Would it be harmful to gently change the cartridge while the saturn is powered on?

Since I haven't gotten around to getting a 4 in 1, my internal battery is dead, and I have two separate carts (one memory card, and one import enabler), could I do this roundabout way to save games in import games...

- insert the memory card
- transfer a save file for an import game to the system memory in the bios
-then gently replace the memory card with the import enabler cart
- then boot the import game
- load the import game save from the system memory
-play game and then save game to system memory
- then soft exit to the bios, replace import enabler cartridge with memory card, and transfer recent saved game in the system memory to the memory cartridge since the system memory won't hold the settings when I turn the system off?

Or would this be harmful somehow to swap the cartridge while the system is on?

 

I wouldn't recommend it - it's really not designed for hot-swap. It sounds like you have a dead clock battery in your Saturn - wouldn't it be simpler to just replace it?

 

You know there's a problem when you find "harmful" and "gently" in the same sentence

More seriously, if it's just the matter to change your Saturn's CR2032 battery, then do it
And if you don't want to loose saves in your Saturn's memory when changing the battery, you can change it while Saturn is powered on.

 

You will eventually ruin the cart slot and there is a really good chance you will corrupt your saves on the cart. I was able to swap the ST-Key and a RAM cart to play X-Men vs Street Fighter and both carts survived dozens of hot swaps but with a memory cart or an Action Replay/GameShart it was almost guaranteed to corrupt some if not all saves (lost some codes too) if the cart was so much as bumped while inserted with the console power on. The Saturn I used with the Action Replay had a virgin cart slot and the AR was almost never removed.

 

4 in 1 cannot save or load during gameplay. If your battery is dead, you'll still be wasting time repeatedly moving saves back to system memory.

 

Back in the saturns heyday, (all ten minutes of it), i hot swapped a region swap cart and a ram cart to get samurai showdown working on a pal saturn. You had to get the timing just right while the disc was loading. Only did it for a couple of weeks as it was a borrowed game and cart set. WHile im sure it wasnt good for the slot that same saturn still works ok today.

 

It depends. Bootable carts' firmware is copied off cart to system RAM by BIOS. But BIOS checks if card is bootable only right after reset, so if you swap to bootable cart, you will need a hard reset (with button). And if you swap from bootable to bootable, then first one's residental software is killed after reset, so you'll lose whatever is there (for example active cheats).

But if your intention is to swap to non-bootable one (like memory card), you won't need reset, and it should work as expected. Still, you'll have to deal somehow with that unstable connector, and there are possible CPU freezes and clinches and resets due to power transients. The connector was never intended to be hot-pluggable after all.

 

Don't do it. Hot-swapping a Backup memory cartridge has a very high chance of corrupting its FAT, destroying all your saves. Merely bumping into a console with a malfunctioning cartridge socket can do it. There are ways to recover most of the saves (by initiating a format and rebooting the console right as it starts), but it's a risky process that will still make you lose a couple of the oldest saves on the cart.

Don't do it.

 

Just fyi to everyone reading the thread, I have decided not to hotswap carts, seems like its asking for trouble and these days I'm all about console preservation.

 

You do know it's dead easy to replace the battery? There is a back panel then you can remove and you just swap it out, the saturn was design so anyone can do it as the life span of a battery is around 4 years:



The Saturn does not swap hot swapping in any form and it will corrupt the data on the cartridge as others have said. I have a memory cartridge disconnect once during a save, made about 100 blocks unusable and killed about 20 different savefiles.