Help! 150 hours lost! Pokémon Gold save corrupted on EZ-Flash Jr. - possible recovery of trainer/Pokémon data?

[kylesful]

I'm trying to recover a Pokémon Gold save from an EZ-Flash Jr. that became corrupted after a save. My friend is devastated and about to throw in the towel. he beat the entire game and had ho oh. lots of high level pokemon hes been grinding on every day.

Details:

• Game: Pokémon Gold (USA/Europe)

• Flash cart: EZ-Flash Jr.

• Firmware: FW5_731

• Save file size: 32,816 bytes

• The game reports: "The save file is corrupted!"

• mGBA cannot load the save.

• PKHeX refuses to open the save.

What happened:

My friend had approximately 150 hours on the save. He had beaten the Elite Four and defeated Red. The save became corrupted after we finished a link battle. He saved the game normally and powered off the Game Boy. After that, the save would no longer load.

Things we've already checked:

• The save file is not empty.

• The save file is not all FFs or all zeros.

• Removing an apparent 40-byte header from the file did not make it load in PKHeX.

• A Pokémon Yellow save from the same EZ-Flash Jr. and firmware opens correctly in PKHeX.

• The Gold save and Yellow save appear structurally different despite coming from the same cart.

Known Pokémon on the save:

• Dragonite nicknamed "BUFFY"

• Another Pokémon nicknamed "CHOMPER", I think it was feraligatr. 

Trainer name:

• RED (bad name, ik...)

Questions:

1. Does the file look like a damaged Gen 2 SRAM save, or does it resemble an EZ-Flash-specific format?

2. Is there a known way to repair Gen 2 save checksums or recover the backup save block?

3. If the save itself cannot be repaired, is there a way to recover party Pokémon or PC box Pokémon data from the file?

I've attached the original .sav file and can provide additional information if needed.

Thanks for any help.

Pokemon - Gold Version (USA, Europe) (SGB Enhanced) (GB Compatible).sav

[Kaphotics]

Here ya go.

Pokemon - Gold Version (USA, Europe) (SGB Enhanced) (GB Compatible).sav

[kylesful]

13 minutes ago, Kaphotics said:

Here ya go.

Pokemon - Gold Version (USA, Europe) (SGB Enhanced) (GB Compatible).sav 32.05 kB · 1 download

HOW?!?!?!

[kylesful]

Just now, kylesful said:

HOW?!?!?!

Also, I have a lvl 5 eevee named egg that looks like a Lugia but I’m not complaining LOL

[Kaphotics]

9 minutes ago, kylesful said:

HOW?!?!?!

I forced PKHeX to ignore all sanity checks in the savedata detection (with a debugger) so that it would naturally land on detecting it as a Gen2 save. Then I exported it.

[kylesful]

The repaired save loads in mGBA and PKHeX, but on my EZ-Flash Jr. FW5_731 Pokémon Gold starts a New Game instead of loading the save unfortunately. I wonder if there is some ez flash specific code missing or something  can anyone help? Also, I’ve cleaned some pokemon up in the editor and stuff, so I’ll send the new file. 

Pokemon - Gold Version (USA, Europe) (SGB Enhanced) (GB Compatible) .sav

[Kaphotics]

If it loads fine in mGBA and not on the actual cartridge, then the issue is with how you are restoring the save file. Maybe you need to truncate off the RTC data at the end to make it a clean size. I'm not familiar with your hardware

[kylesful]

13 minutes ago, Kaphotics said:

If it loads fine in mGBA and not on the actual cartridge, then the issue is with how you are restoring the save file. Maybe you need to truncate off the RTC data at the end to make it a clean size. I'm not familiar with your hardware

yeah, it’s definitely weird. Just for the heck of it I took a save from silver on the cartridge to compare. The silver save won’t load in the poke editor application either which leads me to believe that the ez flash may be appending some sort of data or something? I’m stumped at this point. I’ll upload the silver save. Im not home but I need to check if that’s not just corrupted too though.

Pokemon - Silver Version (USA, Europe) (SGB Enhanced) (GB Compatible).sav

[kylesful]

Also forgot to mention my rtc is dead on the cartridge right now. Not sure if that matters. 

[Kaphotics]

22 minutes ago, kylesful said:

Pokemon - Silver Version (USA, Europe) (SGB Enhanced) (GB Compatible).sav 32.05 kB · 0 downloads

No data in the file, open it in a hex editor to see it's 99.99% uninitialized (nothing to recover). Happens when the battery is dead, because the battery keeps the save data alive.