Game Boy Advance

Check the dumping hardware overview for a list of known preservation hardware.

If you need help, please come chat with us on the VGPC or No-Intro discord servers.

Important Notes

• Unopened games should have their ROM and save data dumped before attempting to play them. This avoids inadvertent modification of the data and helps preserve any possible rewritable data in its unused/“factory” state. This is especially important for types of cart that store the ROM on rewritable media, or games that come with special save data pre-installed. But it is not necessarily possible to know in advance, hence why its advisable to dump first. Note in your submission whether the physical media was sealed and include a photo of the cart/packaging in its sealed state, if possible.
• You should clean the physical media's electrical contacts before trying to dump it, then dump it, clean it again and dump it a second time, checking if both dumps match using a file comparison tool or calculating the SHA256 of each file and comparing those values. This helps ensure that dirt on the contacts is not causing interference, and that dirt was fully removed during the cleaning process.

1. GBxCart RW
2. The Joey Jr
3. Sanni Cart Reader
4. DS + DS Slot-1 Flashcart (Normal Carts)
5. DS + DS Slot-1 Flashcart (GBA Video Movie Carts)

Supports: GB/GBC/GBA, Game Boy Camera, and Nintendo Power Carts and Bootleg flashing

Please see the the page for Lesserkuma's open-source software for the GBxCart RW, FlashGBX.

Supports: GB/GBC/GBA, Game Boy Camera, and Nintendo Power Carts and Bootleg flashing

For latest official instruction on how to use the Joey Jr, please see the official user guide.

The Sanni Cart Reader comes with Game Boy / Game Boy Color dumping capabilities by default. Follow the Sanni Cart Reader wiki for proper settings, and dumping instructions.

1. A Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite with a flashcart
2. https://gamebrew.org/wiki/GBA_Backup_Tool

1. Run the .nds for GBA Backup Tool
2. Ensure that your GBA cart is inserted, then press A on the pop-up.
3. By default, GBA Backup Tool is in Save Backup mode. Press R twice to go to ROM backup mode.
4. Press B to make a new backup, then hit A to confirm. Your rom will be dumped to your SD card.

1. Use duplo (https://github.com/endrift/duplo), here is a prepared build from Whovian: https://archive.org/details/duplo
2. This is not needed (and won't work for) for TV series carts, which don't use the Matrix memory chips

todo: add info on cart/box serials (and non-standard carts if relevant)

SSS-TGGR-V
S = System (Always/mostly “AGB”)
T = Type (N = Normal)
G = Game code (e.g. MA = Super Mario Advance)
R = Region (J = Japan, E = USA, P = Europe)
V = Version (starts at 0)

There is also a shortened version of the code on the left hand side, in the format TGGR-V.

See Gathering and Submitting Dump Info (Basic)