Homebrew Is there a way to backup GB games by using GBA homebrew?

RiuBert

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I know there is a very popular tool for backupping GBA saves files for the DS but I wonder if there is one for GBA to backup GB/GBC games onto an SD card.
 

Axido

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I looked into this a year ago and ended up buying the GBxCart RW mentioned above. There are certainly other ways, but most of them are too hacky to be worth the hassle.
 
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FAST6191

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It is unlikely -- GB/GBC has a separate little switch in there (look inside and there will be a black slider that only GB/GBC will trip; indeed if your screen appears squished for GBA games, which will then crash/not boot, you want to check this as it is a known failure method) which changes voltages and kicks in other aspects. I can't rule out some obscure means by which it could be made to work as there are GBA dumping methods that involve swapping and hot inserts, though at the same there are no such things and nobody has made one that I have seen.

A curio more than anything at this point -- don't be soldering things onto super rare cradles/linkers but mod for old EZFlash (1/2 era) linkers to dump GB/GBC, even the linker by itself will probably be able to be sold to fund one or two of the devices noted above
http://mootan.hg.to/fmgbx/ez_fmgbx.html
 

rantex92

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if you got an n64+everdrive64+transferpak you could use "gb64" you can dump games and write/read saves with that
 

N7Kopper

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It can't happen. GBA homebrew runs in GBA mode, which is electrically incompatible with GB(C) cartridges. Remember that Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire ran afoul of it way back when, decanonising the first two generations until the Virtual Console recanonised them (except Stadium). and then Dexit happened and it was all moot anyway lol
 

metroid maniac

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Did someone say impossible? https://github.com/Lorenzooone/gba-dump-gb

Found this after a little search.
Interesting find - but it doesn't look complete. The receiver side doesn't do anything.

The GBA -> GBC mode switch has been known about for a long time, but I had no idea it was possible to inject a payload to run instead of the GBC bootrom.
 

tech3475

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This site lists some methods:
https://wiki.no-intro.org/index.php?title=Game_Boy_(Color)_Dumping_Guide

If you have an Everdrive 64 or 64 Drive and a transfer pak for an N64, there are dumpers available. Although I only used gb64 to backup saves.

It was a bit of a pain though for the GB camera to backup the photos, had to find an older version and physically move the cart in the transfer pack with multiple attempts.

Yes I know it’s not GBA homebrew, but it’s a potentially cheap alternative if you have the hardware which I’ve used.

Alternatively, if you‘re willing to look at dumpers, there are options like the Retrode 2 or the Retro Blaster with the right addons, the former I’ve seen others use and the latter I’ve used for N64, but both are currently out of stock.
 

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