract the save from the "Completed" .gba file (or try bruning it on my cartridge using Burn2Slot), the Save remains unchanged

I have seen some reddit posts from a guy with the same issue, though there are no reponses or fixes on them.

[theSLAYER]

  On 3/21/2025 at 11:05 PM, AceGrimwood said:

I am currently trying to make my Charmeleon Shiny. To do that i am using theSlayer's Bootleg GBA Save Extractor and Injector, which worked well for extracting the save, but when i tried injecting the modified save it just, didnt do it.

It says that the Injection is complete, but when i extract the save from the "Completed" .gba file (or try bruning it on my cartridge using Burn2Slot), the Save remains unchanged

I have seen some reddit posts from a guy with the same issue, though there are no reponses or fixes on them.

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Try gbabf to write the game back to the cart:

use at your own risk. Keep an unmodified backup before you proceed.

[AceGrimwood]

When i try to use the "Dump Data" function, it tells me "Unable to open file"

[theSLAYER]

  On 3/23/2025 at 1:56 PM, AceGrimwood said:

When i try to use the "Dump Data" function, it tells me "Unable to open file"

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That’s concerning. How did you dump the data the first time round (was it Burn2Slot? I don’t use it lol)

[AceGrimwood]

I followed this tutorial on how to do it.

But instead of using the gba backup tool like it says in the tutorial, i used godmode9i, because the shoulder buttons on my DS are broken (and i cant navigate through the backup tool without the shoulder buttons).

[theSLAYER]

  On 3/24/2025 at 5:03 AM, AceGrimwood said:

I followed this tutorial on how to do it.

But instead of using the gba backup tool like it says in the tutorial, i used godmode9i, because the shoulder buttons on my DS are broken (and i cant navigate through the backup tool without the shoulder buttons).

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To be frank I’m kinda unsure what to do atm. If you don’t mind trying the following (at your own risk), then:

0. always keep unmodified backups of your files
1. use godmode9i to dump the ROM
2. use the bootleg tool to inject save.
3. use the bootleg tool on the edited rom, extract the save and check with PKHeX (to ensure step 2 did in fact inject the save correctly)
4. use gbabf to restore the edited ROM into the cart.
5. launch the game and check

[AceGrimwood]

I have backed up my file before.
Sadly, the thing you are telling me to do right now is exactly the thing i did. I used the bootleg tool to inject the save and then checked the saves on the edited rom using pkhex. The issue is that the program doesnt inject the save into the rom. Sorry if i was unclear before.

Modified Save:


Save extracted from the rom i injected the modified save to:

[AceGrimwood]

 

So what i have tried now is to modify the ROM manually myself by following this tutorial (with english translated subtitles), which basically tells me to use HxD to modify the bits at the saving addresses in the ROM to the bits of the Modified save files, but now two things happen:

1) there now are 4 save files when extracting them from my Modified ROM. The 2 saves that have the "-halfpatched" at the end of their names read empty in PKHex, the other 2 have the modified save i want
 

  Reveal hidden contents

2) When i use the Burn2Slot or even gbabf's Flasher Tool to put the Rom on my cartridge, i end up with my previous unmodified save.

I dont understand, is the issue maybe in my means of putting the ROM onto the cartridge?

[theSLAYER]

  On 3/26/2025 at 8:19 AM, AceGrimwood said:

 

So what i have tried now is to modify the ROM manually myself by following this tutorial (with english translated subtitles), which basically tells me to use HxD to modify the bits at the saving addresses in the ROM to the bits of the Modified save files, but now two things happen:

1) there now are 4 save files when extracting them from my Modified ROM. The 2 saves that have the "-halfpatched" at the end of their names read empty in PKHex, the other 2 have the modified save i want
 

  Reveal hidden contents

2) When i use the Burn2Slot or even gbabf's Flasher Tool to put the Rom on my cartridge, i end up with my previous unmodified save.

I dont understand, is the issue maybe in my means of putting the ROM onto the cartridge?

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I want you to try something (but make sure you have a original backup stored safely somewhere else first.


First make a copy of the ROM.
Since you can perform hex editing, I want you to go to 0xFC0000, and make it FFs all the way to the end of the file.
(use Edit > Select Block to select the range of data, then use Edit > Fill Selection to make them all FF)

Then restore that newly edited file into your cart. That should confirm whether the issue is with restoring data into your cart.
 

[AceGrimwood]

What length should i select?

[AceGrimwood]

So after setting all Values from the Address you gave me in a range of 20000 to FF, my save is still the same on the cartridge. Should i get another cartridge? Do you have anyrecommendations?

[theSLAYER]

  On 3/26/2025 at 10:53 AM, AceGrimwood said:

So after setting all Values from the Address you gave me in a range of 20000 to FF, my save is still the same on the cartridge. Should i get another cartridge? Do you have anyrecommendations?

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Yeah the range is from the file name of the saves you’ve extracted. You should have been able to completely wipe the save data. Try getting a fresh backup and use my bootleg tool to dump to see if you get anything.

i wonder if your cart backs up the data elsewhere, or if you didn’t manage to restore it somehow. Also I won’t recommend getting another bootleg cart.

[AceGrimwood]

So... yeah this didn't work either. I think the cartridge i bought is just not made for this...

I guess i'll have to wait until i see a original cartridge for under 100 bucks

[theSLAYER]

  On 3/26/2025 at 4:27 PM, AceGrimwood said:

So... yeah this didn't work either. I think the cartridge i bought is just not made for this...

I guess i'll have to wait until i see a original cartridge for under 100 bucks

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Yeah maybe not. Sorry to hear that. There’s any kinds of repro carts and AFAIK this method doesn’t work for all of them. 
 

One last thing you could try, is to see if you can “dump the save normally” using regular (not bootleg) save dumping options. For all we know, there is some save partition. I know an old repro I got saves the save separately; the downside was the battery died quick and the save got wiped. (I assume they don’t fake carts like that anymore but who knows)

or, maybe you’re not dumping enough of the ROM, and the save is nested somewhere further in (and the original save you dumped from it is a backup placed closer to the start)

 

If you do another regular ROM backup, does it have the 4 saves (make sure this new backup is separate and name it different from the existing ROM backups)

[AceGrimwood]

Sadly the normal save dump didn't work. What i think i will do is to somehow figure out a way to trade with myself, maybe using to GBAs, since fake repros are known to be able to trade.

Thanks for all the help!