Gaming DSi XL, Black Screen When Booting, Can't Open Unlaunch

miitosis · Jul 19, 2021

Hey everyone, my friend gave me his DSi XL with twilight menu, unlaunch and hiyacfw installed. The problem is, it boots up in a black screen (pressing the power button when its on flashes a white screen for a second, then goes back to a black screen). I'm trying to get it to work again, except unlaunch doesnt even boot up, it only did once when the SD card wasn't inside the device. How can I fix the black screen when booting or atleast how can I make unlaunch work again?

I got other questions on this subject : Is it possible to find some sort of fix by playing with the .INI config files inside the SD card? Could redoing the entire process of installing twilight menu and unlaunch in another SD card make the DSi work again?
On a side note, when unlaunch did open (without SD card), inserting the card while open allowed me see the games installed but when I press (A) on one of them, it brings me back to the black screen mentioned.

Thank you in advance.

Pk11 · Jul 19, 2021

Holding A + B while booting should take you to the Unlaunch menu too fyi.

First off make sure that Unlaunch is configured right, hold A + B while booting to get to the menu, then select OPTIONS and make sure NO BUTTON is set to either BOOT.NDS or hiya.dsi.

If that's good then try updating TWiLight Menu++ and if that doesn't fix it reinstalling hiyaCFW.

If that still doesn't fix it maybe reformat the SD card

miitosis · Jul 20, 2021

I've been holding both buttons while booting and it still doesn't launch Unlauncher (gives me the black screen that I mentioned). Will reformatting the SD card help fix anything with the DSi? If not, what should I do in my case?

Edit : I reformatted the SD card, nothing changed at all

Pk11 · Jul 20, 2021

miitosis said:
I've been holding both buttons while booting and it still doesn't launch Unlauncher (gives me the black screen that I mentioned). Will reformatting the SD card help fix anything with the DSi? If not, what should I do in my case?

Edit : I reformatted the SD card, nothing changed at all

Hmm, do you have another SD card you can try using? Sometimes if Unlaunch can't read the SD card it can get stuck I think.

miitosis · Jul 20, 2021

I got a spare SD card, reformatted it and tried it, still gives me the exact same black screen as usual.

Pk11 · Jul 20, 2021

miitosis said:
I got a spare SD card, reformatted it and tried it, still gives me the exact same black screen as usual.

Hmm, that's very strange. I guess maybe try what I said before except take the SD card out instead of holding A + B to get to the menu. I honestly don't know what Unlaunch would get stuck like that...

If NO BUTTON is set correctly and updating TWiLight and hiyaCFW doesn't work, maybe try reinstalling Unlaunch?

Download the latest Unlaunch ZIP
Extract the UNLAUNCH.DSI and copy it to SD
Boot without the SD it to get the menu, then put the SD in and launch "Unlaunch DSi Instaler"
Choose "Install Now"

If that gives a black screen on launching, try launching "Nintendo DSi Camera" without the SD card in, if you can launch the camera then you may be able to at least use Memory Pit to reinstall Unlaunch: https://dsi.cfw.guide/launching-the-exploit

miitosis · Jul 20, 2021

Pk11 said:
I guess maybe try what I said before except take the SD card out instead of holding A + B to get to the menu.

Tried that, didn't change anything. Also tried reinstalling Unlaunch, but I still get the black screen when starting up the DSi. Can't even try to use the Memory Pit because Unlaunch doesn't boot up.

Pk11 · Jul 20, 2021

miitosis said:
Tried that, didn't change anything. Also tried reinstalling Unlaunch, but I still get the black screen when starting up the DSi. Can't even try to use the Memory Pit because Unlaunch doesn't boot up.

Are you able to launch the NAND "Nintendo DSi Camera" while the SD card is ejected? If so you should be able to put the SD card in when in the camera.

If loading the NAND apps (the ones that still show up without an SD card) doesn't even work then I'm afraid I'm not sure there's anything you can do... Perhaps let nocash (the developer of Unlaunch) know about it over at the nesdev thread and see if he has any ideas.

miitosis · Jul 28, 2021

It's impossible to even open unlaunch no matter what I do, I'm basically stuck with a bricked DSi XL. I'll try asking on their forum if there's any solutions. In the meantime, do you think that playing with some settings in the .INI files of the SD card could do anything? I recall changing random settings and managed to get Unlaunch to boot once and only once.

ertaboy356b · Jul 28, 2021

Format your card to 32kb cluster

KleinesSinchen · Jul 28, 2021

miitosis said:
It's impossible to even open unlaunch no matter what I do, I'm basically stuck with a bricked DSi XL. I'll try asking on their forum if there's any solutions. In the meantime, do you think that playing with some settings in the .INI files of the SD card could do anything? I recall changing random settings and managed to get Unlaunch to boot once and only once.

Did I understand this correctly: Unlaunch doesn't come up, even without SD inserted? If this is the case nothing on the SD will have any impact on the problem.

Reseat the WiFi board. Try another WiFi board as well. In some cases it helps.
For sake of completeness I would also try booting without the SD slot even connected.

Other than that it looks like spontaneous failure for no reason which I have seen on DSi before. I don't think there is any known reason and/or repair method.

Alexander1970 · Jul 28, 2021

Hello.

miitosis said:
Hey everyone, my friend gave me his DSi XL with twilight menu, unlaunch and hiyacfw installed. The problem is, it boots up in a black screen (pressing the power button when its on flashes a white screen for a second, then goes back to a black screen). .

That sounds very,very similar to an unsucessful "Unlaunch De-Installation" Try....

Except to do the very hard Work with the Hardmod (but you need the NAND Backup for this...) this DSi XL seems "lost".... :cry:

Hopefully,I am very wrong....

By the Way,please try regular SD Cards no microSD Adapter/Card please !!!!
And maybe no bigger Card than 16 - 32 GB.

Good Luck on your further SD Card Tries.

miitosis · Jul 28, 2021

alexander1970 said:
By the Way,please try regular SD Cards no microSD Adapter/Card please !!!!
And maybe no bigger Card than 16 - 32 GB.

I haven't been using any sort of adapter and I'll try to find a SD card with less than that and try to get it to work. If I do, do I simply just copy paste the files from SD card to another?

KleinesSinchen said:
Reseat the WiFi board. Try another WiFi board as well. In some cases it helps.
For sake of completeness I would also try booting without the SD slot even connected.

If using a card with a smaller space doesn't work, I'll try this solution. By the way, could you send me a guide on how to disconnect the SD slot, couldn't find any guide online for that.

alexander1970 said:
Except to do the very hard Work with the Hardmod (but you need the NAND Backup for this...)

In one of the SD card's folders, there's two files named "nand.bin" and "nand.bin.sha1", these are the NAND backups right? If so, I'll try to hardmod using this backup. Wishing I won't have to because hardmodding sounds way too complicate to perform and not only I don't even have the tools for it but I don't want to mess up the entire DSi

miitosis · Jul 28, 2021

Holy shit, I managed to actually fix it by reseating the Wifi board and using a smaller SD card. It booted Twilight menu correctly and even let me open a game (I tried Mario 64 DS). Thank you everyone for helping me.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Forgot to mention that Unlaunch also opens correctly now.

Alexander1970 · Jul 28, 2021

miitosis said:
Holy shit, I managed to actually fix it by reseating the Wifi board and using a smaller SD card. It booted Twilight menu correctly and even let me open a game (I tried Mario 64 DS). Thank you everyone for helping me.

Great to hear,congratulations !!!

Our @KleinesSinchen was again right.
Hail to Miss Knowledge. :bow:

Have now Fun with your DSi XL and enjoy @Robz8 TWiLight Menu..
Thank you.

Akx · Sep 22, 2021

miitosis said:
Holy shit, I managed to actually fix it by reseating the Wifi board and using a smaller SD card. It booted Twilight menu correctly and even let me open a game (I tried Mario 64 DS). Thank you everyone for helping me.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Forgot to mention that Unlaunch also opens correctly now.

Hey, i seem to have your same issue, can you please explain me about this... uh, wifi board and how to reset it?

NPC-Modder · Mar 25, 2023

unlock ur sd card via the switch, should be switch down towards the contacts

Moonatlas · Nov 17, 2023

Hello can you help me i got the small DSI not the XL and i am trying to play a game and it wont work
P.S my DSI NDS is from 2008

Gaming DSi XL, Black Screen When Booting, Can't Open Unlaunch

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