Hacking IDA Pro Load NDS ROM?

[gudenau]

Is there a way for me to directly load a NDS ROM into IDA Pro?

 

[godreborn]

You'd probably have to have the elf of the game. Iirc devkitPro uses nds rom tool to convert an elf into nds.

 

[gudenau]

You'd probably have to have the elf of the game. Iirc devkitPro uses nds rom tool to convert an elf into nds.

I'm seeing a way to extract bin files from it, but not ELFs.

 

[godreborn]

look at the bin in a hex editor, and see if it says ELF at the very beginning. I think they're elf anyway. that format is used on just about every system.

 

[gudenau]

look at the bin in a hex editor, and see if it says ELF at the very beginning. I think they're elf anyway. that format is used on just about every system.

They are not ELF files, there does not appear to be any sort of magic identifier.

 

[godreborn]

I don't think that will do, but it's been a long time since I messed with IDA.

 

[FAST6191]

I did see the outlines of a plugin (everything in IDA world once you get outside PC pretty much amounts to making a plugin) once that would load ARM9.bin files and overlays (probably ARM7 as well but eh), possibly also savestates (binary in memory after all) note some relevant addresses as labels and the like. Whether that spun out further into whole ROM loading (easy enough that we have various things do it) or proper handling of compression ( https://github.com/simontime/arm9dec https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/826/ ) I do not know.
https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/632/

That said IDA never really caught on for the DS world like it did in some other things we do around here, and what little was seen was people moving sideways from things that saw them have IDA and want to continue to use it, or trying to use IDA with GDB and an emulator ( https://github.com/Comsecuris/gdbida ).

 

[master801]

From a quick search:

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/632/
https://github.com/Areidz/nds_loader
https://github.com/csnikki/nds_ida

Pick one and run with it. Can't guarantee one will be better than the other since I don't use IDA.