Hacking JP GC retail disc on PAL Wii save problem (Donkey Konga 3)

[Saphir0]

Hello.

My problem explained:
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Ive got some serious problems with an imported gamecube game (Donkey Konga 3) which i bought yesterday.
I started the game via neogamma (because of regionfree).

It worked for some seconds, until I came to the save screen.
Some donkey konga message in japanese (ofc) occured and i had no clue what to do.

In normal this is the point where you save you game, but in this case it was different.
After some resets and trying to press the "right answer", I found out that I deleted my entire memory card in Slot A and Slot B.
What a great start..

So the game tried to format the memory card to be japanese game compatible.
Funny though, because this didnt work out for me.
It still wont save.

According to a single related site I found in google, some guy fixed the problem by changing language and game starting language of the system to japanese by using AnyRegionChanger.
I tried that too. Different error messages than before, but still wont work.

I was so angry at that point I then changed my Areasystem language to japanese too, ignoring all the semi brick warning that WILL happen if I do that. But nothing happened. I haven't semi-bricked anything, or at least I haven't found anything that won't work. (The settings in the wiimenu doesnt work, shows an "opera doesn't found nintendo.co.jp"- error or so, but I don't care about that.)

I started the game again via NeoGamma. No changes at all.

I read somewhere something about NMM (No more memory) and DiosMios, so I installed that too.
But I have no real clue how to activate NMM. Starting NeoGamma again, game starts and
before I get the Nintendo Gamecube Japanese Help Screen", I get another message from donkey konga I can answer with yes or no. I try yes and.
it saves for the very first time. I'm impressed. I reset by using the reset button to see if it worked.
And it did.

But.... now comes a very big BUT.

It will save and it will work too when I reset. When I restart my console by turning it to standby or by plugging off the power cord, the memory card will be corrupt and I have to reformat it again, in order to save the game. (Which makes no sense at all, because my save will be deleted everytime I do so..)

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Do you have any solution for me what to do..? I'm going insane..
Will it fix the problem if I get NMM to work? After all I'm thinking if it would be a better choice to pirate the game if this is the only way to use NMM. But this would be extremely desperating.

Why the hell did I even import an original 7 year old game, deleted all my gamecube saves, when I cant even get it to work...? I don't know. Please help me. Is there any homebrew app out there to fix this problem somehow?
I don't have the skills to find something for me that works.

Or do you think NMM will work? When yes, how do i activate it? 'Couldn't find that out in my 6 hours of (messy) research i did yesterday.
And will it work for a retail game + sd slot saving too, or only via games I play from sd cards?

I have a fully cracked Wii (I don't know which cIOS or what versions I have, but every app I try works always), with bootmii and everything. I already did a NAND backup before i did any of the above, just in case.

 

[Clarky]

right i missed the huge wall of text and I will attempt to jump right into the problem. Konga 3 being Japanese needs either a Japanese Wii/Gamecube or dedicated memory card to save due to something with the Japanese characters (think along fonts, not people silly) nobody seems to have cracked making it work so...

 

[Saphir0]

Thanks for the quick answer, but thats not what I was looking for. Its ok that you dont want to read the whole article but... it would be important.

As I said. Someone out there got it to work by using Any Region Changer. I used this app too. My whole wii is in japenese, starts games in japanese and formats memory cards to jgcm. Hell I even changed the country area to japan, after all the warning that this will
almost always brick my wii (what it didnt obviously). Theres some different problem here, which I cant explain.

So will you think this will work by using NMM (via DiosMios)? If yes, where is a good tutorial to get it to work?
Or any other ideas?

 

[Maxternal]

NeoGamma doesn't let you change DiosMios settings you'll need to use a different loader. I'd suggest DM(L) Booter for something simple. In there you can simply turn it on and it should work.

 

[Clarky]

I've gone back and read your problem, I only gave you the usual answer that I am familiar with DKonga 3. Are you using an offical Nintendo memory card though? I know some games can be picky about what they use

 

[Saphir0]

Well I tried again now with the tip from Maxternal. No success sadly. I choose NMM as an option, start the game, and it won't save..

And yes, clarky, I used an offical Memory Card, the black one (251 blocks).


Is there anybody out there who can help me ??
*sigh*

 

[Maxternal]

Okay, so if I understood right, when you run it with DiosMios WITHOUT the NMM on, it saves AND loads right but when you power down and turn back on it says the card's corrupt?

Does it say that BOTH on the system menu AND in the game itself? or could you just keep that memory card working fine for that game and ignore that the everything else says it's corrupt?

Does it still show as corrupt when you take the card out before restarting it?

With DiosMios (you may have to turn the "PadHook" option to "ON" for this) if you press R+Z+start it will reset you back to the system menu. Does it still not work even after doing it this way?

Does just taking the card out and putting it back in when it says it's corrupt WITHOUT formatting it help? (It's worked for me before.)

 

[Saphir0]

I'll try everything again this evening (+10hours from now) just to be sure.

The big problem is I don't understand Japanese and so I am unable to read Kanji. When I try it this evening again, I'll take pictures so I / we can compare and find out what happens when.

I'm at work now, but my my guess is:

Case 1: Booting Game via NeoGamma without MiosDios = Game formats memory cards and creates a save (viewable via the WiiMenu), not showing "saving" ingame | RESET | Data corrupted, have to format again (If I stop at this point and check on the WiiMenu, it will say its corrupted too and have to reformat it)

Case 2: Booting Game via NeoGamma with Japanese Country Area = Game creates new save (viewable via the WiiMenu), shows "saving" ingame | SOFT RESET | Game loads save, everything works just fine | (HARD) RESET | Data corrupted , have to format again (If I stop at this point and check on the WiiMenu, it will say its corrupted too and have to reformat it)

Case 3: Booting Game via DML Booter with NMM = Game asks something different before I load it, shows Memory card corrupted, after formating NMM (haha?), It says no memory card found I think, = won't save.

I'll report later if PadHook worked for me. (You're saying its worked for you? Did you try it with DKa3?)

 

[Maxternal]

I'll report later if PadHook worked for me. (You're saying its worked for you? Did you try it with DKa3?)

What "worked for me" was it said it was corrupt so I unplugged the card and plugged it back in and it was able to read it again but that was not with that particular game, no. (Which I don't have, sorry.)

 

[Saphir0]

Maxternal. Kind regards for your patience with me ~

I almost bursted into tears when I got it to work.. 'Thought it was because of PadHook, but no.

This is the configuration how it works:

AnyRegionChanger:
System Language: Japanese
Country Area: Doesn't matter
Boot game: Japanese
DiosMios(Lite) installed
DiosMios Forwarder (app) instead of NeoGamma
NMM deactivated

I always tried since I got the DiosMiosForwarder app to use it only for NMM. Deactive it and it works. I don't know if I turned the option NTSC-J patch on or not if this makes a difference.

Some interesting fact is, now that my memory card is working for Donkey Konga 3( which is an NTSC-J game ) my memory card show as corrupted (- but not when I start the game), only in the WiiMenu.
This is likely due to the GCM-J format and not the GCM-UP (NTSC-U & PAL) format. My wii shouldn't read GCM-J memory cards, so it appears as corrupted for it.

[I only post this, so if someday, someone may have the same problem as me and is looking for a guide to work. Then it's here.]

Thanks everyone.
Love GBAtemp.

Regards,
Saphir0