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.

[kylesful]

On 6/2/2026 at 12:58 AM, 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

The original save shows CONTINUE on the EZ-Flash but says “save file is corrupted.” Your repaired save loads in mGBA and PKHeX now, but the EZ-Flash only shows NEW GAME. Curious if there’s a way to transplant the repaired Gen 2 save data back into the original EZ-Flash save container/format? Might consider emailing the ez flash people. Otherwise I’m buying an anologue pocket for my friend.  

[kylesful]

I’ve also attempted trucating rtc data off of both the og and forum fixed save, no luck. The og save says “no time set” on the bottom though after the rtc battery replacement. 

[kylesful]

Interesting result:

 

I created a hybrid save by taking the repaired save and replacing only the first 80 bytes with the first 80 bytes from a fresh Pokémon Gold save created on the same EZ-Flash Jr.

 

The resulting file no longer showed NEW GAME. Instead, it behaved like the fresh bedroom save.

 

This suggests that save-identification metadata exists near the beginning of the file and that the EZ-Flash Jr. or Pokémon Gold is using it to determine which save to load.

 

The original save shows CONTINUE but reports “The save file is corrupted.”

 

The repaired save loads in mGBA and PKHeX but shows NEW GAME on the EZ-Flash Jr.

 

 

[kylesful]

Additional observation: Manic Emulator on iPhone automatically identifies the original save as Pokémon Gold and asks to overwrite an existing Gold save. The recovered save instead asks me to choose which game the save belongs to. The recovered save loads in mGBA and PKHeX but both EZ-Flash Jr. and Manic fail to automatically identify it as a Gold save.

[kylesful]

Final Update - Save Successfully Recovered

Good news: the save was recovered.

For anyone who finds this thread in the future, here’s what happened.

The original Pokémon Gold save was from an EZ-Flash Jr. and had become corrupted after a normal save. The game would show CONTINUE, but selecting it resulted in “The save file is corrupted!”

The original save:

• Was recognized by Pokémon Gold.
• Was recognized by the EZ-Flash Jr.
• Would not load due to corruption.

A recovered save was created by forcing PKHeX to detect the save as Gen 2 and exporting it.

The recovered save:

• Loaded correctly in PKHeX.
• Loaded correctly in mGBA.
• Contained the trainer data, Pokémon, PC boxes, etc.
• Was NOT recognized by the EZ-Flash Jr. (showed NEW GAME).

At first I assumed this was an RTC or EZ-Flash formatting issue. I replaced the RTC battery, tested multiple save variants, compared fresh EZ-Flash saves, tested Auto Save on/off, and experimented with various header/footer combinations.

The breakthrough came from realizing that:

1. The original save still contained information that both Pokémon Gold and the EZ-Flash Jr. recognized.
2. The recovered save contained the actual recovered game data.
3. The recovered save’s secondary/backup Gen 2 save structure and checksums were not fully reconstructed.

The successful solution was:

• Take the original save as the base/container.
• Inject the recovered save’s primary game data.
• Rebuild the secondary Gen 2 save copy.
• Recalculate both Gen 2 save checksums.

After doing that, the resulting save:

• Loaded on real EZ-Flash Jr. hardware.
• Loaded correctly in Pokémon Gold.
• Contained the recovered trainer data and Pokémon.
• Successfully restored the original playthrough.

Notable recovered Pokémon included a Dragonite named Buffy and a Feraligatr named Chomper, confirming the recovered data matched the original save.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped investigate this. The save was not lost after all.