I got it to work!! I ran into some roadblocks along the way that seem seldom discussed here, so I'm going to describe
how I managed to extract Photo Dojo's SDAT for future reference.
You will need:
No$GBA debugger
OSFMount
Java
7Zip
A hex editor such as HxD
Photo Dojo's ROM (obtain it yourself)
DSi Bios + Firmware files (obtain it yourself)
Step 1: Getting No$GBA to run the DSi Bios
- Follow this guide to set up No$GBA to boot to the DSi menu. Only do part 1 of the guide, part 2 describes how to add homebrew to the DSi via the Memory Pit exploit to run DSi ROMS, but there is an easier way to do this.
- You can use Photo Dojo as the cartridge for now, but note that booting Photo Dojo will crash at this point.
- Once you have No$GBA successfully booting to the DSi Menu, close No$GBA and proceed to step 2.
Step 2: Installing Unlaunch in No$GBA
- Download unlaunch.zip and copy UNLAUNCH.DSI to the No$GBA directory.
- Open UNLAUNCH.DSI as the ROM for No$GBA, then in the Unlaunch menu, select Install Unlaunch.
- Once Unlaunch is installed, close No$GBA.
Step 3: Putting Photo Dojo on the Virtual SD Card
- Open the No$GBA directory in File Explorer.
- Unzip the DSI-SD.ZIP file in the No$GBA folder, then extract the DSI-1.SD file to No$GBA's root folder.
- Mount the DSI-1.SD file using OSFMount (the process to mount this is explained in detail in the guide above. )
- Copy the Photo Dojo ROM to the virtual SD card.
- Unmount the SD card (I got stuck on this for a while). If OSFMount is saying the SD card is in use, close file explorer and other programs.
Step 4: Making the RAM dump
- Open No$GBA with UNLAUNCH.DSI. The Unlauncher menu should appear with a list of ROMs. Scroll down to "Photo Dojo" and open it. If everything has gone successfully, Photo Dojo should open in No$GBA!
- Follow this tutorial (only steps 3-5) to perform a hexadecimal RAM dump in No$GBA and subsequently convert it into a .bin file.
- After the RAM dump is completed and you have used hex2bin.jar to convert it into a binary file, proceed to the next step (you can close No$GBA by this point).
Step 5: Using a Hex Editor to isolate the SDAT from the extracted RAM .bin file
- Open the .bin file you created in Step 4 using a hex editor (this tutorial will talk in terms of HxD).
- Search for "SDAT" with case sensitive on. Ensure the next four bytes are FF FE 00 01.
- The next three bytes after FF FE 00 01 will indicate the size of the SDAT file. These bytes should be "40 2D 0C". Reverse these three bytes to get the file size in hex (should be 0C2D40).
- Select the beginning of the "SDAT" bytes, then go to Edit > Select Block. Set the Length parameter to the length of the SDAT file in hex (should be 0C2D40).
- With the block selected, go to File > Save Selection. If performed correctly, the file you are saving is Photo Dojo's sdat file! While you can name the file anything, ensure the file extension is .sdat.
If performed correctly, you now have Photo Dojo's sdat file!
This contains all of the information for Photo Dojo's songs.
The best program to listen to these songs is
VGM Music Studio, but VGMtrans works as well. Happy ripping!