My extdata got corrupt. Is there a way to recover it?

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-14T14:46:38+0100

If found a patch that let you play a few New3DS games on the old model. Everything seemed okay. I went to download a few maps for Minecraft for the new 3DS when an error appeared, restarted my console and a screen appeared which said the data on the SD card couldn't be loaded. I don't have a screenshot of that error sadly.
I put the SD card in my laptop and it seems that the only damaged folder is the exdata folder.
Do you know of a good tool for recovering data? Do I need it to recover all the games and saves I have on my system?

Kwyjor · 2026-09-14T16:39:46+0100

Advil_Lavs said:
it seems that the only damaged folder is the exdata folder.

What exactly leads you to believe that the folder is damaged?

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-14T17:42:27+0100

Kwyjor said:
What exactly leads you to believe that the folder is damaged?

I can't transfer the files anywhere and the names look like this:

NitroShell · 2026-09-14T18:08:49+0100

Advil_Lavs said:
If found a patch that let you play a few New3DS games on the old model. Everything seemed okay. I went to download a few maps for Minecraft for the new 3DS when an error appeared, restarted my console and a screen appeared which said the data on the SD card couldn't be loaded. I don't have a screenshot of that error sadly.
I put the SD card in my laptop and it seems that the only damaged folder is the exdata folder.
Do you know of a good tool for recovering data? Do I need it to recover all the games and saves I have on my system?

I'm more curious in how you can play New3DS games on old3DS, that just seems like a recipe for disaster, I feel like you know the risk involved when doing that. Can you send the link to whatever you're talking about because I'm curious

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-14T18:18:00+0100

NitroShell said:
I'm more curious in how you can play New3DS games on old3DS, that just seems like a recipe for disaster, I feel like you know the risk involved when doing that.

Well, Minecraft 1.0 ran surprisingly well on the old 3DS, even if with only 1 chunk render distance. The binding of Isaac also ran okay but music cuts off really often and you can't have a full run without it crashing. The games themselves don't cause risk to your system, the patches I applied add some constraints and change the controls to make them playable. I've never had a crash corrupt anything.

What I think corrupted my savedata was the world I downloaded. It overwrites the festive pack on Minecraft 1.9.19. Maybe I didn't have that pack, maybe something happened while I downloaded it from universal updater, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that caused it.

NitroShell · 2026-09-14T18:20:24+0100

Advil_Lavs said:
Well, Minecraft 1.0 ran surprisingly well on the old 3DS, even if with only 1 chunk render distance. The binding of Isaac also ran okay but music cuts off really often and you can't have a full run without it crashing. The games themselves don't cause risk to your system, the patches I applied add some constraints and change the controls to make them playable. I've never had a crash corrupt anything.
What I think corrupted my savedata was the world I downloaded. It overwrites the festive pack on Minecraft 1.9.19. Maybe I didn't have that pack, maybe something happened while I downloaded it from universal updater, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that caused it.

Would deleting the extdata remove your worlds? cause I'd just uninstall the game and the ext data and reinstall.

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-14T18:23:57+0100

NitroShell said:
Would deleting the extdata remove your worlds? cause I'd just uninstall the game and the ext data and reinstall.

I don't care about the world, I care about the other games I've been playing. I've only made backups of the games I've uninstalled and the ones I've finished.

NitroShell · 2026-09-14T18:52:03+0100

Advil_Lavs said:
I don't care about the world, I care about the other games I've been playing. I've only made backups of the games I've uninstalled and the ones I've finished.

Hmmm... I genuinly have no idea how installing a custom world could have caused this. It possibly could have been due to it running the new3ds game on old3ds, and it creating extdata and it corrupting all other extdata it somehow, I genuinly have no idea. It might not even be corrupted. try to move the extdata files to a safe place, the delete them on the sd card and recreate them by launching each game, then rename the extdata files to the correct names and move them back, it MIGHT work, I genuinly dunno

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-14T19:08:03+0100

NitroShell said:
Hmmm... I genuinly have no idea how installing a custom world could have caused this. It possibly could have been due to it running the new3ds game on old3ds, and it creating extdata and it corrupting all other extdata it somehow, I genuinly have no idea. It might not even be corrupted. try to move the extdata files to a safe place, the delete them on the sd card and recreate them by launching each game, then rename the extdata files to the correct names and move them back, it MIGHT work, I genuinly dunno

It doesn't let me move them, it can't even show the files in the "00000000" folder. Maybe I'll be able to with a special program. I think that world I downloaded overwrote the extdata of the festive world and that corrupted it, but I'm just assuming since it crashed immediately after.
I tried recovering files with TestDisk, but I think that's only for recovering partitions.

Kwyjor · 2026-09-14T20:37:37+0100

Advil_Lavs said:
I can't transfer the files anywhere and the names look like this:

Okay, but what folder is that, specifically?

Regardless, the first thing to do before anything else goes wrong is to copy everything off the SD card to your PC, preferably using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier.

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-15T06:07:59+0100

Kwyjor said:
Okay, but what folder is that, specifically?

Regardless, the first thing to do before anything else goes wrong is to copy everything off the SD card to your PC, preferably using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier.

It's the extdat folder, the one that holds save files, as far as I know. If you want to, I'll write down the whole path to it.
Also, thanks for the copying program, that could help.

Post automatically merged: Today at 9:16 AM

Kwyjor said:
Okay, but what folder is that, specifically?

Regardless, the first thing to do before anything else goes wrong is to copy everything off the SD card to your PC, preferably using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier.

The copier managed to copy 7 out of 22 files and it says 2 out of those files were not corrupt. Weird thing is, when I opened the backup folder, there is a big nest of folders all with an arrow pointing in a different direction as their name. I went 20 folders deep and didn't find any files. Another strange thing is that Windows lets me see the corrupted folders in "00000000" but not the files in extdata while Linux does the opposite.

Kwyjor · 2026-09-15T14:42:28+0100

Advil_Lavs said:
It's the extdat folder, the one that holds save files, as far as I know. If you want to, I'll write down the whole path to it.

I hope you realize you keep misspelling "extdata".

So yes, it would probably be useful to have the full path. What do you think "specifically" means..?

Advil_Lavs said:
The copier managed to copy 7 out of 22 files

Kwyjor said:
copy everything off the SD

Advil_Lavs · 2026-09-15T17:14:19+0100

Kwyjor said:
I hope you realize you keep misspelling "extdata".

So yes, it would probably be useful to have the full path. What do you think "specifically" means..?

I do see I misspelled extdata there. Here's the path to it.
D:\Nintendo 3DS\e976c225a60aa70d3336866b45087724\ec93009a478070cb5355303400035344\extdata
Inside, there are 6 corrupt files and the "00000000" folder which contains my corrupt saves.
Even after trying to transfer everything. 15 files get skipped. I tried repairing or forcefully moving them with other programs too. Someone in a different thread used Photorec which recovered the files but in plain formats like .txt and a few gifs. All of the data there is readable so maybe I can encrypt it and put the files back in the right folders, I'll be able to save everything.

Kwyjor · 2026-09-15T19:06:53+0100

Since you have now safely backed up everything on the card to your PC, you can try using chkdsk from the Windows command line to fix filesystem errors. You can also right-click the SD card in Windows Explorer, select Properties, select the Tools tab, and check the card there.

Advil_Lavs said:
All of the data there is readable so maybe I can encrypt it and put the files back in the right folders, I'll be able to save everything.

Everything in that folder is already encrypted, which means it is impossible for any standard program to recognize any data that might be stored there.

My extdata got corrupt. Is there a way to recover it?

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Attachments

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum