Hacking Friend's R4 got bricked after using Savegame Manager

[MidniteBlaze]

I told a friend about Savegame Manager, which would allow him to back up his Pokémon LeafGreen save file, but when he tried to run it, it froze at the "loading" screen, and now the card just flat out refuses to boot up.

This is his card:


When I asked what software it ran, he told me that he uses Wood, but doesn't remember the version he used. He hasn't updated in around 6 months. The problem he describes is similar to what happened to my Acekard a few months ago. Is there any way to reflash his R4? I kind of can't afford to replace his R4 at the moment, so I'm in need of a solution.

The situation, as described by him is the following:

1. He downloaded sgm_0.3.0.RC1..zip from Project Pokémon.
2. He extracted the file and copied it to the SD.
3. He booted the R4, attempted to load Savegame Manager, and it froze as it displayed "loading."
4. After that, every attempt to run the card will result in the screen being stuck in "loading."

The last game he played was Pokémon Black 1 (actually, Pokémon Edición Negra 1, in Spanish). He says it's a clean one (described as being "the original one, without patches"), and has been playing Black 2 and SoulSilver in Spanish to record battles in order to upload them to Youtube. Can non-patched games cause the R4 to brick?

 

[Pong20302000]

if you load dodgy files you can indeed brick the flashcard and you can even brick the DS console and even the DS Mode on a 3DS
you cannot reflash R4 cards so guess hes going to have to buy another or you will have to as you told him what to do

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Try this.

take out his SD card and backup the games and saves

format the card with the Panasonic SD formatter full (overwrite) and auto for block sisize then load in a fresh copy of the firmware to the card with no games try that in the r4 if it boots put a test rom in there like sm64 ds and see if it plays

 

[MidniteBlaze]

if you load dodgy files you can indeed brick the flashcard and you can even brick the DS console and even the DS Mode on a 3DS
you cannot reflash R4 cards so guess hes going to have to buy another or you will have to as you told him what to do

Well, it's not exactly a dodgy file. It's a widely used application for backing up saves, especially Pokémon game saves, and I've used it on my Acekard with no problem whatsoever.

Try this.

take out his SD card and backup the games and saves

format the card with the Panasonic SD formatter full (overwrite) and auto for block sisize then load in a fresh copy of the firmware to the card with no games try that in the r4 if it boots put a test rom in there like sm64 ds and see if it plays

Alright, I told him to do that. Let's see if it works.

 

[MidniteBlaze]

Well, it didn't work. Any ideas? Are you absolutely sure there isn't a way to reflash R4s? Also, I really want to know if what caused the R4's demise was Savegame Manager, because if so, that must one very crappy card.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

Why not just copy the .sav files next time by the way?

try another SD card all together?

 

[Rydian]

The original R4 doesn't have flashable firmware (unlike later flash carts for the DSi/3DS).

 

[MidniteBlaze]

Why not just copy the .sav files next time by the way?

try another SD card all together?

The save file he wanted to back up was for LeafGreen, which a Game Boy Advance game, so a tool is needed in this case.

The original R4 doesn't have flashable firmware (unlike later flash carts for the DSi/3DS).

Ah, bummer. Looks like this is a really bad clone, though. He's had it for three years now, so I doubt it's one of the originals.

He sent me a picture of the one he has (it's attached to the post). Though it probably doesn't matter anymore.

 

[Rydian]

If it's just for the DS (and not DSi/3DS), then yeah no flashable firmware (whether it's an original run or a direct clone). That's something that came later to get around cart-blocking updates.

 

[Another World]

I kind of can't afford to replace his R4 at the moment

HERE is the same card for $2.10 cents from a respected reseller.

-another world

 

[MidniteBlaze]

HERE is the same card for $2.10 cents from a respected reseller.

-another world

Well, I live in Venezuela, so it's hard to buy from the internet without a credit card that has special permissions (Cadivi), and the ones they generally sell at eBay-like auction sites are mostly R4 Dual Cores for roughly $45 (or $14, if you take into account the cost of parallel dollars/foreign currency, both of which are hard to come by because of inflation).

BTW, my profile said I'm from America, but I must have been too lazy to change it. It's fixed now.