Hacking Sky3DS Auto Cycling

[waywind19]

Hi all,

I have a problem that I've only found one other post reporting (here), which is that my Sky3DS blue button card is auto cycling through games.

DiskWriter V200b8
Template 0413
New 3DS XL, Ver 9.6.0-24E
MircoSD Kingston 32GB

I've followed the instructions on the website (change template, format, write game), using EU roms, .3ds only and performed triple insert. Everytime, the Sky3DS card is auto cycling through the games. I can only stop it if I press and hold the blue button, which then allow me to play the game. However the blue light will constantly be flickering through out the game.

The only thing is that this card was given to me by my brother in law, who had originally setup it up with US roms and it was working perfectly. I then formatted the mSD and proceeded as normal and now it's auto cycling.

Any advice?

Waywind.

 

[Osmosis]

Is your Kingston MicroSD Class 10? Is it SDHC or SDXC? Is it UHS-1 or UHS-3? Need specs.

Are you using an mSD>USB adapter? Get one.

Are you using a USB hub/port dongle? Don't. Make sure it is directly plugged into PC.

Are you using an mSD > SD card slot adapter? Don't. Use the USB adapter instead.

The Sky3DS shouldn't have a problem (if it wasn't already broken when he gave it to you), but did he also give you the Kingston mSD card? If so, you might want to consider deleting all partitions and then deleting the MBR of the mSD card. Rebuild the MBR and leave it unallocated/unpartitioned. Then open it up in Diskwriter and FORMAT.

To do so, go get EaseUS Partition Master from Filehippo (free). Install it. Using Windows to format can sometimes be the problem. Do not format the mSD after deleting the partitions. Your mSD should have a clean MBR and the size should be unformatted/unallocated. Then just put it into Diskwriter and FORMAT. Your PC should also be running an EU OS.

What region is your N3DSXL? EU? Check your firmware and if it has an E at the end, then yes, EU only.

Put only 2 .3ds game ROMs on at first. When you triple insert, wait until the blue light stops blink to eject it. See if they cycle.

If all else fails, then the Sky3DS has gone bad.

Is it a Sky3DS? Or a QQ3DS? Does the sticker have a yellow robot on it?

Are you running Gateway or NinjaHax?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Is your Kingston MicroSD Class 10? Is it SDHC or SDXC? Is it UHS-1 or UHS-3? Need specs.

Are you using an mSD>USB adapter? Get one.

Are you using a USB hub/port dongle? Don't. Make sure it is directly plugged into PC.

Are you using an mSD > SD card slot adapter? Don't. Use the USB adapter instead.

The Sky3DS shouldn't have a problem (if it wasn't already broken when he gave it to you), but did he also give you the Kingston mSD card? If so, you might want to consider deleting all partitions and then deleting the MBR of the mSD card. Rebuild the MBR and leave it unallocated/unpartitioned. Then open it up in Diskwriter and FORMAT.

To do so, go get EaseUS Partition Master from Filehippo (free). Install it. Using Windows to format can sometimes be the problem. Do not format the mSD after deleting the partitions. Your mSD should have a clean MBR and the size should be unformatted/unallocated. Then just put it into Diskwriter and FORMAT. Your PC should also be running an EU OS.

What region is your N3DSXL? EU? Check your firmware and if it has an E at the end, then yes, EU only.

Put only 2 .3ds game ROMs on at first. When you triple insert, wait until the blue light stops blink to eject it. See if they cycle.

If all else fails, then the Sky3DS has gone bad.

Is it a Sky3DS? Or a QQ3DS? Does the sticker have a yellow robot on it?

Are you running Gateway or NinjaHax?

What does the region of your computer OS matter?

 

[Osmosis]

It might be writing into MBR... you never know.

Basically he wants to hard wipe the mSD.

 

[guitarheroknight]

Sure sounds like a hardware issue.

 

[Osmosis]

Sounds like it... but we've had a few people recover from this. So I'm betting it's a formatting problem with mSD cards.

My money says the flashcarts don't like SDXC/UHS-1/3 and drop to Class-X. Some mSDs are both, and some SDXC are only UHS.

I bet you dimes to dollars the UHS only mSDs don't work.

But others have had to RMA the Sky3DS and then it works fine.

Worth trying to fix it before sending it back. But there's no way to fix the Sky3DS. Just the mSDs. So it comes down to "how to clean format your mSD" walkthroughs. Sometimes this means breaking the MBR and reverting it back to class 10 instead of UHS. Yes, this means slower performance, but really, it's about compatibility.

The SDHC class 10 cards seem to be the most compatible, but then Diskwriter seems to be formatting wrong. Which can be a USB adapter problem.

 

[waywind19]

Thanks for the quick response Osmosis.

It is a Kingston MicroSD SDHC U1 Class 10. It is the same SD card that my brother was using before me.

I am using a mSD to USB adapter.

Yes it has the Bumblebee on the sticker and I'm not running any other emulators on my 3DS.

I downloaded the EaseUS program you advised and deleted the partitions and rebuilt the MBR in Windows 7.

I used DiskWriter running as administrator, format and then wrote two .3ds EU roms onto the disk.

Interestingly, I also received an DiskWriter error while writing my first ROM to the disk for the first time. I thought I might've forgotten to run as admin, so I restarted, but still got the error. Full log attached.

I was still able to continue to writing the second ROM without any other errors.
I inserted the Sky3DS initially for a good 10 seconds with the button held down (no image in the menu), then popped it back in and allowed the light to finish blinking and paused for a good 5 seconds (no image), back in for the final time and it's still auto cycling

Unfortunately I bought this from a reseller when I was over seas visiting my brother, so I won't be able to RMA it. We were pretty confident it would work, as we had tried it out on my brother's 3DS as said before.

 

[smasbros]

Maybe you can try the newest sky3ds DW2.02 release...

 

[waywind19]

Thanks smasbros for the tip. I restarted all of the above steps to see if it would help.

I still got the above error when writing the first ROM onto the mSD card. Not sure if I've done something wrong by rebuilding the MBR, cause I never got this error prior to it.

And unfortunately still auto-cycling.

 

[dandymanz]

Maybe you would like to try out using the old diskwriter v1.06 to write your games? It seems a few ppl on Win7 are finding the new v2 buggy.

As for changing microsd card, what i do is
1) prepare the new microsd card by repartition it back to full size using MiniAide (EaseUS should work fine too)
2) format the microsd using SDFormatter with full format type and size adjustment on.
3) Remove the microsd and replug into my pc again.
4) Open diskwriter and format the microsd
5) Write games with verify option turned on
6) Plug in microsd card to sky3ds and insert into 3ds
7) Turn on 3DS, game slot would show -empty-
8) Press the blue button one time. Wait a few seconds, eject out the Sky3ds card
9) Insert in Sky3ds card, and game shows.

I've never really used the press and hold method that they teach so far though.

 

[Osmosis]

2.02b1 works much better than 2.00b8. Please backup savedata and games in 1.06 before you even try 2.02b1. Just in case.

DO NO USE 2.00b8!!!! Even I had JIT crashes and formatting errors.

Or just read THIS.

 

[waywind19]

Thanks for your input dandymanz,

I've read the latest posts regarding the diskwriter 2.0 issues. I've followed both the instructions on Osmosis's post to wipe the mSD and tried rewriting ROMs with DiskWriter 1.06b5 with no success. (I already tried 2.02b as above and was also getting the JIT errors (Win7 32bit)

I've also tried your method you described and still get auto cycling issues.

Pretty disappointed and still have no idea what I'm doing wrong. The only thing I can think of is that it was somehow damaged when I brought it back to AUS, even though my girlfriend also got a brand new one overseas and it's currently working fine (similar specs).

Is there any problems with using it as it is? I can still play games by pressing the blue button during the auto cycling, but the blue LED light doesn't stop flashing the whole time which is kinda annoying. I'm worried it's not going to save data correctly either.

 

[Osmosis]

It won't write savedata properly.

 

[Osmosis]

Here's a funny question... are you running any antivirus or malware protection? Disable them. You don't need to use Diskwriter in Admin. To reformat, follow my 2.00 warning instructions.

 

[waywind19]

If I don't use it in admin mode, I get an error about not being able to access the mSD card with Disk Writer (step 1, choosing drive)

Error: Could not open the physical drive! physicalHandle
CreateFile("\\.\PHYISCALDRIVE1") - Get last error returned 0x00000005

And no, not running anti virus protection.

 

[dandymanz]

I'm not sure if it's ok to suggest this. But since you said your gf's sky3ds is working fine. Why don't you try to do a swap of the microsd cards and see what happens? If her microsd card in your sky3ds also has the same problem, then maybe your card was damaged when you brought it back. But if it doesn't, then time to see how your microsd card works under her sky3ds.

But before you start all this. Be sure your gf does a backup of her saves. An upset gf is worse than a non working Sky cart

 

[Osmosis]

If I don't use it in admin mode, I get an error about not being able to access the mSD card with Disk Writer (step 1, choosing drive)

Error: Could not open the physical drive! physicalHandle
CreateFile("\\.\PHYISCALDRIVE1") - Get last error returned 0x00000005

And no, not running anti virus protection.

Whaaaaah??? Is your account not admin privileged? Go change your windows account type from STANDARD USER to ADMINISTRATOR.

I never have to do that... Even have a shortcut on desktop. Win 7 Ult x32. Only time I ever see DW restrictions is when COMODO throws it in my Sandbox or tries to quarantine my .3DS ROM DLs.

I love COMODO. It just burns everything... "What is that? *BURN* Oh, you wanted that? Meh. Go play in my Sandbox. Found turds? *QUARANTINES*"

I'm pretty sure all your problems stem from mSD formatting issues from 2.00. I don't think your Sky3DS is bad. We had another user who had this problem and RMAed it and then it worked. But I still think this is fixable.

Go make yourself an ADMINISTRATOR before you do anything else. You should have done that when you installed OS. If you have no idea how, CONTROL PANEL>USER ACCOUNTS>ACCOUNT TYPE>ADMIN. If it won't let you, go get Ultimate Windows Tweaker for Win 7 and force your account as an admin.

 

[Osmosis]

Then go get Diskwriter v2.02B1. Stop using 2.00b8. That thing really should be burned...

And you might want to try a new USB>mSD adapter. Make sure it's plugged directly into the PC USB port. No hubs or extensions.

That one really gets on people's nerves. But it happens...

 

[waywind19]

Good call dandymanz, I tried my mSD in my girlfriend's Sky3DS cart and it works fine. No auto-cycling. I pop it back into mine and starts cycling.

Looks like it's the Sky3DS cart that is damaged.

 

[dandymanz]

Good call dandymanz, I tried my mSD in my girlfriend's Sky3DS cart and it works fine. No auto-cycling. I pop it back into mine and starts cycling.

Looks like it's the Sky3DS cart that is damaged.

Did you happen to pop your gf's mSD into your Sky to test as well?