Tutorial
Updated
How to convert an R4i Ultra (r4ultra.com) clone into a legit Acekard 2i using a hacked 3DS
the r4 ultra was made by acekard and the original menu was coded by acekard. the r4 ultra is a rebranded ak2i. norm did indeed make akaio 1.8.1 work on it, by the request of team acekard. any reasons other than that are none of the business of the general public. its up to norm to give reasons. i'll just confirm that it is official.
-another world
It's more of a Clone made by The Acekard Team.
It uses pretty much uses very similar hardware.
However, if you tried to swap the AKAIO loaders with more recent ones, they wouldn't work.
So, today I was trying to make a loader for my flashcart so that I could run it on my old DSi, that is on firmware 1.4.5, using the newly released HaxxStation exploit. While I was using Decrypt9 to dump the flashcart, I noticed a menu called "NDS Flashcart Options". I messed around with the options, and when I tried to "Restore AK2i bootrom", the cart was not properly recognized anymore, even though I was restoring my own backup of the cart's flash.
Before giving up on the cart and throwing it away, I asked online for a dump of a legit Acekard 2i made using Decrypt9, to see if that could revive the cart. And to my surprise, the results were better than expected. Not only the cart was brought back to life, it was now being recognized as an official Acekard 2i, both by the official firmware and by AKAIO.
After years of trying to use more modern firmwares with this cart, I could finally convert it into the cart it is cloned from, by pure accident. Had I not bricked the cart I would have never find this out.
Download link for "ak2i_flash.bin":
https://mega.nz/#!EoBAwQJY!4ec5DO8bAeKLjAS1UIjue7NqfW7KseRhpLPgulAbEto
Keep in mind that this file is for carts that are detected as HW=81 in Decrypt9 or in Acekard's updater. If you have a legit Acekard 2i detected as HW=44, please post your flash file in the thread.
You just have to put this file in your 3DS's SD Card's root, and run Decrypt9 using A9LH or boot9strp to restore the legit Acekard 2i's flash into your clone. You can now use the latest AKAIO and treat it like a legit Acekard 2i.
Thanks to @YourLocalMudkip for providing the Acekard 2i flash file.
Last edited by some1ne,