Backing up your GBC and GBA saved data

Earlier today, I picked up my old copy of Pokémon Blue, and noticed the save was gone – oh no!

This is an unfortunate consequence of how these old games save data, storing it in volatile memory on the cartridge. This data is stored in RAM, kept alive by a small battery, usually a CR2025 coin cell. This works pretty well, except… they do eventually die and cause your data to be lost.

This isn’t good – I’m sure that many of you cherish the progress of your Game Boy games as a part of your childhood and want to be able to keep it safe. Fortunately, there are many options!

Starting with what I believe to be the best option for backing up this kind of save – the insideGadgets GBxCart RW.

You can find it by visiting the insideGadgets Shop. It’s a very convenient device that supports both the Game Boy/Game Boy Color and the Game Boy Advance cartridges, allowing you to backup game ROMs, savedata and restore said saves. It can also be used to write ROMs to supported flash cartridges, as well as some bootlegs. I originally bought it as it was much more convenient than its predecessor, which took the form of an Arduino Uno shield – which also did not support GBA cartridges.

If you’d like an alternative, you can use the Joey Jr. by BennVenn, available here. I have never personally used one of these, but it’s a very widely known tool specifically made for this purpose!

However, if you don’t want to buy any dedicated hardware and happen to have a Nintendo DS or DS lite as well as a flashcart (like an R4) to load homebrew onto, you have some other options when it comes to GBA games!

You can use GBA Backup Tool by Rudolph to backup GBA saves and ROMs. You can find a link to it here.

However, due to the Nintendo DS’ lack of support for GB/GBC cartridges, you won’t be able to dump those.

Now, remember – if you want to replace the battery to prolong the life of your cartridges’ saves, make sure to back the saves up first. Yes, you can replace the battery while the cartridge is powered so the save is kept, but that’s not a very good idea and you’ll still put your saves at risk. Just back your saves up, replace the battery, then restore the save back to the cart.

Finally – if you have no way to dump your GB/GBC/GBA titles, no willingness to purchase the hardware or it’s somehow cheaper to ship your cartridge to Portugal and back – you can always contact me for a save dump – but that’s unlikely to make sense cost-wise.

That’s it for now, enjoy your day and make sure to backup everything you actually care about!