GBA cart stopped saving (but it has the old saves)

[fishsandwich]

I'm playing Shining Force. I've been getting errors and glitches so I cleaned it well and started playing it again. Works great until I go to save. The next time I turn it on I end up where I stopped night before last.

The cart remembers the two other files I created so the battery can't be dead.

Any ideas???

[kentuckyfried]

Might be a fake, fake RPGs with batts are almost always shot or on the way to being shot.

2 easy ways to check legitimacy is to see if there is 'Nintendo' written on the board when you look at just above the connector pins on the left of the cart, also there should be a double-digit number impressed on the label somewhere.

Also if the label spells Nintendo, Nontnedo or something, that's a hint too.

[cityside75]

I thought GBA games used flash memory instead of batteries? Maybe the flash mem is corrupted somehow?

[TheDomesticInstitution]

If you look through some of the clear ones (orig. GB), you can see a battery. But the new DS games use flash, although I'm not sure about the GBA games. Although I can claim ignorance partially, because I don't know which version of GB the Shining Force game is for.

[-_-Nintendo-_-]

GBA use EEPROM, so if your saves keep going bye bye, then it *may* be a fake, or it may be corupt. Try clearing all the memory, even if it means losing those saves. Although I do find it odd that the other saves are still there, and with those mentions of glitchs, you could have buggered the save files, sort of like if you use a Gameshark on FF7 :D

[fishsandwich]

I thought GBA games used flash memory instead of batteries? Maybe the flash mem is corrupted somehow?

No, they use battery back-up. Some of 3rd-party developers have gotten cheap and reverted back to passwords. One recent review I read for a newer release said the password system was TWENTY-TWO characters long. That is ridiculous.

Shining Force for the GBA comes with a battery. I have three saved files on the cart... I deleted one of them and then copied the 3rd file (the opne I'm playing) into the first slot. It seems to be working... I shall know when In ride the train home tonight.

[Bratwurst]

No, they use battery back-up.

Some GBA carts use battery, some use flash chips to hold their saves.