Hacking Express Card firmware

[4saken]

If anybody can find me the Express Card firmware (not any of the clones) it would be GREATLY appreciated. My friend may need it if he wants an exchange from Winsunx (he changed the firmware to UFPEX after saves did not work on the standard firmware)

 

[thegame07]

dam thats sh** :'( i will try to search for you. foudn it here you go http://www.xpcard.com.cn/english/product.html

 

[aslacker55]

If anybody can find me the Express Card firmware (not any of the clones) it would be GREATLY appreciated. My friend may need it if he wants an exchange from Winsunx (he changed the firmware to UFPEX after saves did not work on the standard firmware)

Here you go: http://www.xpcard.com.cn/english/product.html.

 

[thegame07]

the firmware updates are just for homebrew well so i have heard. On the N card site it says you will never need to upgrade the firmware for nds games. i hope you get everything sorted out fast.

 

[4saken]

It's actually not the firmware; thats the loader/OS
the kind of file I need is a .bat, which is used to flash different firmwares onto the card

 

[thegame07]

is it not on the site :'(

 

[4saken]

is it not on the site :'(

No

Thanks for trying though. If anybody knows what is going wrong - please help. The save files are of the right type (eg. Flash 2mbit for Mario Kart). The saves are made after saving in game (they are found on the actual card - and even the card acknowledges that the save was made), but upon loading the saves do not load - instead the game shows no data at all.

Stuff he's tried:
1. Flashing different firmware. Proved unsuccessful and perhaps destroyed his chance of getting a return.
2. Trying all save types. Doesn't even load in most games (eg. Mario Kart says it cannot save - data corruption or something)
3. Renaming the roms to shorter names. Doesn't work
4. Tried different games. All have the same problem so we concluded that it was the card itself - or something to do with the firmware.

Please note that the current firmware is on UFPEX, so copying the OS/Loader from the ExpressCard website will not work.

The biggest problem at the moment is finding the ExpressCard firmware and flashing the card again; unless somebody finds a way to get this to work.

 

[cory1492]

Tell your friend to try the DS Linker (link here) firmware on it (IIRC, some of the DSLinker firmwares had the ability to skin everything in it too, get the right images and it will be a FC again). Though, it may well be that the firecard is actually a clone wrather than OEM - I find it kind of suspicious that all the others have had at least one update but that one has none.

These DSGBA OEM cards do have a battery in them... and are impossible to open without destroying the case to check the battery (a bad thing IMHO.. but I love to open everything up working or not).

edit:/ big point here, make sure you/he (whomever is dealing with it) follows the steps to format the card after updating. I could see something like that messing up save loading (if the FAT access code was updated, but the FAT table itself was not... mayhem could ensue)

 

[4saken]

Thanks for the tips. I'll pass this on. It may be worth it to note that the card did not read saves out of the box, and it has been reported that it should

 

[m3csl]

Hey, I actually have the same problem as your friend.

I got the Express Card from Winsunx a few days ago, and I've been trying to get it to work. At first, it seems like it works perfectly, but I soon realized it wasn't saving the data for every game. I'm not that knowledgeable about this kinda thing, but I tried many different things and it still hasn't worked yet. I tried to flash everything like it suggests on the XPcard official site, and after that I restored the card and see if it works then.

It seemed to be working, and then it started generating saves again, and for the first time I was able to save in-game, and power off and get to that save again (for Final Fantasy 3). But then after powering off and playing another game, I switched back to FF3 to find that there is no data once again.

I'm not too sure what the problem is, I don't even know if it's a problem with the card itself, or it's because I don't really know how to operate the saves. But it seems to be that it works sometimes, but perhaps when I switch between games, the saves erase. I'm not really sure.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this with you too, because I've been trying to get this resolved and I know it can be very frustrating.

 

[4saken]

Well my friend has tried to get a refund. He is currently having trouble explaining why there is UltraFlash Pass firmware on his card.

m3csl, is it possible you can link me to the XPcard firmware? (not the DSYSTEM, but the actual .Bat files you use to flash)

 

[m3csl]

4saken,

Sorry, I'm not an expert on these things, but what I meant to say in my previous post was that I formatted the card using the lower formatting instructions on the Express Card Official Site. I actually don't have the firmware for the Express Card. I've been looking all over for that as well, because in trying to fix the saves problem, I also changed the original firmware.

If I happen to find it, I'll let you know. But it looks pretty hopeless right now...