3rd Gen My games keep deleting themselves!

I bought five GBA games (Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald, Saphire, Ruby) used off Ebay. I was playing Leaf Green and I beat the fifth gym. I saved the game and turned it off, and when i went back on it had deleted itself. The same happened to Fire Red after the second gym, and Saphire after the first gym.Ruby also freezes ALL THE TIME. Before I play it will say either "save five is okay" or "save file has been deleted...". I'm guessing that the previous user cheated. Does anyone know why my games keep deleting themselves? And is there anything I can do to keep them from deleting?

I had that happen with an old copy of Gold. I think age can cause the cartridges to glitch up a little. Unfortunately I don't know how to fix it.

Age glitches up just the G/S/C games only due to their short lived internal batteries (7 years). That problem shouldn't happen with GBA games. The problem probably is that the cartridges were hacked or pirated/not official. Not sure if there's anyway to help other than trying to find used/new copies at a reliable source like a video game store, because eBay's sort of unreliable.

I also had a bad experience with a Sapphire version I got off of eBay. The damned thing looked like it got hit with a hammer. It barely fit in the GBA. It had a few glitch tiles in random places. Tell me, when the games delete themselves, does it say "Your savegame looks corrupted... the game may now be played"? (something along those lines) If so, you're having the same problem I had.

I'd go so far as to tell you to just trash that eBay garbage that you just got ripped off with, and go get real copies. Where? I don't know, I don't know of any stores that still sell them. Maybe you can order them online at some official Pokemon website. If not, I suggest getting an emulator because it's not like GameFreak would be losing out by you downloading a game they're not even selling anymore.

If you wanna get a real copy then I suggest getting a used one from a gamestore like gamestop if you can't get a new copy. The used ones usually work (they did for me) And alot of stores have the pokemon GBA games used.

Poor you. I bet you lost quite a bit of money on that. Most likely, they're fake. Don't trust Ebay, ever.

Apostrophe said:

I also had a bad experience with a Sapphire version I got off of eBay. The damned thing looked like it got hit with a hammer. It barely fit in the GBA. It had a few glitch tiles in random places. Tell me, when the games delete themselves, does it say "Your savegame looks corrupted... the game may now be played"? (something along those lines) If so, you're having the same problem I had.

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Yeah. it said something like "Your game has been corrupted...the game will be loaded...your game may now be played". thanks for all the help. MAN! willl this hurt my ds? i had a ds and pokemon diamond COMPLETLEY ruined when my friend traded me some hacked pokemon. now i have the limeted edition Palkia/Dialga ds.

Pokegirl98 said:

Yeah. it said something like "Your game has been corrupted...the game will be loaded...your game may now be played". thanks for all the help. MAN! willl this hurt my ds?

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No, it will not hurt your DS, so no worries. =]
It's only a little glitch in the game/save file.

Oh good...such a relief...thank you all for all the help. because i just figured out that you can't migrate from the gba's to Platinum, so it would have been pretty bad if it glitched up my ds for NO REASON.

Pokegirl98 said:

I bought five GBA games (Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald, Saphire, Ruby) used off Ebay. I was playing Leaf Green and I beat the fifth gym. I saved the game and turned it off, and when i went back on it had deleted itself. The same happened to Fire Red after the second gym, and Saphire after the first gym.Ruby also freezes ALL THE TIME. Before I play it will say either "save five is okay" or "save file has been deleted...". I'm guessing that the previous user cheated. Does anyone know why my games keep deleting themselves? And is there anything I can do to keep them from deleting?

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Each game has an internal battery and when that dies the game stops being able to hold save data. However even the old GameBoy Colour games take about 9-10yrs for the batteries to die, and the batteries of the Advance games take much longer, and considering the advance games are only out 6yrs and you bought the games on ebay, they are likely fake games.

Greene1516 said:

Each game has an internal battery and when that dies the game stops being able to hold save data. However even the old GameBoy Colour games take about 9-10yrs for the batteries to die, and the batteries of the Advance games take much longer, and considering the advance games are only out 6yrs and you bought the games on ebay, they are likely fake games.

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Yes indeed, it's a pirated one. Their batteries usually die out within a year. I used to wonder why my games lasted longer than all my friend's before I found out they bought pirated ones. 6 years and I'm still playing the same save file while theirs gets auto deleted within a year of buying a gamepak XD

Pokegirl98 said:

I bought five GBA games (Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald, Saphire, Ruby) used off Ebay. I was playing Leaf Green and I beat the fifth gym. I saved the game and turned it off, and when i went back on it had deleted itself. The same happened to Fire Red after the second gym, and Saphire after the first gym.Ruby also freezes ALL THE TIME. Before I play it will say either "save five is okay" or "save file has been deleted...". I'm guessing that the previous user cheated. Does anyone know why my games keep deleting themselves? And is there anything I can do to keep them from deleting?

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looks like you've got fake copies. or...the internal battery that keeps track of the clock has gone dry. that happens to me on gold all the time. It never saves.

Yer as said its either fake/bad overseas copies or an Internal Battery dead, but it can be fixed if the Internal battery dies.

I don't think they're pirated/not offical. they came with the original instuction booklets with the nintendo seal on them.

Pokegirl98 said:

I don't think they're pirated/not offical. they came with the original instuction booklets with the nintendo seal on them.

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The Nintendo Seal can be Copied. ANYONE can take a ROM dump and paste the Nintendo seal of Quality on it. It's a no-brainer.

There's no hidden magic that can stop Pirates from putting that on their hacked games.

Pokegirl98 said:

I don't think they're pirated/not offical. they came with the original instuction booklets with the nintendo seal on them.

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I got slapped with a fake Platinum from ebay once and it looked exactly like a real game.

i have the same problum with my gold. its because of the battery in the game but im not sure if GBA pokemon games do that though =/
A magazine called Pokemon World that i get did and article on how to fix it but i cant remember how i'll have a check and see if i can find that issue

What was the colour of the cartridge?
If it was black it's most likely it's a bootleg copy.
If it's green then there is something wrong with the game or it's been painted, which isn't likely.

Can you report the person on ebay?

I had it happen to my emerald but weird thiong was is that I always used it in my gamebay advance
I tried it in my ds and *the file has been corrupted*
I also would like to find out this has happened