Reliability of Specific Save Slots on Zelda for NES

[grandta13]

I've read that there are times when only one save will erase for one reason or another, and I was wondering if specific slots have a higher tendency to erase than others.
I replaced the battery in my copy (recently acquired) and saved in the first slot, but found that it erased itself whenever I encountered the blinking light error. I've since switched to my Famicom with a converter and haven't had any issues yet, but I would still like to avoid losing my save.

I have a related question also. Apparently when you turned off your NES, it would create a power fluctuation that would sometime erase save on battery-backed games, and holding in the Reset button during shutdown negated this effect. I would like to ask if this issue is present the any of the Famicom models. I still hold the Reset button when powering down, but I do wonder if it's necessary.

[Hobie-wan]

It's the blinking that erased your save game. If there was a problem with the memory chip it's unlikely that it would just erase a certain save slot. More likely it would corrupt one or more of the saves depending on which memory addresses were a problem.

[Tanooki]

You pretty much got it. I think the story was that there's a chance a power spike could be sent to the cart and cause the save to be glitched or erased so holding reset down before powering off cuts that off since the game is cut off but the power to the system is still present.

Personally I've had reverse luck the few times I've used it where it has killed saves so all these years I've never done it after losing progress in both Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior back in the day.

[Ziggy]

I've read that there are times when only one save will erase for one reason or another, and I was wondering if specific slots have a higher tendency to erase than others.

Specific save slots will not have a higher tendency to erase or become corrupt. It's more just luck of the draw.

It's the blinking that erased your save game. If there was a problem with the memory chip it's unlikely that it would just erase a certain save slot. More likely it would corrupt one or more of the saves depending on which memory addresses were a problem.

Not necessarily. Saves don't exactly "erase," they just appear to be. If a save file becomes corrupt, more than likely it will just appear to be erased. The save is still there, it's just corrupt, so the game shows it as not being there at all. There could be a problem with the SRAM that would constantly corrupt a save slot, and it would appear to be erased.

But more than likely it was the blinking that erased the save. The NES carts have a poor design in regards to the way they handle SRAM and the battery.

I have a related question also. Apparently when you turned off your NES, it would create a power fluctuation that would sometime erase save on battery-backed games, and holding in the Reset button during shutdown negated this effect. I would like to ask if this issue is present the any of the Famicom models. I still hold the Reset button when powering down, but I do wonder if it's necessary.

Definitely hold reset when powering off. Even if it's not necessary, it wont hurt. Better safe than sorry. I also do this for early SNES carts, they have the same poor battery circuit as NES carts.

[Hobie-wan]

Not necessarily. Saves don't exactly "erase," they just appear to be. If a save file becomes corrupt, more than likely it will just appear to be erased. The save is still there, it's just corrupt, so the game shows it as not being there at all. There could be a problem with the SRAM that would constantly corrupt a save slot, and it would appear to be erased.

That makes sense as long as they programmed a checksum and a sanity check on the save data.

[Ziggy]

I'm pretty sure that they do have a check because of the way the NES screws up saves. From what I've read, the NES CPU kinda sucks when you're powering off the console and it can randomly write to the SRAM, which would mess up your saves. When I think about it, the chances are slim of a random write to the SRAM that blanks out a save or deletes a marker or flag for the file, compared to a portion (or even the entire thing) becoming corrupt. That being said, I've powered on a NES or SNES cart plenty of times and found a save file to be missing as if it were erased. If it was corrupt and there wasn't any sort of check, then the save file would still be there (albeit broken) but I've yet to come across this happening.

Anyway, that's just my own 2 cents, I'm far from an expert in the matter. This is just what I gather from the things I've read.

[grandta13]

Thanks for your replies; they were very helpful. I do have another question now, though: were the Japanese Zelda carts know to have the disappearing save issue? The cartridge edition released in 1992 had no warning on the Game Over screen, so I'm wondering if it was an issue, and if it wasn't, then why?

[Ziggy]

The Famicom uses the same CPU as far as I know, so that would mean it would have the same problem. It might have the warning on the back of the game cart.

[grandta13]

The Famicom uses the same CPU as far as I know, so that would mean it would have the same problem. It might have the warning on the back of the game cart.

I found a good picture on the back of the cart on eBay, but my Japanese is very weak, so I'm not sure if there is a warning about that on there.

[Ziggy]

I don't know a lick of Japanese, but a few people on the forums do.

I see that it says "ON - OFF". It says that in the warning on NES carts too (don't rapidly turn the console on and off).