Hacking SD Card not detected after exiting GodMode9

J-Will · Jun 6, 2023

I don't know how this happened, but when my files somehow disappeared from the 0:/gm9/out folder and it didn't free up space, I inserted the SD Card into my PC and I let it scan and fix the drive and the deleted files were recovered in FOUND.000. The files that were deleted were just taking up space, so I deleted FOUND.000, and I moved some cia files to CTRNAND to free up some space on the SD Card. After GodMode9 was done moving all the .cia files from the SD Card to CTRNAND, I exited GodMode9 to the HOME Menu and now the 3DS doesn't detect the SD Card. I inserted the SD Card into my PC and it asks me to format it before I can use it. Opening the drive in chkdsk and Disk Management shows as RAW. The SD Card is: SanDisk Imagemate 128GB microSD Card. How do I convert RAW to FAT32 without formatting it? I had so much saves and important files I don't want to lose.

KleinesSinchen · Jun 6, 2023

J-Will said:
How do I convert RAW to FAT32 without formatting it?

You don't. RAW is nothing else than Windows saying: "There is no file system", which means the partition and/or file system corrupted.
If the SD is still readable on sector level, recovery software might be able to restore files.

SDs corrupt all the time from one second to another. Restore the latest backup is the correct answer to corrupted SDs.
My signature might come across cynical; I know that. I didn't write it without reason.

J-Will said:
and I moved some cia files to CTRNAND to free up some space on the SD Card. After GodMode9 was done moving all the .cia files from the SD Card to CTRNAND,

I hope not. CTRNAND is not very big and you can't possibly fit a lot of games there. Most 3DS games are bigger than the free space on CTRNAND… means: Not a single one of those will fit.
You should not write to CTRNAND without good reason either.

Kwyjor · Jun 6, 2023

J-Will said:
I moved some cia files to CTRNAND to free up some space on the SD Card

After you install them with FBI, there is no point in keeping .cia files at all (unless you want to re-install them again later, in which case you can just keep them on your PC).

If you are looking for recovery software recommendations, Testdisk and Easeus come up fairly frequently.

J-Will · Jun 6, 2023

KleinesSinchen said:
You don't. RAW is nothing else than Windows saying: "There is no file system", which means the partition and/or file system corrupted.
If the SD is still readable on sector level, recovery software might be able to restore files.

SDs corrupt all the time from one second to another. Restore the latest backup is the correct answer to corrupted SDs.
My signature might come across cynical; I know that. I didn't write it without reason.

I hope not. CTRNAND is not very big and you can't possibly fit a lot of games there. Most 3DS games are bigger than the free space on CTRNAND… means: Not a single one of those will fit.
You should not write to CTRNAND without good reason either.

I had to reformat the SD card using guiformat because I couldn't find a way to fix it without reformatting. Disk Drill uses the folder in the format specified for recovering the files, so the folder names and file names were different. so I'll use what Kwyjor recommended for me. The CIA files were only DSiWare ones.

Kwyjor · Jun 6, 2023

J-Will said:
I had to reformat the SD card using guiformat because I couldn't find a way to fix it without reformatting

The whole point of utilities like Testdisk and Easeus is that they let you "fix it without reformatting". Reformatting a disk in situations like this just makes it more difficult to recover data!!

Disk Drill uses a different file name, so I'll use what Kwyjor recommended for me.

I've read this sentence several times now and still can't figure out what it is supposed to mean.

The CIA files were only DSiWare ones.

It doesn't matter. You still shouldn't be copying anything to your CTRNAND, and certainly not CIA files. (DSiware ones in particular are so relatively tiny that they wouldn't even give you a worthwhile amount of extra space on your SD card to begin with!)

KleinesSinchen · Jun 6, 2023

J-Will said:
I had to reformat the SD card using guiformat because I couldn't find a way to fix it without reformatting. Disk Drill uses a different file name, so I'll use what Kwyjor recommended for me. The CIA files were only DSiWare ones.

What the?? :cry:

ANY write process to a problematic medium must be avoided if data recovery should have any chance to succeed.
Formatting creates a new FAT an overwrites stuff. Why would anyone do this? Just because Windows doesn't access the SD on file system level?
Data recovery software will try it on sector level, but overwriting stuff is a big no-no before recovery attempts.

On the other hand: Recovery fails most of the time anyway. The only sure way is restoring a backup.

J-Will · Jun 6, 2023

Kwyjor said:
The whole point of utilities like Testdisk and Easeus is that they let you "fix it without reformatting". Reformatting a disk in situations like this just makes it more difficult to recover data!!

I've read this sentence several times now and still can't figure out what it is supposed to mean.

It doesn't matter. You still shouldn't be copying anything to your CTRNAND, and certainly not CIA files. (DSiware ones in particular are so relatively tiny that they wouldn't even give you a worthwhile amount of extra space on your SD card to begin with!)

I've edited the comment now. The reason I copied DSiWare cias to ctrnand is because I wanted to transfer them to another SD card.

KleinesSinchen · Jun 6, 2023

J-Will said:
I've edited the comment now. The reason I copied DSiWare cias to ctrnand is because I wanted to transfer them to another SD card.

Copying files from one SD to another with a 3DS instead of a PC?
And why write on CTRNAND? If I wanted to copy a few DSiWare from one SD to another I'd copy those to RAM, dismount SD, insert other SD and copy from RAM.
Depending on the NAND chip on some consoles from the "New" series there is quite some empty space GodMode9 can use for a bonus drive -- that is a place for storing data (those paranoid about write cycles on NAND will avoid it anyway).

J-Will · Jun 6, 2023

KleinesSinchen said:
What the??
ANY write process to a problematic medium must be avoided if data recovery should have any chance to succeed.
Formatting creates a new FAT an overwrites stuff. Why would anyone do this? Just because Windows doesn't access the SD on file system level?
Data recovery software will try it on sector level, but overwriting stuff is a big no-no before recovery attempts.

On the other hand: Recovery fails most of the time anyway. The only sure way is restoring a backup.

KleinesSinchen said:
Copying files from one SD to another with a 3DS instead of a PC?
And why write on CTRNAND? If I wanted to copy a few DSiWare from one SD to another I'd copy those to RAM, dismount SD, insert other SD and copy from RAM.
Depending on the NAND chip on some consoles from the "New" series there is quite some empty space GodMode9 can use for a bonus drive -- that is a place for storing data (those paranoid about write cycles on NAND will avoid it anyway).

My 3DS came with 1.2GB. I guess 3DS's with 1.8GB can setup a bonus drive. I don't know where to get a 3DS with 1.8GB.

Hacking SD Card not detected after exiting GodMode9

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