Any way to recover an overwritten childhood Pokémon Gen 4 cartridge save with no backup?

[TheOneEnzo]

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone here might know if there is any chance of recovering an old Pokémon Gen 4 save file.

Years ago I had my original childhood save on my Nintendo DS cartridge (Pokémon Pearl). A couple of years ago, after a lot of complaining from my sister, she convinced me to overwrite my save file so she could play. She only played a little and then stopped. I deeply regret it now because that original save had a lot of sentimental value.

At the time, I was just playing normally on the physical cartridge and I never made any backups with Checkpoint, JKSM, PKHeX, or any other software, I was just a kid using the cartridge on my DS.

I’ve recently seen people mention Checkpoint and save recovery, so I wanted to ask: is there any realistic way to recover the old overwritten save if no backup was ever made?

I understand it may not be possible, but I wanted to ask people with more knowledge before giving up completely. Even if there is only a small chance using special hardware or recovery methods, I’d like to know.

I'd appreciate any links or advice on this topic.

Thank you!

[Kaphotics]

2 hours ago, TheOneEnzo said:

She only played a little and then stopped

possibly if the game was only saved once, then the backup inside the savedata would be your original save.

only way to know is to dump the save data present on the cartridge, and look at it.

[TheOneEnzo]

8 minutes ago, Kaphotics said:

possibly if the game was only saved once, then the backup inside the savedata would be your original save.

only way to know is to dump the save data present on the cartridge, and look at it.

Tbh I have no idea how many times she saved. Do you have a guide on hand you could share?