Hacking 2GB Kingston Card @£$%ing up in M3DSReal

[BinarySoup]

Hi,

Has anyone experienced their micro SD cards corrupting whilst in use in their M3DSReal?

All was fine until I tried to install 42 All-Time Classics. It copied over fine but it kept freezing when trying to create a save. I deleted the save and tried again but it still didn't work giving the message "save fromat error". Tried to create a save from a different game which went perfectly but 42 All-Time Classics still produced a corrupted save. Also tried copying over the ROM without trimming in Rominator but same result.

Finally gave up on it and then found I couldn't scroll down to the bottom of the list of Homebrew as the M3DSReal would freeze.

Now I've tried reading the card on my Mac to copy over all the ROMs etc fresh only to find that the card wont mount and it's got loads of bad blocks.

Of course I've got backups of all the ROMs and homebrew but it turns out Rominator hasn't been backing up my saves like it pretends to.

(

Anyone have any idea why it might've happened in the first place and any way I can recover the save files (on a Mac)?

Thanks.

[edit]

Strangely, the micro SD can still be used in the M3DSReal (boots up and is running some games). So perhaps there is a way to copy saves to RAM or a slot 2 Supercard to recover somehow (fingers crossed but breath not held!)?

 

[g6team]

Have you tried formatting your MicroSD? Also are you using 2.9 firmware?

 

[beatrixgba]

BinarySoup, are you using the USB TF/MicroSD adapter that came with the M3 Real? It's been proven that it doesn't work that well compared to the adapter that came with your MicroSD card. Just checking.

I had problems with my 2GB Kingston when I load that card more than 75% of it's capacity (around 1.4 GB or more). Also, I usually get errors when I watch videos that are very long, or when I try to cut to a different location of the video.

 

[BinarySoup]

Have you tried formatting your MicroSD? Also are you using 2.9 firmware?

hi g6team,

thanks for your feedback. i've not yet tried formatting the SD card as ideally i'd like to recover my saves first. any idea how this could be possible? and yes am running the latest 2.9 software.

i have a feeling, though am not sure, that the card was almost full when the M3DSReal was trying to write a save. does the firmware check there's enough room before attempting to write a save file?

 

[BinarySoup]

BinarySoup, are you using the USB TF/MicroSD adapter that came with the M3 Real? It's been proven that it doesn't work that well compared to the adapter that came with your MicroSD card. Just checking.

I had problems with my 2GB Kingston when I load that card more than 75% of it's capacity (around 1.4 GB or more). Also, I usually get errors when I watch videos that are very long, or when I try to cut to a different location of the video.

hi beatrixgba, thanks for your reply.

the supplied reader died a couple of weeks into use.

so i've been using an ordinary SD reader with a micro to SD adapter supplied with the micro SD card.

i'm sure the card was at least 75% full so perhaps this could be the reason why.

now i just want to recover a couple of saves off the card and then i'll reformat it.

 

[beatrixgba]

I have used a program called image Recall 3 to recover pictures on corrupted usb sticks/cards/harddrives. Although the program is called "Image Recall", it recovers other file types as well (PDF, Word, Etc). I'm not sure how much the program cost because my brother bought it for me nor I'm not even sure if it will recover your lost SAV files. Because once the sector is corrupted, it's gone for good. But the program has made money for me because I have recovered images off of harddrives for people.

 

[BinarySoup]

thanks beatrixgba.

i tried this but unfortunately it couldn't even find the device.

i've also tried some similar programs on the mac that could see the device but they only recover images or similar.

i know the flash card is corrupt to some extent but it still loads in the M3DSReal and loads most ROMs. i wish i could just get the few saves off that i want. any way i could put the saves into RAM or copy over to a slot 2 supercard?

any other ideas much appreciated.

[edit] i've found a program called "DS Browser - Dual Slot" that claims you can copy between two devices (slot 1 and 2). only problem is i need to patch the second device to the M3DSReal using a pc but i only have mac. anyone that could do this for me? also anyone know where to find the most up-to-date version?

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?download=1647

 

[Mooglebass]

I had the same thing happen to my kingston card, it wont even boot up, or show up on the comp. So its dead lol. If you have have luck let me know

 

[beatrixgba]

Mooglebass, it seems that BinarySoup's card is not officially dead since it can still load roms. Sounds weird to me. I wish I can check out that card myself. Maybe try it on a PC instead of a Mac? Know anybody who has other SD adapters (perhaps USB)?

I did run into an SD card (A-Data) that had same symptons as Mooglebass. It's gone. I was seriously about to swallow it but it was still under the return window. So I got my money back.

 

[BinarySoup]

Mooglebass, it seems that BinarySoup's card is not officially dead since it can still load roms.  Sounds weird to me.  I wish I can check out that card myself.  Maybe try it on a PC instead of a Mac?  Know anybody who has other SD adapters (perhaps USB)? 

I did run into an SD card (A-Data) that had same symptons as Mooglebass.  It's gone.  I was seriously about to swallow it but it was still under the return window.  So I got my money back.

i'm just waiting on a replacement card reader from dealextreme (for the one that came with the M3DSReal that died). perhaps i'll hold on until that arrives and see if it can help. i know disk utility can see the card, it just says it's unmountable and can't be verified.

UPDATE:
Have given up waiting for the replacement from DX (5 weeks now!) and decided to just reformat the card. Unfortunately formating was unsuccessful using Disk Utility on the Mac and now the card cannot be seen at all.

Just tried to access it from a PC and format using SD Formatter v2 but it couldn't see the card.

Perhaps the issue is partly to do with the cheap card reader I'm using (though it's worked for over a year with SD cards)? In which case, what would people recommend I use? (That'll work on a Mac and can be sent for a reasonable price to the UK.)

Cheers for everyone's help so far. Mooglebass did you get yours sorted out in the end?

 

[BinarySoup]

Mooglebass: any luck trying to fix your card?

 

[TripDyke]

I've had a similar problem with my 2GB Kingston microSD. I've had it for 3 days, and last night when I was transferring some ROMs over I got a 'parameter unavailable' error. Then, when attempting to access afterwards, I got the "Please insert a disc" error. I've tried two different microSD card readers to no avail. Because it's not recognising the card, I can't even attempt to format it.

Unless you guys have any idea, I'll be sending it back to the guys I got it from and getting a replacement.