i hope work as advanced on that project i sure would like to backup my game using the savedongle as mine is gathering dust
Interested in knowing this as well. I have a review unit I got for free and never bothered to review (I'm sure I'm not the only one). I honestly intended to review it, but when I got it I just couldn't be arsed.
I've been playing around with mine recently. I loan my games out to family and friends, so I back up and erase the save games before I do and then restore them when I get them back. The major downside is that I have to boot into Windows to back up or restore. So last weekend I decided to make it my project to recreate the functionality in a C++ terminal application. It compiles and runs on Linux and Windows, with most functionality working except for the most important parts―reading and writing.
I'm mimicking the official software as closely as possible, but getting weird output when dumping saves. For example, the following screenshot is of two dumps of Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, the left is R4iSaveDongle.exe, the right is my application:
Notice the 55s where FFs should be? There's other strange characters in mine too, although a lot of the actual data matches up just fine. This might be something to do with the TEA authentication.
As for dumping ROMs with this, I'm pretty sure you'll need to hack the firmware, unless a secret command exists to allow indexed reading from the ROM. You can get information about the ROM from the header, which also includes the ROM size (which would be necessary for indexed reading).
EDIT: note that trawling through the decompiled source code isn't a walk in the park. TEA decryption might be required, as evidenced by this part of Form1.cs (I'm using dotPeek in a VM):
Everything is decompiled to pointers, which makes it really awkward to figure out what is going on.
@[member='kerneldev'], did you manage to get anywhere with this?
I'm mimicking the official software as closely as possible, but getting weird output when dumping saves. For example, the following screenshot is of two dumps of Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, the left is R4iSaveDongle.exe, the right is my application:
Notice the 55s where FFs should be? There's other strange characters in mine too, although a lot of the actual data matches up just fine. This might be something to do with the TEA authentication.
As for dumping ROMs with this, I'm pretty sure you'll need to hack the firmware, unless a secret command exists to allow indexed reading from the ROM. You can get information about the ROM from the header, which also includes the ROM size (which would be necessary for indexed reading).
EDIT: note that trawling through the decompiled source code isn't a walk in the park. TEA decryption might be required, as evidenced by this part of Form1.cs (I'm using dotPeek in a VM):
Code:
__memcpy(@arrayTypeBy07E1, (MCU_EEPROM_DATA\u0024\u0024BY0A\u0040E&) ((IntPtr) &\u003CModule\u003E.MCU_EEPROM_DATA + 24), 8);
\u0024ArrayType\u0024\u0024\u0024BY07E arrayTypeBy07E2;
// ISSUE: explicit reference operation
// ISSUE: explicit reference operation
// ISSUE: cpblk instruction
__memcpy(@arrayTypeBy07E2, @\u003CModule\u003E.MCU_EEPROM_DATA, 8);
this.TEA64bit_decode((uint*) &arrayTypeBy07E1, (uint*) &\u003CModule\u003E.g_key);Everything is decompiled to pointers, which makes it really awkward to figure out what is going on.
@[member='kerneldev'], did you manage to get anywhere with this?
I realize that this thread stopped receiving posts a long time ago, but reading it now still doesn't answer the question of how to extract 3DS ROMs from retail carts using the save dongle. I have a save dongle and am interested in dumping ROMs myself, so I was wondering if anyone out there still knows how to do so. Any help is much appreciated!
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Time would be best invested in trying to get the power-saves device to do this as it was intended for 3DS carts and likely has the ability to access the entire 3DS cart. (as is the case for Pokemon X/Y as the save is actually part of the main rom/chip on the cart)
As for the older DS titles, there is homebrew a-plenty that does this, thus the lack of interest in something like this. It does make things more convenient, but to those who own a DS or DS Lite, it isn't worth the extra investment if they already own a flashcart. Especially since cheap R4s are more then enough to run the home-brew needed for this on the older DS systems.
If you already own a DS or DS Lite, why spend the extra money on the dongle when you can buy an R4 for less then ten bucks (not including shipping.
) and just dump both saves and roms to a simple FTP server on your Wifi network (there's plenty of free software out there that can do this for you). If you already own a slot 2 flashcart, then it's even more convenient as you can just dump to that and transfer to the PC afterwords.
Though unlike the R4i, the PowerSaves dongle probably has more secure firmware and communication methods. Or it might not. It all depends on how strict Datel was with this device.
This thread was created well before the Datel PowerSaves device existed FYI.
Back to the subject of 3DS rom dumping, if the PowerSaves dongle was ever tricked into doing dumps, it would certainly be a cheaper and easier alternative to using a Gateway and a 4.5 FW 3DS console. PowerSaves only runs $20-25 depending on where you go online to buy it. Compared to the $70+ the Gateway runs for. Then you might even have to buy a whole new console because yours might not be on the older 4.5 firmware needed for the Gateway device to work.
As for the older DS titles, there is homebrew a-plenty that does this, thus the lack of interest in something like this. It does make things more convenient, but to those who own a DS or DS Lite, it isn't worth the extra investment if they already own a flashcart. Especially since cheap R4s are more then enough to run the home-brew needed for this on the older DS systems.
If you already own a DS or DS Lite, why spend the extra money on the dongle when you can buy an R4 for less then ten bucks (not including shipping.
) and just dump both saves and roms to a simple FTP server on your Wifi network (there's plenty of free software out there that can do this for you). If you already own a slot 2 flashcart, then it's even more convenient as you can just dump to that and transfer to the PC afterwords.Though unlike the R4i, the PowerSaves dongle probably has more secure firmware and communication methods. Or it might not. It all depends on how strict Datel was with this device.
This thread was created well before the Datel PowerSaves device existed FYI.
Back to the subject of 3DS rom dumping, if the PowerSaves dongle was ever tricked into doing dumps, it would certainly be a cheaper and easier alternative to using a Gateway and a 4.5 FW 3DS console. PowerSaves only runs $20-25 depending on where you go online to buy it. Compared to the $70+ the Gateway runs for. Then you might even have to buy a whole new console because yours might not be on the older 4.5 firmware needed for the Gateway device to work.
Thanks for the quick reply, Apache Thunder. It's really too bad that there is no way to use any hardware currently available to dump 3ds roms. It doesn't appear that anyone has even looked into dumping roms with the Datel Powersaves, anyway. A friend of mine claims that he can dump 3DS Roms with the save dongle ( I think he programmed it himself), so I will look into that. I'm surprised that there isn't more interest in this topic when the only current way to dump your own 3ds roms is to buy a $70 flashcart that only works with consoles that can't play any games released after 2012... I will continue to research this topic, and update with any info I find.
-Melvin
-Melvin
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