PSP to PSVita PSOne Classic savefile: Cannot access the memory card

Question

I've read that for transferring a PSP save to Vita, you must copy the folder of the game you want from PSP/SAVEDATA to the PSGAME folder where you set the PSVita's ContentManager to be.

So I tried transfer a save of PSOne Classic FinalFantasy IX from PSP to Vita as described (both PSP and Vita were downloaded directly from PSN, not hacked somehow, k?)

But on Vita, when I launch the FFIX, appears the following message, and the game closes:

Cannot access the memory card.

Checking the savefile sizes on Vita itself, the PSP save is ~200kb while if I start from scratch on Vita, it's ~450kb.

Anyone experienced this problem? And fixed somehow? I really don't want to start over :-(

Answer 1

I made some tests and Bryan C. comment's url confirmed my theory, according to this:

A virtual memory card is created automatically when you start PlayStation® format software and save your game. For each application, two virtual memory cards (for MEMORY CARD slots 1 and 2) are created with the same name as the title of the game.

So my theory was that when you play a game on PSP, it looks like it just creates the memory card which you saved on it, while on PSVita it expects to have both created on start.

So what did I do? Went back on PSP, loaded my save (Slot1) and then saved once on Slot 2. Then tried copying from PSP to PSVita and voilá, it ran without errors.

TLDR; To fix 'Cannot access the memory card' error when copying a PSOne Classics savegame from PSP to Vita, simply open the save on PSP/PS3 and save on both slots 1 and 2 and then try copy again to Vita.

Of course if you don't have a PSP/PS3 anymore, I still don't know what you should do