Hacking AKAIO completely fails...

DaMummy · Sep 12, 2008

ok so i have the rpg, have been using akaio since its 1.1 rls, am running 1.2, or was, everything worked perfectly fine....up until today that is...last changes i remember makin was tellin akaio to hide hidden files, so i turn on my ds, it boots the akaio firmware, i start to run mario kart(which has always worked no problem) the loading screen comes up, and loading completes, but rom doesnt start and ds freezes up, me simply thinking it was no big deal, ill just reboot it and get back to mario kart. wrong, i turn the ds back on, akaio doesnt load, says system file is missing, i try over and over and over...nothing, so i come home and plug my rpg into usb, only to find this in its contents...

windows says the 2 folders, which were the akaio and gba folder are empty(0 bytes) each, and the 3 files, which i cant match to anything since ive had more than 3 files in root of nand, but each of those 3 files say theyre slightly less than 4gb(=12gb all together) even tho nand is only 1gb, anyone have any idea if im fixable w/o loosing newest save files n stuff, ill wait for some comments from users and akaio creators until i just try formating and installing files again

Normmatt · Sep 12, 2008

Nope not fixable without a reformat, sorry but your data is lost. This seems to have happened too someone else aswell but i'm blaming the nand for being unstable and the user for not making backups and keeping their filesystem clean

VatoLoco · Sep 12, 2008

I had a similar experience recently while trying to copy/paste a rom from AcekardRPG to my MMD slot-2 using DualSlotBrowser.

My RPG was all kewl, but the slot-2 got massively corrupted...gibberish style.

I make backups a least once a week, so no major loss.

I'm thinking mine was just a random error, not an AKAIO problem, though.

cory1492 · Sep 12, 2008

When writes fail HARD, they overwrite the FAT record with garbage (as seen from window's point of view in first post's image.) In some cases, this can even make a SD card go completely bad (to the point where absolutely no recovery tool can save it by reformat, thankfully that has only happened once to me with an el cheapo junk card.) But, one can always try a restore tool that does not rely on FAT being good... you may have to guess what the file names are later, but they should still be on there content wise and their sectors should be linked (though - using a forensic tool or similar to try and recover them would be a very long and boring process, better just to get the entertainment by playing the games again.)

I've had plenty of fun with bad FAT records while tinkering with dldi (low level read/write) code, all it takes really is a trashed pointer (which, if it's a bug in the loader's save patch/code is going to be are really big pain to reproduce let alone track down; thankfully that's not my job.)

Chri5 · Sep 12, 2008

way back when i had my r4 the microsd always went corrupt until one day it wen complete retard...
the reformat thing in windows wanted to reformat a 2gb to have only 32mb or something stupid like that so i sent it back to transcend and they sent me a new one.

jabjab · Sep 12, 2008

QUOTE said:
sorry if its not allowed

max sig is 50k, yours is 870k ..hmmm i wonder.

Sweater Fish Del · Sep 12, 2008

cory1492 said:
When writes fail HARD, they overwrite the FAT record with garbage (as seen from window's point of view in first post's image.) In some cases, this can even make a SD card go completely bad (to the point where absolutely no recovery tool can save it by reformat, thankfully that has only happened once to me with an el cheapo junk card.) But, one can always try a restore tool that does not rely on FAT being good... you may have to guess what the file names are later, but they should still be on there content wise and their sectors should be linked (though - using a forensic tool or similar to try and recover them would be a very long and boring process, better just to get the entertainment by playing the games again.)

But it should be pointed out that these worst cases you mention are pretty rare and the vast majority of the time, a table of contents corruption like this can be resolved by just running a simple Scandisk/chkdsk (for Windows, right-click on the drive in My Computer>>Properties>>Tools>>Error-Checking) and that will recover all the files. Files that were in subdirectories will even have their correct names, though anything in the root will have dummy names, which can be a problem if you have lots of saves or something like that that you'd never be able to figure out the original names for.

...word is bondage...

o RedSheLL x · Sep 12, 2008

DaMummy said:
says system file is missing

My AceKard isn't that nice to me

DaMummy · Sep 12, 2008

ok well i tried to do a check for errors and fix via windows, it said it fixed them, but now theres absolutely nothing in the root, but it says that the nand only has 15mb free.....???

cory1492 · Sep 12, 2008

Sweater Fish:
indeed, it is rare but unfortunately not entirely uncommon - apparently especially with RPG NAND. Once the FAT record is corrupt, windows has no way of getting the file names (unless the FAT mirror was used and is intact, though I have yet to see FAT0 and FAT1 have mirrored data.)

DaMummy:
Make sure you have "show hidden files" on in windows' explorer options, if it recovered files but couldn't name them properly they'd be in a hidden folder called "Found.000" or something similar, and would still be taking up space (could possibly be taking up the entire data area aside from the initial fat.)

Smiths · Sep 12, 2008

yep... the NAND can crash really badly.
Reset during a write of any sort and you're looking at hell.
I have compiling batch files set up to copy the output to my RPG and my AK2's SD... sometimes I forget the order it copies and remove the RPG before the copying is finished.
That usually corrupts the NAND.

The worst I had was that bricked RPG with unrecoverable NAND when I was initially doing the cheatDB Updating. A ZIP routine just went totally circular and destroyed the NAND.

cory1492 · Sep 13, 2008

Smiths said:
The worst I had was that bricked RPG with unrecoverable NAND when I was initially doing the cheatDB Updating. A ZIP routine just went totally circular and destroyed the NAND.

Still got that one by any chance? I like fixing NANDs via replacement when a home made programmer can't reset the blocks...

(not to mention AK denied my request for a sample way back when, I think they thought I wanted to review the thing as they said all review samples had been sent out - which, by the bye I have gotten the trac source for BBS 1.99 working on AK2, even have it loading a few commecial games (randomly works) now without extracting any loaders from other binaries

)

Replacing the hynix or reprogramming definitely it wouldn't be terribly difficult

(though, whenever I see a hynix NAND or memory chip I always ask... why!!??!)

Smiths · Sep 13, 2008

Actually, I think I finally threw it out, sorry. AK sent me 2 RPGs and 2 AKs as replacements ... so there was no point in totally keeping it.

13375p34k3r · Sep 13, 2008

Fuck man 2 free AK RPG's and 2 AK 2. You are one lucky duck, oh well I guess you deserve it anywayz for being the main supporters of the AK firmware.

Normmatt · Sep 13, 2008

cory1492 said:
Smiths said:

The worst I had was that bricked RPG with unrecoverable NAND when I was initially doing the cheatDB Updating. A ZIP routine just went totally circular and destroyed the NAND.
Still got that one by any chance? I like fixing NANDs via replacement when a home made programmer can't reset the blocks...

(not to mention AK denied my request for a sample way back when, I think they thought I wanted to review the thing as they said all review samples had been sent out - which, by the bye I have gotten the trac source for BBS 1.99 working on AK2, even have it loading a few commecial games (randomly works) now without extracting any loaders from other binaries

)

heheh, I take it you using the AKRPG SD loader code? if so i'm supprised it works on the ak2 at all. The saving certainly wouldn't not sure about roms though. If its your own patching code, Congrats.

QUOTE(Smiths @ Sep 13 2008, 12:49 PM)

Click to expand...

Actually, I think I finally threw it out, sorry. AK sent me 2 RPGs and 2 AKs as replacements ... so there was no point in totally keeping it.

I've only gotten 2 RPGs and an AK2 for free. Trying to get me an AK+ so i can support it but acekard don't seem to have "any?!?!?!" at all, which i'm surprised to hear because you can't support a product you don't have any of to test things on.

Smiths · Sep 13, 2008

Normmatt said:
which i'm surprised to hear because you can't support a product you don't have any of to test things on.

At this point, does anything surprise you with the AK team?

DaMummy · Sep 13, 2008

ok i did the whole recovery thing, and windows is showing hidden files, but its not doing any good, its just 4gb worth of 32kb sized .chk files, so i guess its time to format it and start putting files in again, its only been 2-3 weeks since i made a .sav backup, so im kinda okay, thanks anyone for any contributing comments, smiths and normatt, perhaps this is something you two can look into for newer akaio releases, something that wont crash the nanad if rebooted during writing/loading?

GH0ST · Sep 13, 2008

Linux Gparted and other partition tools are just fine when windows fails for any disk.

Boot from a usb key ( or a cd ) . If the disk show on just use the partition tool to clean and delete all partitions on the drive, eventually rewrite the MBR, and after that you can format the raw card to fat16 or fat32 from windows disk management ( "diskmgmt.msc" )

I recover some microSD and even the nand memory of my RPG with it ( the card was zero sized in windows and 4 partitions under linux !). It was with AKAIO 1.1r2 Release but i think it was more likely related to the usb reader not really connected with the card... weird but the thing was new and i was too cautious to push enough since it was a little hard to plug forcefully now it works fine ...so... my bad !

My last attempt to backup my saves from SD to NAND gave me some random corruption with AKAOI v1.2 : four lost files ( 2x64k, + 256k + 512k saves files ) recovered after a chkdsk... BACKUP from PC is my best advice.

A bit off topic: did someone manage to read a EZ 3-in-1 extension with a G6lite usb reader ? Cory1492

?
(Nevermind ... after digging here and there ... )

13375p34k3r · Sep 14, 2008

Hold on what exactly is this AceKard + I keep hearing Normatt talking about. I thought it was only the Ak2 and the Ak RPG. Now their is a Ak +? Where do I buy it.

cory1492 · Sep 14, 2008

AceKard and AceKard+ were their first two cards, as far as I know they didn't get around very far as no one really distributed them like current cards.
old review of AceKard: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=39686

Smiths said:
Actually, I think I finally threw it out, sorry. AK sent me 2 RPGs and 2 AKs as replacements ... so there was no point in totally keeping it.
Damn. Ah well, keep me in mind if one of you manage to damage block 0 on another nand

QUOTE(Normmatt @ Sep 12 2008, 10:38 PM) heheh, I take it you using the AKRPG SD loader code? if so i'm supprised it works on the ak2 at all. The saving certainly wouldn't not sure about roms though. If its your own patching code, Congrats.

I'm not quite that ambitious, my asm knowledge is barely enough to recognize the commands in the asm gelu has been working on. I was indeed quite surprised to see it load anything (all I did really was change up the RPG stuff to use a dldi instead of the normal RPG only inits/code), as far as I can tell with the RPG loader even homebrew is going to be broken on ak2.

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