Hacking "System file is missing" after having it for over 3 years

[Walo]

So I've had the card for quite some time already and it's been working fine for the most part.
Lent my DSi to my gf and she's been using it this year or so.
However, yesterday, as she was playing Mario & Luigi: BiS, the game froze, and when she restarted it gave her the system file is missing prompt.

Searched a bit, and most threads were about not putting the correct installation files the right way, so I figured I'd make a thread.
I also saw that the sd might be corrupted and that I should reformat it.

Any tips or guesses as to why this could've happened?

It's not an old fw either, not sure if the newest but I did update it to fix BiS freezing issues and used to keep up to date regarding major releases.

 

[Walo]

She connected the sd to the pc and it's empty. I guess it got corrupted?

Meaning she lost all her saves and stuff... Sigh...

 

[Another World]

she connected it and told you what she experienced, or you were in the room? it is possible her reader is bad. it is also possible the card was not properly mounted and thus popped up in the PC as a blank card. you should double check before moving on.

you can run a recovery tool against the card and probably get some of the stuff back. so don't jump in and start writing new files back to the card just yet.

here are some things that may help:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

when it comes time to reformat the card, we always recommend the panasonic sd formatting tool. then replace the lost files with clean copies. so go grab a fresh new download of akaio, your games, apps, homebrew, etc.

-another world

 

[Walo]

Wasn't there, she handed it over today and it was indeed the case, everything is missing.

For some reason, using the first program, I recovered a lot of the .bmp files with the icons for the OS along with some .ini .db .txt .fat and .apple files, and of course some .nds files, but for some reason I only recovered 200/240 files and I don't see any of the .sav files which are the most important really. Haven't tried saving anything else before doing it so I'm not sure what's the matter.

It's a pretty big bummer, and I'm even more puzzled that I can't access the .sav files.

I appreciate the help, and I really hope we can figure it out.

Thanks man

I think perhaps the sd card overloaded creating a save file, cause it was pretty full when I handed it to her after I swapped some games

 

[ILuvGames]

make sure you use any deep scanning options that are available to you (like in Recuva).

 

[Walo]

I'm not sure but I still can't seem to get a hold of the .sav files

So I guess I'll just ask if anyone could share these 2 save files

Last Window; she was right near the end with this one, chapter 10 preferably, but chapter 9 or 8 would be fine as well I think

Mario & Luigi BiS: she was in bowser's castle

should I try making another thread for this? Tried searching the web for the Last Window one which is the most important one really, but couldn't find anything

 

[ILuvGames]

Try gamefaqs.com or filetrip.net