PSVita Broken Memory Card Restoration Guide

A guide to rescuing your save data, screenshots, and other valuable data from a broken Vita memory card that's gone read-only!

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The Situation

This guide is for a very specific situation on the PlayStation Vita. Allow me to explain:

• The memory card has gone read-only. This means no more data can be written to the card, preventing games from functioning and taking screenshots, etc. However, the system should still be overall functional as far as booting into the LiveArea, and system apps that use system memory (e.g. the web browser, Welcome Park) should function normally as well.
• The typical methods, such as using either the official CMA or QCMA have been tried and found to not work.
• The Vita is PCH-2000 (Slim) or possibly a PSTV. I did this all on a Slim, however I believe because the PSTV also has an internal memory card it should also function on there. Unfortunately, I do not think this process would work on a PCH-1000 unless somehow Homebrew can let a PCH-1000 use YAMT or VitaShell without a memory card--which to my knowledge isn't a thing.

What We'll Need

• A Vita, PCH-2000 or probably a PSTV
• A functional desktop computer, and a stable internet connection or a good USB cable. Using a USB cable over internet transfer is the preferable option and has a more proven rate of success. The desktop computer must have sufficient available storage (the volume of your broken memory card minimum). A laptop might work instead of a desktop but a desktop is preferable for this process.
• A new memory card to replace the broken one, preferably of at least the same storage capacity. It is okay to get a larger memory card as well, during this process I upgraded from a 16 GB to a 32 GB for example. Keep in mind during this process you may also upgrade to a SD2VITA, however I didn't and as such will not cover that in this guide.
• Caution when working with computers. If you usually aren't too careful with computers, I want you to have an extra warning of caution. This guide involves processes that could literally mess your Vita up entirely!

Beginning the Process

Okay, so you just found your Vita with a read-only memory card, but you can still boot into LiveArea even though you can't get any games to work or take screenshots! Good! That means the rescue is possible! Power off your PS Vita, and take out the memory card. Power it on again. The Vita will then boot off of the internal memory, which should still be fine. Bubbles for your physical games should appear on the LiveArea, however digital games will not appear for right now. While on internal memory, install homebrew. We specifically will need YAMT and VitaShell from the homebrew software available. Check out (this site)[https://vita.hacks.guide/] for a guide to installing homebrew. If possible, make sure to do the Enso + Henkaku install. I do not know how this would work on homebrew that requires the exploit to be run repeatedly for homebrew to work. After getting homebrew installed, continue onto the next step.

What We'll Try To Rescue

Before we actually begin the rescue I think it's good we realistically look at what we'll be able to save. What we try to save will drastically affect the length of the process and the convenience during the process.

• Screenshots. Having saved my own (1000+ in number) I can confirm this is very doable.
• Game saves. I can confirm that saves for all of my digital games made it through the process, though with physical games the process was harder. We will get into that more later. Just know that it will all go better if you use a USB cable over internet transfer, though.
• Licenses, calendar, etc. are all good to copy over, however the results of their copying are not as visible and as such I can not as easily confirm the successes of these as easily, but I can confirm they are possible.

Do not bother trying to rescue...

• The actual files for digital games. Out of all my digital games the only one to make it unscathed through the process was "Run Sackboy! Run!", somewhat hilariously. Other games appeared at first glance to be fine only to maybe get through company logos and then fail to boot into a menu. As such, I had to redownload all of my digital library (with the sole exception of "Run Sackboy! Run!"), but after redownloading each since my save data rescue went fine it was like I never had trouble in the first place.
• Patches for games. I didn't have a single one of these go over well. The only physical game I had come out completely 100% fine after my attempted rescue with everything intact (save data, proper LiveArea screen, able to fully boot up and play) I didn't have update data downloaded for. Other games refused to boot up because they considered the update data corrupted and as such I had to reinstall the update data for each one anyway.

While this is what I think you should focus on saving, it is possible to make it through with basically everything, all save data, your calendar events, etc. Just know it might not always be straightforward to do so. I spent weeks on the process detailed in this guide, so I suggest you are prepared for what lies ahead.

Continuing the Prep

So, by this point you should be prepared with the following:

• The Vita has homebrew installed in internal storage, with the memory card not currently inserted. You should have VitaShell, VitaDeploy, and YAMT installed. With YAMT I am quite sure either the lite or full version will work for this process.
• A USB cable that you have tested and confirm works for data transfer. I stress this because when I originally did this process I used a USB cable I thought was fine because it worked for charging but it wasn't working for data transfer, so I ended up having to use FTP transfer which made many things harder in the long run. Near the end of the process I tried a different USB cord and found it to work, and this ended up essential for recovering all of my save data. As such, it is best to use USB transfer from the beginning. Only prepare for FTP if absolutely necessary. For FTP, you will need a client on your computer, such as FileZilla.
• Your broken memory card should be in a safe and easily accessible place for this process.
• You should either already have a new memory card ready or have ordered one that you are waiting on.
• You should have sufficient time. Try to set aside at least an hour or two for every time you work more on this process.

Transfer & Rescue

We will now begin the process of rescue. Follow these steps in order.

• On your Vita, without any memory card inserted, and with homebrew installed on internal storage, find the Settings bubble on the LiveArea and open it. In settings, navigate to Devices or something like that it's called I think, then from there Storage Devices. Once in there, you should be able to configure YAMT settings. Set ux0 to "Internal Storage" and uma0 to "Memory Card", and make sure to check the box for enabling the YAMT driver.
• Back out of settings, and once you're on your LiveArea power off the Vita as normal. After the Vita has powered off, insert your broken memory card. Power on the Vita again. If everything goes fine, your Vita should have booted off of Internal Storage and everything should work properly.
• Make sure your computer is ready for file transfer. Create a folder somewhere on your PC that you'll be copying your memory card's files to. Try to make sure the folder is easy to access, as you'll be going back and forth to it frequently. I named mine "rootvita", and bookmarked the folder so I could access it easily (I did this on Linux, I am unaware if you can bookmark folders on Windows).
• On your Vita, navigate to VitaShell, and open it. Press start and make sure that it is set to USB and not FTP, and that the storage device selected in the menu is the Memory Card. Grab your USB cable, press select while in VitaShell (no longer in the settings menu, just when in the file browser), and plug your Vita using the USB cable into the computer. If all goes well, your computer will recognize a USB storage device is plugged in and you'll be able to open it up in your file manager.
• Now, while your Vita is plugged in (or if you're having to do FTP as well) make sure to frequently tap the Vita's screen or press a button or something to keep it awake. We don't want it falling asleep.
• In your file manager, find the storage device that is the Vita's memory card (it should appear like a flash drive on the computer), and after you're on it copy the "user" folder on it to your "rootvita" folder (again your folder doesn't need to be named that, but I will refer to it as that for the rest of this guide). The "user" folder contains save data, and as such is maybe the most important folder.
• Now, depending on whether this copy and paste succeeds... If it succeeds, go down to Path B. If it fails, go to Path A. The process in Path A will apply to any folder copying that fails, so keep it in mind even if you're able to go to Path B right now.

Path A

So, if your copying of any folder failed we'll need to do the following...

• Make sure a folder with the same name exists in your "rootvita" folder or within one of its folders. The file structure must be identical to that of on the Vita.
• Open the folder in your Vita's storage on the computer that was having issues. Try copying just specific files or folders within this folder.
• Eventually during this process of copying over the individual files and folders you should come across the trouble one. This trouble file will likely need to end up being skipped in the end and can't be recovered, however by copying everything else you can minimize the damage.
• Some "trouble files" can just be really hard to recover rather than being truly hopeless. Try disconnecting your Vita from the PC, powering it off, and letting it and the memory card rest for awhile. After a couple of hours, maybe even waiting until the next day, try copying the file again. By doing this repeatedly, I ended up with only two true "trouble files" in the end, and all other files I thought I wouldn't be able to recover I ended up recovering. Thankfully the two I wasn't able to copy were just files I could redownload from the PS Store and weren't anything like save data.
• Now, this process can be repeated as many times as you run into "trouble files." With that in mind, let's move on to Path B!

Path B

Okay, by this point you should hopefully at least have your "user" folder copied. Let's move onward! And remember, if you run into any files that are failing to copy check out Path A.

• First, repeat what you did with the "user" folder with every other folder on the Vita's memory card. However try to sort them in importance because you never know when during this process the memory card might quit for real. For example, start with something like "screenshots" and save something like "email"* for last.

*I know it sounds weird to say "email" isn't important, but the mail app on Vita is like literally dead and doesn't work so I wouldn't really worry about it if I were you.

• Okay, by now you should have copied every folder from your Vita and if you ran into trouble consulted Path A. The good news is now, you might not need to mess with your broken memory card anymore! Still keep it just in case, though. Especially if you did FTP transfer and not USB transfer.
• Well, now it's time to get ready for your new memory card! If you haven't already, you need to buy one.

Setting up the New Card

From here on out it's less of a recovery process and instead just making it all useable again. Keep in mind you can use this opportunity to upgrade to an SD2Vita setup, however I will not cover that as I just got a new official Sony card.

• Your Vita should be powered off and not plugged in to the computer. Take out the broken memory card from the Vita and set it somewhere where it's safe. Your Vita should still be set to boot from internal memory.
• Insert the new memory card into the Vita. Power on the Vita, and you should boot from internal memory as normal.
• I will be honest for this next step: I can't remember precisely what I did. But I do remember I formatted the new memory card while booted from internal memory. Try looking for formatting options in settings, in Vita Deploy, or Vitashell. Just make sure you do NOT format the internal storage. You might want to take the time to use Vitashell to copy the contents of internal storage to a computer just in case you mess this up.
• After you've formatted the new card, begin the USB mode in Vitashell and connect the Vita to your PC, like what you did earlier. However this time we will be copying from the computer to the Vita, not the other way around.
• On your computer copy a couple of folders at a time and paste them onto your Vita's new memory card. Make sure to give your new Vita card some rest after every couple of gigabytes of data transferred, because I'm pretty sure I've seen Vita memory cards can corrupt easily if enough data is out on them too quickly.
• Repeat the copying and pasting process until you have everything on the new card. If any copies fail, you might need to switch out to the old memory card (make sure to turn your Vita off for changing memory cards!) and copy the files that are having trouble from it again.

The Final Stretch

You're almost there!

• Disconnect the Vita from the PC after you've successfully copied all files over to the new card.
• In YAMT settings on your Vita, change the boot device (ux0) to the memory card and the secondary storage (uma0) to internal storage. Exit settings after this is set, and turn off your Vita.
• Turn on your Vita. If all has done well you should see on your LiveArea all your physical and digital games and such. You must now test every single game to make sure they work properly. In order to play physical games you must turn YAMT off. If all goes well, you're done! Congratulations! If some had issues like what I ended up going through...

The Optional and Complicated Final Steps

Are some of your digital or physical games not working? Well at this point in the process I found only one of my digital games and one of my physical games were entirely intact and functional with my save data. However by the end I managed to get everything back, so hopefully that encourages you. Also if you turned off YAMT off make sure you've turned it back on now.

• If you have been doing FTP transfer up until now, I'm afraid that's likely what caused these issues. You will need a way to do USB transfer for this process, and you will need the old memory card still around as well.
• In YAMT settings change ux0 to internal storage and uma0 to memory card. Turn off your Vita and switch out the new memory card for the old one. Turn on your Vita and navigate to Vitashell and connect it using USB to your computer.
• Copy the user folder from the memory card for save data, and any other folders that have files that were having trouble (e.g. pictures). I know this is just copying it all again, but it did solve some issues for me to do it a second time.
• Disconnect your Vita from the PC, go into YAMT settings and change ux0 to memory card and uma0 to internal storage. Exit settings and turn off the Vita. Change out the old memory card for the new memory card.
• Turn on the Vita. If all has gone well your new memory card should still show up your LiveArea as normal.
• Go into storage manager and delete the data for all games that are having trouble. That means the whole thing if it's a Vita game, and if it's a PSP or PS1 game delete both the game itself and save data. Only keep a game and its save data if it's currently working.
• Now go and download your entire digital game library from the PS Store and any DLC you had installed. Also insert all of your physical games one-by-one to install them again (you will need YAMT off temporarily during this, make sure it's enabled again afterwards), and update them to the same version they were at before (so if you didn't install updates for a game before, don't bother installing them right now). Do not start up any games, this way you won't create any new save data. Also similarly to when we first copied files over to the new card, make sure your new Vita card gets breaks during this process so that it doesn't die so quickly.
• After you've successfully gotten all of your game library re-installed, head into YAMT settings and change ux0 to internal storage and uma0 to the memory card. Exit settings and power off your Vita, but keep the new card in.
• Turn your Vita on again, and head into Vitashell, and connect using USB to the computer again. This should be the last time!
• Copy from the computer the user folder your copied over earlier in this section and any other folders you copied earlier in this section over to your Vita card. If you want to only copy specific game save data over again because you already have some games working with your save data you can also copy specific subfolders within subfolders of user. Make sure during this step you do not copy over application or update data again.
• After this process has finished, disconnect the Vita from the computer, exit Vitashell, and enter YAMT settings. Change ux0 to memory card and uma0 to internal storage. Exit settings and turn off your Vita.
• Power on your Vita again. If all has gone well, all your games should now be fully functional. In order to use physical games you can also now turn off YAMT. Congrats! We've done it!!