MM-N64 Majora's Mask save file loss - anything I can do?

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

I am NOT a happy Zelda player right now. Like, not at all.

A couple weeks ago, I finally brought my Majora's Mask save file to 100% completion. Last night, I decided to celebrate that by replaying the Anju and Kafei sidequest and then fighting the final boss again after (re-)witnessing their marriage.

But it all went to hell. When I exited Anju's room after the ceremony, the game crashed hard. It jumped back to an early frame of the cutscene and froze there. I waited a bit, tried mashing buttons, but it didn't unfreeze. So I turned off the system.

When I turned the game back on afterward (which took a few tries) the save files were gone. My middle sibling's file that they haven't touched in forever... and my 100% file. That I started in middle school. All gone.

Is there any hope of recovering the save data or is it permanently lost?

 

[Dizzi]

Gives you an excuse to replay...

 

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Do you play on the original n64 or do you play on emulators?

The actual N64, hence my references to turning the system on and off. If I was using an emulator the fix would be obvious, but no. I'm talking about actual on-cartridge save data

EDIT: Aaand it turned out that it was a pseudo-wipe caused by garbage data from the crash lingering in the console's RAM buffer. I turned it back on braced to start over... and the save files were back.