[Vitiman]

I got a preowned copy of Zelda : Wind Waker yesterday, and I decided to play it recently. So everything's fine and dandy, I join Tetra's pirate gang to save my sister, etc. Then, I choose to save. It wont let me. To clarify :

*I click save
*It states that it must make a ZWW file on my memory card (fair enough, even though I did that when I started up the game)
*It says it has completed the task, so I hit save again
*Repeat step 2

THEN, I go to my Gamecube's memory card menu, only to discover the slot that Wind Waker was taking up was just a blank space using up 12 blocks. No picture, nothing, and apparently the disc couldn't find it either. What could be doing this? It couldn't be the memory card, because it worked fine when I tested it out with Paper Mario and F-Zero GX (Both of them saved and worked after I turned it off).

[Blue Emerald]

Does your disc have any dust or scratches on it? That could be stopping it from creating a save file. I know when my Okami disc had some dust on it, the map wouldn't show up, so something like that could keep a certain function from running.

This post has been edited by Blue Emerald: 20 March 2011 - 02:30 PM

[Vitiman]

Well, I tried cleaning it, using the toothpaste and cloth method, but, although it made my disc minty fresh, without a single scratch on it, it still just wouldn't save. This really sucks, too, as I was really looking forward to playing this

[Blue Emerald]

Well, my only guess then is that the previous owner did something to the disc that corrupted it (turned the power off/reset the console/moved the memory card while it was saving), or perhaps a blackout affected the disc while it was saving. I know it's possible to corrupt a memory card's ability to save a certain game when that happens (my pre-owned Controller Pak couldn't save Quest 64 for this very reason), but I'm not quite sure if this also extends to the disc itself. I'd have to do some hard searching for the answer.

[EDIT] Okay, apparently it is possible to damage a disc if you interrupt its save operation. The previous owner may have just unknowingly screwed you over.

This post has been edited by Blue Emerald: 20 March 2011 - 04:00 PM

[Vitiman]

Well, my only guess then is that the previous owner did something to the disc that corrupted it (turned the power off/reset the console/moved the memory card while it was saving), or perhaps a blackout affected the disc while it was saving. I know it's possible to corrupt a memory card's ability to save a certain game when that happens (my pre-owned Controller Pak couldn't save Quest 64 for this very reason), but I'm not quite sure if this also extends to the disc itself. I'd have to do some hard searching for the answer.

[EDIT] Okay, apparently it is possible to damage a disc if you interrupt its save operation. The previous owner may have just unknowingly screwed you over.

I'm just gonna get a refund and buy a copy off of the internet, seeing as they have no more in stock (I might actually purchase TP instead).

[GerbilSoft]

Well, my only guess then is that the previous owner did something to the disc that corrupted it (turned the power off/reset the console/moved the memory card while it was saving), or perhaps a blackout affected the disc while it was saving. I know it's possible to corrupt a memory card's ability to save a certain game when that happens (my pre-owned Controller Pak couldn't save Quest 64 for this very reason), but I'm not quite sure if this also extends to the disc itself. I'd have to do some hard searching for the answer.

[EDIT] Okay, apparently it is possible to damage a disc if you interrupt its save operation. The previous owner may have just unknowingly screwed you over.

It is *not* possible to "corrupt" an optical disc by screwing with the console (power off, reset, remove memory card) while saving the game. The worst that would happen is the memory card gets wiped (because Nintendo has no clue how to write a reliable flash memory filesystem). Disc scratches usually aren't caused by doing any of these things, either.

(Xbox 360 is an exception to the rule because of its notoriously defective disc drives that lack foam padding, which causes the discs to crash into a metal component if the system is moved, resulting in a scratch.)

Also, as far as I know, no retail game consoles have disc drives that support writing to CD-R/RW/etc media. (That, and retail game discs are pressed CD/DVD-ROM discs anyway, so a CD/DVD-RW drive wouldn't be able to write to it anyway.)

This post has been edited by GerbilSoft: 20 March 2011 - 05:58 PM

[Rage]

Not sure if this applies, but have you been keeping your GC memory card in your Wii? For a long time without removing it? If so, stop that shit immediately. The Wii never truly cools completely down due to its WiiConnect24 thing and it can fry your memory card if you keep it plugged in for a long enough time. Happened to me.

[Rika Chou]

If anything it sounds like a bad memory card to me. Try another one, or reformat it or something.

[Ravenfreak]

The game is probably writing to bad sectors on the memory card. Delete some saves on your memory card, and try saving it again. Or get a new memory card.

[sonicblur]

I would agree with most people who've already stated that the problem isn't the disc.

If there was a problem with the disc itself, you wouldn't be able to play the game. If a sector a GC disc is invalid, the drive returns a disc read error and does not provide data to the system. Thus it's not possible for a tiny bit of save code to just be wrong. If you're not getting any disc errors from the system, the disc fine. Despite what you believe, this problem definitely sounds memory card related. If wind waker lets you use either memory card slot, try the other one. If you have a GC Modem or Broadband adapter, one thing to consider is that the BBA hardware operates over the same bus as Memory card Slot A. Some homebrew like GCNrd was known to cause memory card corruption if it acted across the network at the same time as a game was reading or writing to memory card slot A. However, slot B was fine. I assume this won't be the case for you, but I thought I'd mention it anyway since it sounded like you're using a real Gamecube and not a Wii.

[JaxTH]

Not sure if this applies, but have you been keeping your GC memory card in your Wii? For a long time without removing it? If so, stop that shit immediately. The Wii never truly cools completely down due to its WiiConnect24 thing and it can fry your memory card if you keep it plugged in for a long enough time. Happened to me.

Then turn WiiConnect24 off?

[Vitiman]

Thanks, everyone. I was almost tempting to return the fucker and buy something else. Good to know it's not the disc :D

Also, a minor note that I forgot to mention earlier... my memory card is a crappy MadCatz one... and I never bothered buying another first party one because I have managed to get this piece of shit to actually work in the long run. I was going to buy a first party one, but I just never got around to it, not to mention you can really only get them used nowadays.