The first time I upgraded SD cards for my 3ds was when I bought a 8gb sd card. The default 2gb that came with the 3ds became too small after I got a code for Super Mario 3D Land when Club Nintendo closed and Smash Bros started releasing it's updates. I saved up enough money to upgrade and made the change easily. It was around that time in which I first put cfw on my 3ds with soundhax. I started using custom themes and badges and romhacks, everything worked perfectly for a few months until one day while trying to install some themes I found out that there were some specific files that wouldn't transfer over to the sd card. It would give me disconnection errors while trying to transfer files like audio or pictures until the sd card finally died out. I managed to backup my data before that happened but the experience was still stressing, specially for someone like me who has always suffered from anxiety. I told myself that I only had bad luck and bought a fake card, and that thankfully I had been able to keep all my saves because I noticed the signs that the card was dying in time.
I saved up money to buy a new one, this time a 16gb card. Tested it before restoring to make sure that It wasn't a fake and started playing again normally. A pair of months after that, my 3d's battery decided to die while I was installing a CIA of all moments. The charge percentage dropped from 50% to 10% in like 2 seconds, and the 3ds turned off before I was able to plug the charger in. The battery had bloated so I had to replace it, and let me tell you trying to get a 3ds battery in venezuela (or replacement parts for consoles in general) is hell. After I replaced it I turned on the 3ds and noticed that on data management there was a title with an interrogation sing as an icon. I supposed it was the CIA that failed to install. There were also some weird corrupted files with strange names here and there. I managed to fix all of that with chkdsk, but obviously I lost the CIA that I was trying to install and for some reason the Nintendo Badge Arcade app (I didn't particularly care about that one tho). I backed up everything and tested the SD again just in case the failed installed messed the sd card in some other way. I was scared I would have to buy yet another replacement, because here they are extremely expensive. Thankfully the sd card seemed to be ok so I put everything back in it again.
I used that sd card normally for about a year, yet I couldnt help but feel extremely anxious while doing so. I took precautions like making save backups every time I made big progress on a game and full sd backups once every few weeks. I tried to use my 3ds as always, yet there was always that "What if something else goes wrong?" thought at the back of my head. I started cheking these forums more frequently, learning more about how the 3ds works and about cfw in the process. Its always good to learn new things, and I find the whole 3ds hacking scene to be really interesting, yet at the same time I was learning about all the things that could possibly go wrong. That didn't help with my anxiety at all. I was more cautious than before, I didnt want to depend on luck to be able to have all my saves and progress, yet I started to overthink everything way too much. Worrying about technical stuff that I had no idea about before. Yet I was able to brush it off thinking stuff like "As long as I have a recent backup I have nothing to worry about."
Then, a few months ago back in january, my sd card suddenly went corrupt while backing up a save. I had just finished the newest Layton game, and decided to make a backup like if it was nothing, thinking that nothing bad would happen. At that point I was already tired of having to deal with sd card issues. I called my aunt who was overseas and asked her if she could please get me a new SD card, since where I live the prices had gone up to the point in which I figured out I wouldn't be able to save money fast enough to get a new one because of the high inflation. I decided I was going to use my old 2gb sd card while I figured out what went wrong with my 16gb one and while my aunt arrived. I put the most current boot.firm file on the sd card, a pair of themes and some music and inserted the 2gb sd card on my 3ds. It gave me the same exact error as the 16gb one: "The software on the sd card could not be displayed". After asking around on the 3ds hacking discord someone suggested it could be the adapter that I was using to write to the sd card from the pc. It was dying and would randomly format all the data on the sd cards to "raw". I was just so exhausted of having to deal with so many issues in less than two years, and my anxiety and my country's terrible economy wasn't helping at all.
My aunt arrived some weeks after that. I had to borrow an adapter from someone to copy my latest back up to the new card and it has been working fine ever since. I managed to play and even beat a couple of games without any issues ever since, yet I can't make save backups as often as I used to (Much less a full sd backup). The last backup I have of my Checkpoint folder is from April of this year. I made it on my cousin's house through ftpd because he has wi-fi (I don't), but he lives far away and Im not a fan of taking my 3ds on the bus with me because of the high delinquency rate. I have tried to play normally these past months, but lately I feel more anxious than ever. I haven't played for almost two weeks because It got to a point in which playing was not fun anymore. I don't know if I have extremely back luck, or if these issues are just that usual, or if I have done literally everything wrong, but at this point just thinking about it is exhausting. I decided to take a break from everything 3ds related to see if that helps with my anxiety, yet that makes me incredibly sad because my 3ds was like my scape place. Every time I felt anxious or depressed turning on my 3ds and playing animal crossing, mario, zelda or pokemon always managed to make me feel better. It was my go to device to relax and chill for some time. Now It only makes me feel like at any moment something might go wrong, and I don't really feel like putting time and energy on something that will only make me feel bad. Maybe my fears are irrational and I'm just exagerating, but that is how I feel. I have heard enough stories of people losing hours of progress and effort around these forums to feel like that.
I wanted to share this so I could hear other's people's opinions about this, or if anyone who has had similar issues needs to vent them out. I know that this is some kind of 'first world problem', but a part of me really needed to let all of that out. I'm also writting this to thank the 3ds hacking community in general, because it is because of you that I have been able to solve all those issues I had. Every time something went wrong there was always someone in the forums or in the discord chat willing to help and guide me to get everything working back again. So to all these people who spend their time and effort helping the community with these issues, no matter how big or small the problem might be: Thank you. Even If I don't feel 100% stress-free yet, the fact that you are out there helping everyone and guiding them so they can solve their issues makes me feel a lot better. The simple fact that, even if something goes terribly wrong, there will always be someone willing to help you is really comforting to me. So thank you for everything you do every day, and sorry for my terrible english.
I saved up money to buy a new one, this time a 16gb card. Tested it before restoring to make sure that It wasn't a fake and started playing again normally. A pair of months after that, my 3d's battery decided to die while I was installing a CIA of all moments. The charge percentage dropped from 50% to 10% in like 2 seconds, and the 3ds turned off before I was able to plug the charger in. The battery had bloated so I had to replace it, and let me tell you trying to get a 3ds battery in venezuela (or replacement parts for consoles in general) is hell. After I replaced it I turned on the 3ds and noticed that on data management there was a title with an interrogation sing as an icon. I supposed it was the CIA that failed to install. There were also some weird corrupted files with strange names here and there. I managed to fix all of that with chkdsk, but obviously I lost the CIA that I was trying to install and for some reason the Nintendo Badge Arcade app (I didn't particularly care about that one tho). I backed up everything and tested the SD again just in case the failed installed messed the sd card in some other way. I was scared I would have to buy yet another replacement, because here they are extremely expensive. Thankfully the sd card seemed to be ok so I put everything back in it again.
I used that sd card normally for about a year, yet I couldnt help but feel extremely anxious while doing so. I took precautions like making save backups every time I made big progress on a game and full sd backups once every few weeks. I tried to use my 3ds as always, yet there was always that "What if something else goes wrong?" thought at the back of my head. I started cheking these forums more frequently, learning more about how the 3ds works and about cfw in the process. Its always good to learn new things, and I find the whole 3ds hacking scene to be really interesting, yet at the same time I was learning about all the things that could possibly go wrong. That didn't help with my anxiety at all. I was more cautious than before, I didnt want to depend on luck to be able to have all my saves and progress, yet I started to overthink everything way too much. Worrying about technical stuff that I had no idea about before. Yet I was able to brush it off thinking stuff like "As long as I have a recent backup I have nothing to worry about."
Then, a few months ago back in january, my sd card suddenly went corrupt while backing up a save. I had just finished the newest Layton game, and decided to make a backup like if it was nothing, thinking that nothing bad would happen. At that point I was already tired of having to deal with sd card issues. I called my aunt who was overseas and asked her if she could please get me a new SD card, since where I live the prices had gone up to the point in which I figured out I wouldn't be able to save money fast enough to get a new one because of the high inflation. I decided I was going to use my old 2gb sd card while I figured out what went wrong with my 16gb one and while my aunt arrived. I put the most current boot.firm file on the sd card, a pair of themes and some music and inserted the 2gb sd card on my 3ds. It gave me the same exact error as the 16gb one: "The software on the sd card could not be displayed". After asking around on the 3ds hacking discord someone suggested it could be the adapter that I was using to write to the sd card from the pc. It was dying and would randomly format all the data on the sd cards to "raw". I was just so exhausted of having to deal with so many issues in less than two years, and my anxiety and my country's terrible economy wasn't helping at all.
My aunt arrived some weeks after that. I had to borrow an adapter from someone to copy my latest back up to the new card and it has been working fine ever since. I managed to play and even beat a couple of games without any issues ever since, yet I can't make save backups as often as I used to (Much less a full sd backup). The last backup I have of my Checkpoint folder is from April of this year. I made it on my cousin's house through ftpd because he has wi-fi (I don't), but he lives far away and Im not a fan of taking my 3ds on the bus with me because of the high delinquency rate. I have tried to play normally these past months, but lately I feel more anxious than ever. I haven't played for almost two weeks because It got to a point in which playing was not fun anymore. I don't know if I have extremely back luck, or if these issues are just that usual, or if I have done literally everything wrong, but at this point just thinking about it is exhausting. I decided to take a break from everything 3ds related to see if that helps with my anxiety, yet that makes me incredibly sad because my 3ds was like my scape place. Every time I felt anxious or depressed turning on my 3ds and playing animal crossing, mario, zelda or pokemon always managed to make me feel better. It was my go to device to relax and chill for some time. Now It only makes me feel like at any moment something might go wrong, and I don't really feel like putting time and energy on something that will only make me feel bad. Maybe my fears are irrational and I'm just exagerating, but that is how I feel. I have heard enough stories of people losing hours of progress and effort around these forums to feel like that.
I wanted to share this so I could hear other's people's opinions about this, or if anyone who has had similar issues needs to vent them out. I know that this is some kind of 'first world problem', but a part of me really needed to let all of that out. I'm also writting this to thank the 3ds hacking community in general, because it is because of you that I have been able to solve all those issues I had. Every time something went wrong there was always someone in the forums or in the discord chat willing to help and guide me to get everything working back again. So to all these people who spend their time and effort helping the community with these issues, no matter how big or small the problem might be: Thank you. Even If I don't feel 100% stress-free yet, the fact that you are out there helping everyone and guiding them so they can solve their issues makes me feel a lot better. The simple fact that, even if something goes terribly wrong, there will always be someone willing to help you is really comforting to me. So thank you for everything you do every day, and sorry for my terrible english.
Short version: I've had terrible luck with sd card, adapter and battery issues in the past year that have caused a fair amount of problems with my 3ds, and wanted to thank the 3ds hacking community for all the times they have helped me and everyone solve their problems and wanted to know if anyone has had similar issues.
