Hacking Spirit Tracks erased R4?!?

[Bonovox40]

So i've been using my R4 (old broken spring version) on my DSlite, and using the original firmware with YSMenu sometimes and sometimes not, depending on what games and cheats I need to access. I can run recent games just fine (RC Soccer Hooligans)on it so I haven't switched over to the Wood fw yet.

Anywho, I loaded up Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the first time under YSMenu. It asked to create a save bookmark like usual, so I clicked OK...loaded for a bit, and then popped up "save file corrupted..etc". I couldn't do much else so I turned off the DS and turned it back on. The R4 goes to load and I instantly get a black screen with "R4 can't find DS_MENU.DAT" and that's it. I took the SD card and popped it in my PC and EVERYTHING on it is gone.....WTF?!? I looked up and heard that Tracks can mess up your save once you're in the game but have it completely wipe my SD card? I mean there is NOTHING left on there according to my PC. No games/saves/folders/text docs....nothing. Showing Just under 2 GB free space on a 2GB card.
I haven't seen anyone else have this problem. I guess this wasn't a patched Tracks, and instead the clean one.
I haven't tried formatting because i'm hoping it's a mistake. I didn't know the R4 could format an SD card on it's own. But then again my PC is showing that the card is blank now so I think i'm SOL. Is it possible my R4 or SD card is damaged/broken? Are there other games that have been known to do this?? My EZ 3in1 slot 2 is working fine so I know the DS is ok.

 

[twiztidsinz]

If you haven't written anything to the card, you can try to recover the data with an undelete tool.
After that, I'd just get WoodR4 and make sure you have CLEAN versions of the ROMs.

 

[Stropdasje]

Your R4 did not "format" the SD card. The SD card holds some administrative data where the parts of a file are stored and what name a file has. When formatting the the format program puts clean administration on the disk saying all space is available for new files and no files are yet on the SD card. This is however not what happend in your case.

For unknown reasons the administrative data got overwitten. Also then the PC cannot see any files anymore but the administration is also not okay, it is not a clean situation and you can most likely not store any files on the SD card anymore, at least not in a safe way. So the R4 card did not format but did destroy the disk administration of files and directories.

The reasons this happens can be several. One possibility is that the firmware reserved too little space for the save file, for example it reserved 512 KB and the game wrote 1 MB. In that case the first 512 KB ended up in the reserved space but the second 512 KB overwrote space that was not reserved and may be in use by other files or the her for mentioned administration. Reason why the firmware reserved too little space was maybe because it had no support for the game and didn't know it needed more space for the save. I don't know if this applies to this game though, just an illustration.

This is not the only possible reason, there maybe other reasons. For example if the disk administration was already damaged before for some reason, then adding a new file can damage the whole administration even more since on a damaged filesystem you cannot trust that it realy knows which parts of the card are in use and which are free (since it is damaged). With chkdsk or scandisk a disk can be checked for errors in the administration and fix it. But after it is completely overwritten it is too late of course.

The administration van become corrupt due to switchoff during save, dead battery during a game, static electricity and also just because of a sporadic data error. Also some SD cards have more problems with the R4 than others.

Note that this is only damaged administrative data, no physical damage. So when you format the SD card a new clean file administration will be put on it and the SD card can be used again. Only your data is gone. Therefore it is wise to make regular backups. Things like this can always happen. With a backup you can always restore the SD card to the state of the last backup.

Of course before that you can try tools like Recuva to see if any of the data can be salvaged from the SD, despite that a part was overwritten. It depends on how much of the disk administration was distroyed by that.

So the recommended steps:

- Try to recover the files form the SD card as it is now. By no means write to the SD card, it will make the possibility of recovery worse or impossible.
- Format the SD card, use the Panasonic formatter and not Windows for best results
- Put the R4 kernel or Wood R4 on the SD card. I would recommend Wood R4
- Put your ROMs back and if you have them backup save files

Note: when moving to Wood R4 rename the saves from xxxx.sav to xxxx.nds.sav names. Good luck.

 

[BobTheJoeBob]

Well. I guess your just gonna have to get wood. Try and recover your files, if you can't, than I'm afraid all your rom's and saves are gone, sorry.

 

[CrimzonEyed]

try get the files back with http://www.piriform.com/recuva

 

[Bonovox40]

Ok. I'll try Recuva first. The error described regarding the file space may have occurred. Same thing recently happened with "Infinite Space". I tried to run that in the normal R4 menu and got a message that there wasn't enough space to save. (may have been true, I didn't check file space recently)
I tried again through YSMenu and it worked, so I figured it was an issue between the game and old R4 firmware.


I know Wood works, but is it compatible to use with EZflash 3-in-1 for GBA? I've seen some posts of others not being able to use it properly.

 

[CrimzonEyed]

Ok. I'll try Recuva first. The error described regarding the file space may have occurred. Same thing recently happened with "Infinite Space". I tried to run that in the normal R4 menu and got a message that there wasn't enough space to save. (may have been true, I didn't check file space recently)
I tried again through YSMenu and it worked, so I figured it was an issue between the game and old R4 firmware.


I know Wood works, but is it compatible to use with EZflash 3-in-1 for GBA? I've seen some posts of others not being able to use it properly.

it depends on what version of EZflash 3-in-1 you are using.
You need to have the vanilla version of ezflash 3in1.
you will need GBA ExpLoader

 

[Bonovox40]

Oh. Well, it looks like this one: http://www.myds.com.au/AccessoryDetail.aspx?id=50

Just the black slot 2 expansion pack that can do rumble and stuff, but I just use it for GBA games using gbaExploder.

 

[Bonovox40]

Ok. I did the panasonic format, applied wood fw, dumped some .nds and .gba stuff on there and it works. My last backed up saves I renamed to .nds.sav and they don't seem to be working. The GBA saves are fine though. Do I need to play the .nds games from scratch, make a new save and then overwrite those saves? I suppose the naming change may be responsible

 

[Stropdasje]

Ok. I did the panasonic format, applied wood fw, dumped some .nds and .gba stuff on there and it works. My last backed up saves I renamed to .nds.sav and they don't seem to be working. The GBA saves are fine though. Do I need to play the .nds games from scratch, make a new save and then overwrite those saves? I suppose the naming change may be responsible

Normally renaming should be enough. Wood R4 can make other saves too but file.nds.sav is the default save extension which will be used on a fresh install if not changed by you. It should work but apparently there is something strange that it doesn't work for you, so you could try what you say. Start the game and then copy the backup save over the created save file, at least then you are 100% sure that the filename is exactly correct.

Beware that Windows can suppress known extensions, the file might have become .nds.sav.sav where Windows hides the .sav as known file type and shows you .nds.sav. I hate this Windows option and always turn it off. I want to see what the complete filename is and not have Windows hide a part of it.

There is some firmware that had trouble with .SAV versus .sav but I cannot recall any problem with Wood R4 in this area. I think I read it in a section about the R4rli fake firmware for real R4's. The R4 saves should be fine for Wood R4 (except the name of course).

 

[bingkei]

Ah! the same thing happened to me which release of the rom were you using? were you able to recover it?