Hacking Is my SD card faulty?

[ER_Mac3]

Hey there!

I recently installed Luma through ntrboot and boot9strap following the 3DS hack guide. For this purpose I bought a 32gb SanDisk, which I'm pretty sure is not exactly class 10, but I didn't pay attention to this at first.

After the process was complete, all homebrew CIAs installed, I went for DS, SNES and GBA CIAs which were my main purpose in hacking the console in the first place. These ones were easily installed with no complications whatsoever and play normally. But then I decided to install a bigger CIA for Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology and FBI just won't install it. I keep getting the same error 0xD8E0806A constantly, which is described as "Cert signature or hash check failed", and is further specified with other data that has been varying according to the title I try to install. Yes, it did fail even other titles like Ever Oasis and Kirby Triple Deluxe, both of them getting the same error code and description (image below).

https://imgur.com/kLaDv05

After these attempts I read about the possibility of converting the CIAs myself from a .3DS file. So I downloaded a Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology .3DS file and converted it through GM9. And I was able to install this CIA just fine, unlike the ones I downloaded directly in the CIA format. Although, this attempt has led me to another error during the gameplay, after a certain time playing it, it got to a point in which the game crashed and resulted in the error 0xd900458b. The error happened all the times I loaded the game back and played to this point. I don't have a picture of this screen, but it was exactly like this (also posted in this forum):

https://gbatemp.b-cdn.net/attachments/20180413_160013-jpg.120421/

Through this whole thing I read over and over and over about the possibility of a faulty SD card, but here is the thing: I have no clue about how I can tell it even from data. Before hacking my 3DS, I ran the H2testw tool on my SD Card after formatting it through windows (32kb cluster size). The results looked kinda ok to me, just something like 150kb lost, BUT through quite some sectors, write speed 5mbps average. But I'm a total noob and I don't even know why I thought this was ok tbh lol

I tried formatting with guiformat but H2testw tells me the SD Card has an occupied 1mb, so the test might not be accurate. When I format with windows tool though, H2testw begins the process without this warning. So I figured it would be better to format through Windows (please correct me if I'm wrong). Hence why I bring here new tests results I just ran after another Windows FAT32 32kb cluster size quick formatting:

The media is likely to be defective.
29.7 GByte OK (62308012 sectors)
170 KByte DATA LOST (340 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
107 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 214 sectors)
63 KByte corrupted (126 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x0000000004666e00
Expected: 0x0000000004666e00
Found: 0x0000000f04666e30
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 7.95 MByte/s
Reading speed: 14.8 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

My questions are:
- Is my SD Card the problem here?
- Can it be salvaged as a fully functional 16gb one isolating the faulty sectors?
- Is there a possibility I messed up the hacking part with the faulty SD Card? (even though it plays NDS, SNES and GBA games normally)
- If the SD Card is not the problem, which way is the most effective to get functional CIAs? Maybe another installer is the case?
- Which software should I use to format the SD card for use?

Thanks a lot in advance =)

 

[lone_wolf323]

Hey there!

I recently installed Luma through ntrboot and boot9strap following the 3DS hack guide. For this purpose I bought a 32gb SanDisk, which I'm pretty sure is not exactly class 10, but I didn't pay attention to this at first.

After the process was complete, all homebrew CIAs installed, I went for DS, SNES and GBA CIAs which were my main purpose in hacking the console in the first place. These ones were easily installed with no complications whatsoever and play normally. But then I decided to install a bigger CIA for Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology and FBI just won't install it. I keep getting the same error 0xD8E0806A constantly, which is described as "Cert signature or hash check failed", and is further specified with other data that has been varying according to the title I try to install. Yes, it did fail even other titles like Ever Oasis and Kirby Triple Deluxe, both of them getting the same error code and description (image below).

https://imgur.com/kLaDv05

After these attempts I read about the possibility of converting the CIAs myself from a .3DS file. So I downloaded a Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology .3DS file and converted it through GM9. And I was able to install this CIA just fine, unlike the ones I downloaded directly in the CIA format. Although, this attempt has led me to another error during the gameplay, after a certain time playing it, it got to a point in which the game crashed and resulted in the error 0xd900458b. The error happened all the times I loaded the game back and played to this point. I don't have a picture of this screen, but it was exactly like this (also posted in this forum):

https://gbatemp.b-cdn.net/attachments/20180413_160013-jpg.120421/

Through this whole thing I read over and over and over about the possibility of a faulty SD card, but here is the thing: I have no clue about how I can tell it even from data. Before hacking my 3DS, I ran the H2testw tool on my SD Card after formatting it through windows (32kb cluster size). The results looked kinda ok to me, just something like 150kb lost, BUT through quite some sectors, write speed 5mbps average. But I'm a total noob and I don't even know why I thought this was ok tbh lol

I tried formatting with guiformat but H2testw tells me the SD Card has an occupied 1mb, so the test might not be accurate. When I format with windows tool though, H2testw begins the process without this warning. So I figured it would be better to format through Windows (please correct me if I'm wrong). Hence why I bring here new tests results I just ran after another Windows FAT32 32kb cluster size quick formatting:

The media is likely to be defective.
29.7 GByte OK (62308012 sectors)
170 KByte DATA LOST (340 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
107 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 214 sectors)
63 KByte corrupted (126 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x0000000004666e00
Expected: 0x0000000004666e00
Found: 0x0000000f04666e30
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 7.95 MByte/s
Reading speed: 14.8 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

My questions are:
- Is my SD Card the problem here?
- Can it be salvaged as a fully functional 16gb one isolating the faulty sectors?
- Is there a possibility I messed up the hacking part with the faulty SD Card? (even though it plays NDS, SNES and GBA games normally)
- If the SD Card is not the problem, which way is the most effective to get functional CIAs? Maybe another installer is the case?
- Which software should I use to format the SD card for use?

Thanks a lot in advance =)

thats not going to be any good. dont matter if you use 16gb or 6gb. you are likely to see some corruption which will only cause headaches later. You are going to want to get a new sd card.

Also means that cia file is defective for that error. dont need a different installer. you need a different source for the cia. download it and install that one.

 

[ER_Mac3]

thats not going to be any good. dont matter if you use 16gb or 6gb. you are likely to see some corruption which will only cause headaches later. You are going to want to get a new sd card.

Also means that cia file is defective for that error. dont need a different installer. you need a different source for the cia. download it and install that one.

Is converting .3DS files through GM9 to .CIA a better and more consistent solution?

And also, about the test tool, when I buy a new SD card I should aim for 0% data loss, or is there an acceptable threshold?

 

[TurdPooCharger]

Your card is real but has met its demise. Sorry bud, but you gotta replace it. That's smart of you to hardware test yours.

The best way to describe this failure is that the SD card is like a water balloon that has a pinhole. Can you think of another latex product that would be bad if it had a tear in it?

Spoiler: Guess the rubber item.

That's right. Party animal balloons! Helium that leaks out would make the kids sad.

Oh, that's not what you had it mind? Well, just be glad a real but failed SD card isn't as serious as those accidents.

 

[ER_Mac3]

Your card is real but has met its demise. Sorry bud, but you gotta replace it. That's smart of you to hardware test yours.

The best way to describe this failure is that the SD card is like a water balloon that has a pinhole. Can you think of another latex product that would be bad if it had a tear in it?

Spoiler: Guess the rubber item.

That's right. Party animal balloons! Helium that leaks out would make the kids sad.

Oh, that's not what you had it mind? Well, just be glad a real but failed SD card isn't as serious as those accidents.

lol thanks! I will be replacing it, any tips on how I should be careful so I won't mess it up again? Maybe a specific formatting software? Is the class 10 required for a consistent and long term solution?

 

[TurdPooCharger]

lol thanks! I will be replacing it, any tips on how I should be careful so I won't mess it up again? Maybe a specific formatting software? Is the class 10 required for a consistent and long term solution?

Buy from a reputable seller, go with name brand cards, and most importantly test all newly purchased (empty) cards with H2testw before using them to protect yourself from counterfeits. Other than that, there's nothing you can do as that's the nature of flash memory products. They wear and tear the more you use them, like light bulbs that'll eventually burn out.

 

[Quantumcat]

@ER_Mac3 just want to tell you thank you for making such a detailed post, thinking about your problem properly, and trying everything you could think of (and describing it all articulately in your post). #GBAtempAskerAwardsGrandPrizeQualityPostWinner

 

[ER_Mac3]

Buy from a reputable seller, go with name brand cards, and most importantly test all newly purchased (empty) cards with H2testw before using them to protect yourself from counterfeits. Other than that, there's nothing you can do as that's the nature of flash memory products. They wear and tear the more you use them, like light bulbs that'll eventually burn out.

If I buy a 64gb SanDisk should I format it with 64kb cluster size? Or stick with 32kb?

Btw thanks for the responses =)

 

[TurdPooCharger]

If I buy a 64gb SanDisk should I format it with 64kb cluster size? Or stick with 32kb?

Btw thanks for the responses =)

Testing 64 KB Allocation Size
Is this 128gb sd card good for 3ds? [start from post #4]
Upgrading mSD Card Question
F-Zero Climax GBA: picture off-center. [ post #3]

 

[ER_Mac3]

Ok, @TurdPooCharger , I thought I should give you an update on my case in spite of feeling really stupid lol

SO... I bought a 64gb Class 10 card, SanDisk. Ran the test and everything had pretty much the same results proportionally, double the size, double the corrupted data more or less. So I figured well, maybe I should search harder for an SD reader on my PC, and turns out it had one (yes, I'm that dumb), and I was using a really cheap USB adapter, and that was actually the problem all along, it was making the data transfer really slow and slightly but consistently corrupting it. Tested both my old 32gb (the one from above conversation) and 64gb cards on the proper reader with no crap USB adapter, and it works perfectly, not a single error on H2testw, the bigger CIAs are installing corretly and all.

Well, it was at the very least a good case study on cheap USB adapters: don't use one lol

And also it was a blessing my 3DS survived the hacking with such a bad adapter too.