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3DS Digital Save Data Emergency

Nachos

Member
This ISN’T a thread for crapping on Nintendo’s digital infrastructure; this screw-up was not their fault. We get it; they make questionable decisions.

So, I’m worried that my entire SD card that I use for my 3DS might be borked. Last week, I needed to do some photography but realized that I had forgotten my SD card. No problem, right? I had my 3DS in my backpack, so I just took out the SD card and slotted it in, only to realize that I hadn’t turned the system off like I thought I did. Crap. Well, hoping for the best, I just got back home and tried the SD card again after shutting the 3DS off. Everything seemed fine enough, except that games like Monster Hunter 3U had some performance issues that weren’t there before and some monsters were acting strange.

I tried reinstalling it, but the download just got stuck around 70% or so. I tried again, but this time, the listed size of the download was zero blocks, which obviously didn’t make sense. So I took the card out, copied everything over to my PC, and then reformatted the card to copy everything back. This time, though, EVERYTHING seems screwed up. None of the splash screens that appear when you hover over an icon appear, and the games won’t launch. On top of that, going into the data management portion of options show everything being listed as “?” with a zero-block size, instead of the proper name and actual size.

When I uninstalled Monster Hunter and was prompted to back-up the save data, I figured that I might as well back-up everything else. Those files show up, so they seem to be fine, but I couldn’t back-up Animal Crossing or Pokémon since Nintendo disabled that option unless you opt to delete the game from your system. Well, with the games listed as “?”, the 3DS doesn’t even know what games are which, so even if I try to delete them, there’s no option to back-up the saves. I could just delete everything and start over, but I don’t want to lose my save file for Animal Crossing if I can help it.

Does anyone know if there’s a way to copy the file and re-insert it into the SD card? I don’t know how the file organization on 3DS works at all, so the only thing that comes to mind is to go through each game, find the folder with a file size that corresponds to the game size when you convert it from blocks to GB, delete EVERYTHING, and overwrite the save file when I get the games downloaded properly.

I’m not even sure if Nintendo Tech Support could help me, but does anyone have any other ideas?
 

Rich!

Member
...It's gone, man.

I really don't think anything can be done. AFAIK, the saves are encrypted to prevent copying (unless you backed them up using the backup function)
 

hunnies28

Member
I'm sorry to hear your case, unfortunately I don't have anything to help you with. I live in constant fear of losing my save file of both MH and Animal Crossing. I have always considered my 3DS ' SD card off limits for the same reason.
 

Rich!

Member
I'm sorry to hear your case, unfortunately I don't have anything to help you with. I live in constant fear of losing my save file of both MH and Animal Crossing. I have always considered my 3DS ' SD card off limits for the same reason.

but you can backup your saves using the OS. click the arrow when highlighting a game.
 

Nachos

Member
but you can backup your saves using the OS. click the arrow when highlighting a game.

It's just so frustrating that they went out of their way to disable being able to back-up the data easily for the games that are going to be the biggest time investments for most players.

Isn't there some bug with Animal Crossing backups, or something? Something about how the save is written and numbered causes it to not be usable when restored?

That's certainly the first I've heard of it.
 
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