Is your R4 stuck on the "Loading..." screen when you first boot it up? No matter how many times you copy the firmware over it's still the same thing? Well then chances are you've installed the official R4 firmware on a clone card.
If your R4DS supports SDHC then you most definitely have a counterfeit, or cloned, R4. Don't panic, you'll still be able to get it going. The problem is that the original R4DS used an encrypted firmware which the clones can't read.
First thing to do is check the box that came with it. Usually the clone makers list their own particular website on the box. That is the site you want to download your firmware from. If your card didn't come with a box then check what the R4 you own is. The clone companies use many different names for their particular clone, such as R4DS SDHC, R4-III, R4 Deluxe, R4 Advance etc etc.
Even though these companies (and some of their sellers and users!) would like you to believe that they are official R4 Team products they aren't. Each one uses a hacked firmware for that particular card. Using a firmware from one clone on another will usually result in a "This card is fake" message, which is actually pretty amusing as ALL of them are fakes!
So make sure you're using the correct one or you will have more problems again.
One suggestion I can make is to use YSMenu. YSMenu doesn't care whether you've got a real or a cloned R4DS and also offers much better compatiility and cheat support then either the official R4DS firmware or any of it's clones. If you're unsure of how to set up YSMenu then I highly suggest reading this thread :
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=103879
It's for an easy to use YSMenu setup utility written by the very talented Maikel Steneker and will make the unsure users life alooooot easier. Some people complain that YSMenu looks "boring" compared to the R4DS firmware, while this may be slightly true (but only slightly) YSMenu offers alot more than the official or cloned firmwares. It boils down to your own particular preference, would you rather have better game and cheat compatibility (and more) or a pretty menu. The choice is yours really, but most seasoned users will tell you that YSMenu is a much better choice.
If you really would rather use the "official" non-official cloned firmware then I will try to keep a list here :
R4DS SDHC (there are several of these clones so you may have to try a few firmwares!)
http://www.ndslr4.com/
http://www.r4new.com/
http://www.r4r4ds.com/
http://www.r4sdhc.com/
http://www.r4ultra.com
R4 Advance
http://www.r4ds-a.com/
R4 Deluxe
http://www.r4deluxe.com/en/
R4-III Upgrade
http://www.r4dsl.net/index-en.asp
R4DS Pro
http://www.r4dspro.com/function_en.html
R4-II
http://r4iids.com/indexe.asp
R4Team.com
While these people claim to be the original R4 Team they are not. They use a hacked version of Yasu's YSMenu as their firmware. Because of this I won't post a direct link as I disagree with people making money by stealing homebrew coders hard work. If you have a card from R4Team.com I recommend using the original YSMenu, it's safer. See the above link on R4YSauto by Maikel.
(I will add more as I find them or people tell me).
Hope this helps you with getting past your "Loading..." screen.
There are other R4 clones like the NPlayer, N5DS, Mars and others. I've not posted links/info on these because they have a completely different name and people don't usually get these confused with an official R4. If you'd like me to post links for these cards in the list then let me know.
There is also a way to decrypt the official firmware so that it will run on your clone card using a utility called R4Crypt. I'll post more info on this soon.
Thanks go to DarkRey and Jesterace for helping me with info on the many many many R4 clones.
If your R4DS supports SDHC then you most definitely have a counterfeit, or cloned, R4. Don't panic, you'll still be able to get it going. The problem is that the original R4DS used an encrypted firmware which the clones can't read.
First thing to do is check the box that came with it. Usually the clone makers list their own particular website on the box. That is the site you want to download your firmware from. If your card didn't come with a box then check what the R4 you own is. The clone companies use many different names for their particular clone, such as R4DS SDHC, R4-III, R4 Deluxe, R4 Advance etc etc.
Even though these companies (and some of their sellers and users!) would like you to believe that they are official R4 Team products they aren't. Each one uses a hacked firmware for that particular card. Using a firmware from one clone on another will usually result in a "This card is fake" message, which is actually pretty amusing as ALL of them are fakes!
One suggestion I can make is to use YSMenu. YSMenu doesn't care whether you've got a real or a cloned R4DS and also offers much better compatiility and cheat support then either the official R4DS firmware or any of it's clones. If you're unsure of how to set up YSMenu then I highly suggest reading this thread :
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=103879
It's for an easy to use YSMenu setup utility written by the very talented Maikel Steneker and will make the unsure users life alooooot easier. Some people complain that YSMenu looks "boring" compared to the R4DS firmware, while this may be slightly true (but only slightly) YSMenu offers alot more than the official or cloned firmwares. It boils down to your own particular preference, would you rather have better game and cheat compatibility (and more) or a pretty menu. The choice is yours really, but most seasoned users will tell you that YSMenu is a much better choice.
If you really would rather use the "official" non-official cloned firmware then I will try to keep a list here :
R4DS SDHC (there are several of these clones so you may have to try a few firmwares!)
http://www.ndslr4.com/
http://www.r4new.com/
http://www.r4r4ds.com/
http://www.r4sdhc.com/
http://www.r4ultra.com
R4 Advance
http://www.r4ds-a.com/
R4 Deluxe
http://www.r4deluxe.com/en/
R4-III Upgrade
http://www.r4dsl.net/index-en.asp
R4DS Pro
http://www.r4dspro.com/function_en.html
R4-II
http://r4iids.com/indexe.asp
R4Team.com
While these people claim to be the original R4 Team they are not. They use a hacked version of Yasu's YSMenu as their firmware. Because of this I won't post a direct link as I disagree with people making money by stealing homebrew coders hard work. If you have a card from R4Team.com I recommend using the original YSMenu, it's safer. See the above link on R4YSauto by Maikel.
(I will add more as I find them or people tell me).
Hope this helps you with getting past your "Loading..." screen.
There are other R4 clones like the NPlayer, N5DS, Mars and others. I've not posted links/info on these because they have a completely different name and people don't usually get these confused with an official R4. If you'd like me to post links for these cards in the list then let me know.
There is also a way to decrypt the official firmware so that it will run on your clone card using a utility called R4Crypt. I'll post more info on this soon.
Thanks go to DarkRey and Jesterace for helping me with info on the many many many R4 clones.
