Need help debugging issue with EZ Flash 4 Lite Deluxe no longer wanting to load GBA games

[doz592]

Hey all! Long time lurker, first time posting.

Back in 2007 ( or 2008? I don't remember...) I bought the EZ Flash 4 Lite Deluxe set that came with the EZ Pass. I used it for NDS and GBA games for a while, until I got an AceKard 2 for loading DS games, leaving the EZ Flash 4 Lite Deluxe for just loading GBA games. I've used it for a while, time moved on, I moved on to other consoles, eventually the save battery died on it, and it sat in my DS not really being used. Fast forward to today, I wanted to load up some new games on it when I noticed there was a firmware update for it. After updating to 2.05 and swapping to a 4GB SDHC card, I am now stuck - I can no longer load GBA games at all. I get the error "WARNING This card do not support GBA g" (games?) and I have no idea how to fix it. I am well aware there were two versions of this card - the EZ Flash 4 Lite Compact which did NOT support GBA games, and the Deluxe version, which did. Before updating, the firmware was on 1.74; I tried rolling back to 1.74 (and swapping back to a normal SD card) but had the same issue - "GBA not support". I thought that replacing the battery might fix it, but after doing so, I still have the same issue. What can I do to fix it? Is this card done for?

 

[FAST6191]

I was never really brave enough to do much with the autopatch and SDHC updates for lite deluxe.

I am not sure what would have gone wrong if you can indeed flash it back to an older firmware and/or bootstrap.

Hopefully
https://gbatemp.net/download/ez4-delux-minisd-bootstrap-restore.6199/
edit link appears to be broken, will have a look and hopefully get something working again.
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/flashcart-files/download-ez4-os-tools-10-f27302.html
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/flashcart-files/download-ez4-bootstrap-collection-10-f27581.html
Might be a bit more long winded but hopefully gets something done.

 

[doz592]

Wait... bootstrap? There's a second thing I'm supposed to flash?
Also, how exactly do I use this? I see it says .nds... do I follow the instructions but load everything from my NDS slot?

I appreciate you taking the time to help me with this.

 

[FAST6191]

In normal operation and typical upgrades you would never have to flash the bootstrap. Back when it was made it was noted certain DS homebrew that tried to operate the EZ4 from the DS slot in a manner similar to expansion packs like the EZ 3 in 1 would on occasion overwrite it thus bricking the card for most intents and purposes (though it would still work as an expansion pack).
I believe the bootstrap was updated for the SDHC and autopatching loaders that came about after the EZ4 was long considered abandoned (the GBA side of things was more or less done, and DS stuff stopped being updated in I think it was early 2009, however as GBA flash carts were not being made people kept on with the EZ4 and several years later the team came back with autopatching and SDHC support, and some new models) and issues with it here are likely what you are experiencing*.
Also yeah it would need a DS and DS flash cart (don't bother with the more exotic methods for this unless you really have to) to run (if your baseline card does not work then hard to boot things from it after all). Afterwards it should respond to the boring and basic ezfla_up.bin ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-4-minisd-function.609186/#post-9773753 if you needed one of those) and get back to a baseline, before you possibly jump to later kernels and other things (or just keep on patching with EZ4client, Gbata or one of the other community made efforts -- you can still play the overwhelming majority of the library just fine).

*the SDHC update being the more likely cause here -- several times only certain SDHC cards formatted certain ways** would work, and plain SD cards (2 gigs and under) would also be dubious.
**can't remember the settings offhand. Think it was still FAT16/plain FAT in Windows formatter but might have swapped to FAT32 but you needed to set the sector size as high as Windows would allow at the time, or get a proper tool like the panasonic formatter ( https://gbatemp.net/download/panasonic-sd-formatter-windows.32483/ ) as it has more options.

 

[doz592]

Ok! I managed to run it and it seemed to work! I'm back down to 1.72 for now, and was able to successfully load a GBA game! I think I'm going to flash the clearlooks version of 1.72, and just leave it as is. I appreciate your help with this a lot! Thanks!