Hacking Gateway 3DS Micro SD

[iamj0j0]

I received my Gateway 3DS a few weeks ago. I don't use my blue card because when I load up some of my ds roms, I only see a white screen. I'm fine with that because I can still use my old Supercard DSTWO. If anybody has any idea why this is happening and could let me know, that would be great, but don't sweat it. (I searched this and tried multiple times, but still no change.)

That aside, I have a mac, so I use GW3DS SD IMAGER instead of win32 disk imager to install 3ds roms onto my micro sd card. After I flash the rom into my sd card, I eject and boot up Gateway. Everything runs perfectly, but the problem is that whenever I take out my sd card and put it into my computer, it says that the micro sd is unreadable. I can either ignore, initialize, or eject. How do I back up my files? Since my sd card is unreadable, I cannot simply copy and paste the rom files onto my desktop. Does anybody have any idea what to do? After searching around on google for any information, I am still with the exact same problem. As a last resort, I have decided to trouble you people, and ask for help.

The problem is not in the micro sd because I have tried three different micro sd's, with three different adaptors, onto three different devices.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

 

[SuperSVGA]

Have you tried formatting it FAT32? You probably won't be able to read it with just the rom imaged to the card.

 

[iamj0j0]

Yes. When right clicking the drive in finder and clicking on the info, it said it was formatted to FAT32.

 

[SuperSVGA]

Odd, I thought the disk imager wrote the raw file to the Micro SD. How many roms have you put on it?

 

[iamj0j0]

I have only tried Harvest Moon A New Beginning. Could the rom be the problem? Disk imager said that the rom was good.

 

[SuperSVGA]

Try using Disk Utility to format the Micro SD as MS-DOS (FAT). Then drag the .3ds file over to it.

 

[iamj0j0]

I'm sorry. Could you clarify? Where do I drag the file in disk utility?

 

[SuperSVGA]

Does the Micro SD card show up on the desktop?
If not, I think you click Finder -> Preferences -> Check External Drives

You should then be able to use finder to copy the rom to the Micro SD.

 

[iamj0j0]

The micro sd card does not show on the desktop. When I go to Disk Utility, it says 67.11 GB Apple SDXC R... on the side. I have my rom and copied it, but I don't know where to paste it. How do I get to preferences and then to external drives. I'm sorry. I'm very noob-ish and don't know what's going on. When I go to finder, I usually see all my external drives on the left side and I can click it and paste whatever I need into it like a folder, but this time, my micro sd is unreadable, so everything is different.
Why is my micro sd unreadable? The reason why everything is such a problem is because its unreadable. I am used to having flash carts, so pasting roms onto sd cards is easy to me, but now I don't know what to do.

 

[SuperSVGA]

Well first make sure you have it formatted correctly. In Disk Utility select the Micro SD card on the side and select the Erase tab. Select MS-DOS (FAT) if it is not already selected. If exFat is available in that list select that as that is better for large SD cards. Give it a name if you would like. Click the Erase button and let that finish. Click on an open space on the desktop and then to the right of the apple on the top of the screen it should say Finder. Open that menu and click preferences. There you should see checkboxes for what shows on the desktop.

 

[iamj0j0]

Okay. That was very noob friendly, so I am there. Thank you!

 

[iamj0j0]

So now I just paste my 3ds roms onto the sd card? No need to flash it using disk imager? If not, what is the disk imager even for?

 

[Count Duckula]

So now I just paste my 3ds roms onto the sd card? No need to flash it using disk imager? If not, what is the disk imager even for?

There has been no need to use the disk imager program since the 'omega' gateway firmware that supports multirom was released.

The disk imager is from a time when the gateway could not handle more than 1 ROM per microSD. It writes a single ROM in RAW format to the card. This is why the microsd does not show up in OSX, as it is not formatted to a supported file system.

Since the 'omega' gateway firmware came out you can simply format the microSD to FAT32 (or, preferably, exFAT since this supports files over 4GB in size) and drag and drop rom files onto the card from your computer. Once you are in gateway mode on the 3ds press select and choose your ROM

 

[iamj0j0]

Oh.. Great! Every time I played on my rom, I felt super resentful because I was afraid I would have to start over. Now that I know how to paste roms, I can play freely without fear. This will hopefully be the last time I have to restart my games. Thanks Count Duckula and SuperSVGA! You helped me through a problem that I have been stressing to work out for weeks!