Hacking The Very Simple Fresh Acekard 2i Setup Guide

[exangel]

Introduction

Detailed Guide: tk_saturn's n00b Guide to Setting Up Your Acekard is very detailed, accurate, and has good pictures. His guide should be your primary resource for understanding the Acekard and AKAIO features. It is the most comprehensive tutorial about this product and my guide does not serve to replace it.

This guide was initially just a response to a person with a limited understanding of the technology, but I realized that this guide can be very helpful to others as well. Though tk_saturn's guide is comprehensive and well edited, a long and detailed tutorial doesn't lend itself well to coherent translation, and the completely accurate representation of technical details through web-based translation is impossible.

This guide is meant to describe exactly what steps to take, as simple and jargon-free as possible, to prepare a new Acekard 2i to be used with any Nintendo DS including DSi / DSi XL. If you have problems after following this guide, please read tk_saturn's Guide for other solutions.



The Very Simple Fresh Acekard 2i Setup Guide

Step 1:
- Use SD Association Formatter 3.0 (formerly known as Panasonic SD Formatter) to format your MicroSD. Be careful that you format the correct drive.
- The default format settings will work no matter what MicroSD card it is.
- Reason: when you use Windows to format a drive, it will format that device as if it was a hard disk. Because it is not the same the result is an unreliable file system.

Step 2:
- After format, decompress the latest AKAIO, which is currently AKAIO 1.7. You may have to install 7-Zip* in order to open the AKAIO archive. Copy the contents of the archive to the freshly formatted MicroSD.
- After doing this, the contents of your MicroSD will be:

Folder - __aio
FileÂÂ - akmenu4.nds
FileÂÂ - LoaderChangelog.txt
FileÂÂ - readme_AKAIO.txt

- You can delete the two .txt files (they look like text documents, and your computer system may not be configured to show the .txt file extension once they're extracted).

Note:
If you want the Acekard to work on DSi with Firmware Version 1.4 or DSi XL, you must continue. If not, you can add your ROMS/Homebrew and use the Acekard 2i as it is now.

Step 3:
- Open this archive and copy to ak2ifw_update_14_DSi_new.nds to the MicroSD.

Step 4:
- Safely Remove the MicroSD from your card reader or adapter, and put the MicroSD in the Acekard. Then put the Acekard in an older DS system: Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, or Nintendo DSi with Firmware Version 1.3 or lower.
- If you do not have access to one of them, you must buy Acekard 2i already updated to use it with a DSi with Firmware Version 1.4, or DSi XL. ShopTemp offers pre-update service, as well as a few other online retailers.

Step 5:
- Turn on the DS and run the ak2ifw_update_14_DSi_new.nds file like you would run a game in the AKAIO menu. This NDS file will download the updated firmware to the cartridge to make it work with the DSi 1.4 / XL. Do not power off until after 100% complete. If you see "Danny Phantom" icon in the DSi menu, the update is successful.

After this process is complete you should remove the ak2ifw_update_14_DSi_new.nds file from your MicroSD and then add your ROMS/Homebrew! It's ready.



* Notes
1. 7-Zip is a recommended free license alternative to WinRAR. WinRAR is available in more languages but is not completely free.

Guide Edits:
Added guide.
Updated for AKAIO 1.7 and corrected an error.
Added information about open source 7-Zip archive software.

Translation links will be added at some point, sorry for the delay.

 

[coattails]

Very sweet and simple guide. A perfect get-started guide that doesn't make your head spin.

 

[gameboy13]

I really needed a guide like this when I set mine up.

STICKY PLEASE!!!

 

[GH0ST]

Useful for newbies.

Since Winrar is a proprietary nagware you should make a mention about 7-Zip the free software alternative distributed under the GNU LGPL for the AKAIO archive. ( don't want to hijack the topic but most of the people claiming winrar is better haven't used both and the floating cr version is by design header faulty... )

Thanks for your time


CODEyou can use 7zip or WinRar
( From tk_saturn's n00b Guide to Setting Up Your Acekard )

 

[exangel]

@GH0ST
Didn't think of that. I've used WinRAR since 1998 and the nags never bothered me. I never actually felt that WinRAR was better than anything (except of course, WinZip and Windows' zip shell integration). I'll modify the guide.