deleted saves?

[Tenshi no Ai]

So, I was playing around today on my ol' Game Boy Colour and seeing if some of my old games still work. One thing I recently read, was that the internal battery in some of the games of that time can die, thus having it not possible to save games on it. But the issue I found today, was that one of my games which I am POSITIVE I have played and saved on before, only game me the option of "new game". I don't even think you can delete save slots on it, but I'm wondering if maybe the battery has to do something with it? I don't want to do anythign risky like open up the game and replace the battery or anything, but just wondering if anyone's heard anything like this of randomly dissapearing save slot on GB/GBC games?

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Most likely. This will happen with every cartridge game you face yourself with. Infact your memory cards for ps2, Gamecube, whatever will not last forever. Flash memory can only last a certain number of cycles before finally dying out.

No storage device is permanent forever, if ya wanna back up stuff to keep decades later, you may as well have to re-back them up them every 10-15 years or so.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Yeah guess it's time to face reality: not everything lasts forever, including memory cards (which don't have quite the best memory, afterall).

I guess I'm just a little surprised because out of all my games there was only the ONE that had this happen. Everything is else is fine (which I'm glad since some have some pretty good and BIG saves on it that took me I don't even know HOW many hours back in the day to accumulate :/)

I guess I was more thinking that the save thing, was more just that you could continue to game, but it wouldn't allow you to save it, rather than stuff be deleted :/

[Radical Dreamer]

This happened to me once with a Sonic 3 cartridge on the Sega Genesis. For whatever reason, my save files just weren't there anymore one day. So yeah, you're not alone. XD

[samuraidragon]

I was playing Yellow on my GBC one night, and when I turned it on the next time there was no save file; not even an old one.

I wasn't happy. XD

[Tommy]

Yikes, how long do my memory cards last?

I remember the day I beat Brave Fencer Musashi my PS1 memory card cleared itself and I couldn't save anything. Should I buy a new PS2 memory card and put all my current files on it just in case or will it last a good while longer than believed?

I've owned Mario Six Golden Coins since I was 4.
It the second video game I ever owned and it uses save files.
It still works for me.

For those curious, the first game I ever owned was Kirby's Dreamland.