Hacking M3 Lite Professional Problems

Spikey

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My girlfriend and I recently purchased the M3 Lite Professionals from Divineo. They came in on Thursday the 9th. So far they have treated as well in pretty much all aspects except a slight problem with saves. We both were previous owners of M3 mini SD so we copied our games and saves to the new cards, and they run and load their saves kinda fine. For example, with Elite Beat Agents, the save with all of it's stats is fine BUT there is always a message of saved replays being corrupted and then they get deleted. I have no clue what the problem is as the game works fine in all other areas. Everything else in game still has all of its data, it's just the save. When loading Mario Hoops there is a similar message about corruption, although I've yet to figure out what is wrong with its save. I've not tried and tested all the games I've put on there, but since its a continuous problem and happened on two different games I wondering what kind of problem it is. Can anyone help and offer some advice on how to possibly fix it?
 

tama_mog

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They use different FAT allocation methods, use the save manager in the game manager to maintain your saves (aka click on the rom that's on the m3 lite and right click to bring up the manager). Then write the save accordingly using the GUI instead of directly copying it over.
 

Spikey

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Upon further playing, the save has completely deleted itself and the save itself is entirely gone. I think the problem has to do with when it's backing up. I'm wondering if the problem is with the Micro SD card, The M3 Lite Pro, or some other factor. I'm hoping that whatever it is that it can be resolved without purchasing something new.

EDIT: To clear things up, the .dat is still on the card, it's just that the save is now blank.
 

tama_mog

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I didn't tell you to "do" fat allocations. The way minisd and micro sd handles data is different. So hence the reason why homebrew requires different fat drivers for different devices using different medias (between m3s). Backup whatever saves you can currently on your minisd m3's by copying the files to your hard drive. Then format (whatever format you're happy with, I prefer fat16 with 64k cluster size) the micro sd you have, and repatch all your games through the game manager. After you're done repatching all your games, bring up the save manager feature inside the game manager (via instructions I posted above) and write the save files through the game manager. If my theory is correct, this should fix your problem.
 

Spikey

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I didn't tell you to "do" fat allocations. The way minisd and micro sd handles data is different. So hence the reason why homebrew requires different fat drivers for different devices using different medias (between m3s). Backup whatever saves you can currently on your minisd m3's by copying the files to your hard drive. Then format (whatever format you're happy with, I prefer fat16 with 64k cluster size) the micro sd you have, and repatch all your games through the game manager. After you're done repatching all your games, bring up the save manager feature inside the game manager (via instructions I posted above) and write the save files through the game manager. If my theory is correct, this should fix your problem.
How do I set cluster size then?
 

tama_mog

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do a search, or visit www.m3wiki.com. There are ways to do it via a dos command prompt or if you like guis, go under control panels, admin tools, computer management, then bring up disk manager and then click on the drive and select format....then you got all the options you'll need for formatting in different formats/cluster sizes. This is not the source of your problem, this is a method to make ds games run quicker.
 

Spikey

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I reformatted the care to fat16 with 64k cluster. I rewrote the game over again for the card using the game manager. I also used the game manager to load the save there as well. The result? It still corrupts the save. I can most certainly confirm that it has to do with the backing up of the save. When loading the save fresh, before the M3 Lite Pro does its own backing up of the save, the save works perfectly fine. After entering the game again though, after it backs up the save, it becomes corrupted. Not entirely though, at least not for a while. In reference to EBA, only the replays are corrupted at first. After a few times of it backing up, as with the rest of the games too, it will eventually become a blank save.
 

tama_mog

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hmmmm....that is strange....maybe patching options? which gm are you using? and if you're using v29 and before, are you using force r/w on oh let's say eba?
 

Spikey

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hmmmm....that is strange....maybe patching options? which gm are you using? and if you're using v29 and before, are you using force r/w on oh let's say eba?

I'm using GM v30 and it automatically detects the need for force r/w on EBA, and other games. The games were previously patched with v29 and, yes, I did use force r/w. On the mini sd m3, everything works perfectly. It's just this new M3 Lite Pro that isn't working correctly. Not mine nor my girlfriend's.
 

tama_mog

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hmmm, pro.....wonder if that has anything to do with this problem....and if you patch using v30, it wouldn't ask for force r/w on eba, only v29 would....but that's beyond the point. Maybe try using the save manager to grab the saves off the minisd instead of copying it directly.....but corrupted saves are bad signs regardless. It kind of makes me think about the whole pokemon save issues too....and how m3 team specifically outlined steps in restoring the saves.
 

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hmmm, pro.....wonder if that has anything to do with this problem....and if you patch using v30, it wouldn't ask for force r/w on eba, only v29 would....but that's beyond the point. Maybe try using the save manager to grab the saves off the minisd instead of copying it directly.....but corrupted saves are bad signs regardless. It kind of makes me think about the whole pokemon save issues too....and how m3 team specifically outlined steps in restoring the saves.

I already used the game manager to grab the save off of minisd. Then I used the gm to write the save to the microsd. The problem remains. I'm wondering if the problem is a firmware issue(not correctly backing the save up due to something within the firmware), a hardware issue(just a bad batch of M3 Lite Pros), or if it's a problem with the Micro SD cards. I'd need to buy a new micro sd card to test that though.

I have emailed the M3 Team about my problem now though, and am awaiting a response. So far, I do not know anyone who has M3 Lite Pro yet, so to know if it's a problem with the whole batch, I'd have to get in contact with others who own them. Hopefully this problem can be fixed with a new firmware release because other than the save corruption, the M3 Lite Pro is a very fine purchase. Very good build quality(better than the build on the minisd m3), and the games run well. It's also very nice that the M3 Lite Pro comes with white, navy, ice blue, pink, and black color carts to match all the DS Lites, but oddly enough it also includes a casing the size of a normal GBA cart for use in the DS Phat.
 

tama_mog

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not so odd, that's been a hot request for awhile. They're trying to phase out the older m3's completely through this move with a cheap mold. But I doubt it's the micro sd if all diagnostics you've ran (chkdsk etc) went through ok. Firmware probably isn't an issue since I haven't see anything out of v30 from people and my SD version....but to be honest I'm still on v29 of the firmware on the ones I play on extensively (m3 lites) since I don't see a need to upgrade firmware yet...hardware issue seems a bit of a stretch since everything else is working properly...definitely sounds like something is weird when you went from minisd to micro sd though....and I'm thinking the way each device handles data has something to do with it.
 

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not so odd, that's been a hot request for awhile. They're trying to phase out the older m3's completely through this move with a cheap mold. But I doubt it's the micro sd if all diagnostics you've ran (chkdsk etc) went through ok. Firmware probably isn't an issue since I haven't see anything out of v30 from people and my SD version....but to be honest I'm still on v29 of the firmware on the ones I play on extensively (m3 lites) since I don't see a need to upgrade firmware yet...hardware issue seems a bit of a stretch since everything else is working properly...definitely sounds like something is weird when you went from minisd to micro sd though....and I'm thinking the way each device handles data has something to do with it.
I don't think it has to do with the way each device handles the data because even when starting a new file, it can be turned back on to reveal that the save is completely gone.
 

tama_mog

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not so odd, that's been a hot request for awhile. They're trying to phase out the older m3's completely through this move with a cheap mold. But I doubt it's the micro sd if all diagnostics you've ran (chkdsk etc) went through ok. Firmware probably isn't an issue since I haven't see anything out of v30 from people and my SD version....but to be honest I'm still on v29 of the firmware on the ones I play on extensively (m3 lites) since I don't see a need to upgrade firmware yet...hardware issue seems a bit of a stretch since everything else is working properly...definitely sounds like something is weird when you went from minisd to micro sd though....and I'm thinking the way each device handles data has something to do with it.

I don't think it has to do with the way each device handles the data because even when starting a new file, it can be turned back on to reveal that the save is completely gone.

Could you elaborate on this? Not understanding what you mean here.
 

Spikey

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not so odd, that's been a hot request for awhile. They're trying to phase out the older m3's completely through this move with a cheap mold. But I doubt it's the micro sd if all diagnostics you've ran (chkdsk etc) went through ok. Firmware probably isn't an issue since I haven't see anything out of v30 from people and my SD version....but to be honest I'm still on v29 of the firmware on the ones I play on extensively (m3 lites) since I don't see a need to upgrade firmware yet...hardware issue seems a bit of a stretch since everything else is working properly...definitely sounds like something is weird when you went from minisd to micro sd though....and I'm thinking the way each device handles data has something to do with it.

I don't think it has to do with the way each device handles the data because even when starting a new file, it can be turned back on to reveal that the save is completely gone.

Could you elaborate on this? Not understanding what you mean here.

Okay, I freshly wrote EBA to the card, not importing any saves, just leaving it new and blank. I play the game, from being new, save and do my thing, and when I turn it back on the save corrupts itself and is deleted requiring me to start yet another new games.
 

tama_mog

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ok, didn't know that in the past posts you posted. Something is definitely wrong with apparently hardware if your rom is ok (check just to be sure against crc32). It could very well easiy be that the sram itself is defective and it's saving inconsistent data or like you said there's an issue with your microsd. keep us all informed when you get your new microsd on what happens.
 

Spikey

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ok, didn't know that in the past posts you posted. Something is definitely wrong with apparently hardware if your rom is ok (check just to be sure against crc32). It could very well easiy be that the sram itself is defective and it's saving inconsistent data or like you said there's an issue with your microsd. keep us all informed when you get your new microsd on what happens.
The ROM is 100% ok. I've already checked that out. I'm just really hoping this can be fixed with a simple firmware update. Going through the hassel of exchanging the M3 Lite Pros seems like it would be troublesome. And if it's a microsd problem, I'd have to buy all new cards because I killed the packaging for the cards so taking them back is a no go.
 

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