Gamecube memory card problems

[MadSteelDarkness]

Okay, here's the situation:

Yesterday, I was playing Chaos Field Extended, after a bit of a break from RE4. The power went out while I was playing, so I shut off both the Cube and the surge protector it was plugged in to. The power came back on, and I decided to pop RE4 back in. Only now, for some reason, my Cube wasn't finding my RE4 save. So I popped the game out and went into the Cube's memory card manager. There was nothing there anymore, on either memory card.

Poof. Nada. All Gone.

Game saves for at least a dozen games had all disappeared. Pissed off, I decided it must have been the power outage, although I had never seen a console do that before. So back in goes RE4, and I play an enjoyable five hours or so back into it. I took a break, played a bit more CFE, and then popped back in RE4. So far, so good... On a whim, after turning off the Cube, I decided to turn my surge protector back off, and unplugged it from the wall.

So just a few minutes ago, I decided to plug everything back in, and go back to RE4. No game save. I went back into the memory card manager, only to find that again, all saves were lost. WHAT...THE.....FUCK?!!!

So anyway, I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences like this before. Surely this console doesn't erase all of the memory card saves every time the power goes out. Does it? Any insight into this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

[joshschw]

obviously the surge protector isn't working I would thin, at the very least just take the cards out before and unplug it and put them in only after you plug it back in.

edit: whoops, what oxtsu said, I totally forgot about that

[oxtsu]

I assume that you're RE4 game is non-JPN region and mixing it with Chaos Field is the problem. Different region game saves cannot be mixed on the same memory card. It will re-format the memory card every time if you try to do it!

[Ganelon]

Damn, is the GC card the only one with this weird problem?

[MadSteelDarkness]

I assume that you're RE4 game is non-JPN region and mixing it with Chaos Field is the problem. Different region game saves cannot be mixed on the same memory card. It will re-format the memory card every time if you try to do it!

No way! Really? I could have sworn I had a Star Soldier game save on there...

Huh. I guess I'll make one memory card my U.S. region card, and the other my Jp memory card.

Thanks for the quick replies and help, everyone!

[oxtsu]

Damn, is the GC card the only one with this weird problem?

As far as I know, yes, it's the only one.

I assume that you're RE4 game is non-JPN region and mixing it with Chaos Field is the problem. Different region game saves cannot be mixed on the same memory card. It will re-format the memory card every time if you try to do it!

No way! Really? I could have sworn I had a Star Soldier game save on there...

Huh. I guess I'll make one memory card my U.S. region card, and the other my Jp memory card.

Thanks for the quick replies and help, everyone!

Yup..If it's any consolation, I too had to learn this the hard way.

[Dave_K.]

Be carefull if you use FreeLoader to play imports. Some games are NOT compatible with saving games via freeloader, and will happily format your memory card thinking something is wrong with it (if can't read from it). Of course it will prompt you, but since you are using freeloader, your bios won't have the necessary kanji loaded so the text is just a bunch of weird symbols with spaceships and stuff!

[Morden]

Ok, this is my first post on the forum, so I'll try to make it count. Riiight... So, the GameCube died on you and you lost all your saves? Not all is lost!

First of all, I play imports on my PAL GameCube and I save the game progress in japanese titles on the same card I use for all the rest and it never went blank on me. Maybe the problem occurs with certain titles? Anyways, I even had saves from the same game but a different region and it worked ok.

Important question: Do you have a copy of Phantasy Star Online and a BBA? If so, you can easily backup your saves. There's this little program that allows you to transfer the save games or a raw image of the whole memory card onto your PC using the Phantasy Star exploit + Phantasy Star code uploader.

To make it happend you need a PC, which you obviously have, a net card, and the GameCube items mentioned above. Allthough the memory card manager doesn't show the save files, they might still be there. The first sectors on the memory card could have been damaged and that's why you can't see the files. This happend to me once, but I wasn't too bummed out, since I have the save backups on my PC. The PC program I use however, did see the files and I could still get them off the card.

Sometimes after a problem like that you might notice that the memory card became smaller. This can be caused by some leftover garbage that GameCube can't see, thus you can't get rid of it. And there's no "format card" option. But you can fix that too. The program you can use to backup the save files can make a raw image of the memory card. Which means you can dump a whole card, along with the empty space, if there is any. If something happends to your memory card, you can "reflash" it with the raw image and you have a 1:1 clone. This works ONLY with your memory card. Noone ealse can flash their memory card with the raw image you made.

If you don't have the BBA and PSO, I strongly suggest you get them, because there's a bunch of useful tools you can use this way. You get a great game, a possibility to play online and a dex drive to backup your saves.

[MadSteelDarkness]

Thanks for the tips, and welcome to the forum Morden!

Unfortunately, no, I have neither PSO nor a BBA for the ol' Cube. But I'll keep all that in mind. I have to admit, I'm not all that bummed out about losing those saves. It kind of gives me an excuse to play through all those gems (MGS:The Twin Snakes, The RE remake, Soulcalibur 2, etc.) again for a second or third time.

[maco]

Be carefull if you use FreeLoader to play imports. Some games are NOT compatible with saving games via freeloader, and will happily format your memory card thinking something is wrong with it (if can't read from it). Of course it will prompt you, but since you are using freeloader, your bios won't have the necessary kanji loaded so the text is just a bunch of weird symbols with spaceships and stuff!

I think if you use a Japan formatted memory card for Japan region games, you shouldn't have any problems.
This is how it used to be anyway, but maybe things have changed.

[Dave_K.]

]I think if you use a Japan formatted memory card for Japan region games, you shouldn't have any problems.
This is how it used to be anyway, but maybe things have changed.

You are partially correct. Here is what I read on the FreeLoader compatibility issues.

http://www.importinvasion.co.uk/archive/mem_cards.htm

[Morden]

I read the compatibility issues and guess what? PSO + BBA + PC takes care of everything, or so it would seem. I used all three regions for the saves on the same card and I never had any problems. For example. Right now I have a japanese save for Four Swords, US save for F Zero GX and european saves for everything ealse I play at the time. No glitches, no missing saves.

I usually backup the saves on my PC, which is a slow process, I admit, but at least you won't lose anything of value. When you upload a save onto your memory card from a PC, no matter what region the save file is from, the GC doesn't have a problem with that.

[Blade]

I know this isn't exactly involving the Gamecube, but something similar to that happened to my PS2's Memory card when I was trying to use one of those Action Replay Max EVO USB cards to transfer a bunch of my old saves to the USB to make more room.

Lost everything. That was a very sad day for me as well.

Anytime the game has Auto-save is also a risky venture as well, since the Memory cards may or may not be plugged in all the way in some cases. For the most part, I generally plug my Memory card in and keep it there....no compressing stuff or making room for stuff for me anymore, I just delete stuff I don't play for a long time.

[marcus12024]

There's also the (admittedly quite) small chance that your surge protector is having "issues"...ie: having problems when switching on and off. Maybe it got messed up one time when the power went out, or something. I'm not too clear on how all that works, but if it were me I'd likely just buy a new surge protector, just in case.

I'm only saying this because a few years back I was playing my PSOne, and the power went out. I turned my surge protector off then on again, and everything was normal at first. But every once in a while my save cards would get deleted/messed up. I replaced the surge protector and have never had the problem since. Could be coincidence (since I'm not an electrician), but seems a bit strange.

[Dave_K.]

I read the compatibility issues and guess what? PSO + BBA + PC takes care of everything, or so it would seem. I used all three regions for the saves on the same card and I never had any problems. For example. Right now I have a japanese save for Four Swords, US save for F Zero GX and european saves for everything ealse I play at the time. No glitches, no missing saves.

Well as stated in the FAQ I linked above, there are certain games that check the region formatting of the memory card before read/write. You just probably don't have one of those games.

Anyway, to avoid these problems, its best to use seperate memory cards for each region. And to avoid the possible formatting issue with FreeLoader, its best to just region mod your GC (which doesn't look to difficult provided you have the gamebit security screwdriver).
http://www.phosphors.com/gcn/region%20switch/