Hacking EFA Linker : not working after a long hibernation

[gt6plus]

Hello,

I have dug out my EFA Linker after about 8yrs of not using it, but I am not having any luck getting it to work.
The red light comes on when I plug it into a usb port to charge. After an overnight charge, putting it into my gba micro yeilds a black screen.

I figure the battery is dead. Would this give me a black screen though?

 

[FAST6191]

Yeah the battery is likely dead, or at least not going to hold a charge worth speaking of.

It should not black sceen on you for that. Try cleaning the contacts.

 

[gt6plus]

Thanks for your reply. I gave it a good cleaning, but still no luck.
I just get the gameboy startup screen then nothing. I know it is not the gba because other games work.

I forgot to mention my cart is an EFA Linker II, and it is a legit PCB.
Would hooking up the cart to a PC with the software help me get any further in trouble shooting? Or should I suppose that the cart is toast?

 

[FAST6191]

Though it is not impossible that it has died these old GBA slot flash carts were usually pretty tough old things and hard to kill.

What is the Nintendo logo at the bottom of the screen like? If it is garbled or not there then we are back to contacts being dirty.

Also would you have flashed it for the DS at some point? If you just stuck it in a GBA it might still be trying to load the DS loader/a DS ROM and that is not going to go far in a GBA/GBA mode.

 

[gt6plus]

The Nintendo logo is OK. I never flashed it for use on a DS. I always used it to play GBA games only wether it be in my gba micro or dslite.
Now after talking to my little brother it seems he may have formatted the card using the xbox and a usb dongle. Stupid brother...
Hmmmm I wonder if that is what killed it....?
In that case would there be a way to recover it?

 

[gt6plus]

I have been trying my best to get the driver working (old laptop with win xp sp2) and no luck updating. I have seen on the boards that this seems to be a real problem.
I guess this card is toast.
Will look into getting an EZ Flash IV as this seems to be the only option these days....
THanks for your help FAST6191