Hacking Wood + R4 Deluxe = FAIL

[Roy Renard]

Ok, people, this is my first time asking for help in a forum because of Flashcart-related problems, so I think this is somewhat complicated... that's why I'l try to explain things as detailed as posible.
Well, my first flashcart was a FAKE N5. I mean, if N5 is already a fake, this was a fake of a fake, that's why almost every single game I played with that thing crashed in a matter of minutes. It only worked with a N5 1.20 Kernel, by the way, so not a single N5 Kernel update worked until I tried the 1.23 version; not an earlier nor an older firmware did the job... so I then tried buying a new flashcart. I went to a market and bought a R4 Deluxe (or at least, that's what the card's sticker says: "R4 DELUXE Revolution for DS (NDSL/NDS)") which came with a 2GB micro SD with an unknown firmware that worked, even with the fake N5. But, in my lazyness, I just inserted the 2GB micro SD that came with the fake N5 (altogether with the N5 1.23 Kernel, and all my games) and, curiously, worked.
My games crashed no more and I was happy. That was until the new games came with anti-piracies and/or weren't compatible with my old v1.23 firmware, so I tried using YSMenu, which worked just fine again.
Finally, the latest roms were released (Lufia Curse of the Sinistrals, Sonic Colors, Rockband 3, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, etc) and that's when the problem started, because not even the mighty YSMenu could handle the incompatibility/anti-piracies. I knew I had to try and search for any firmware that could work on my flashcart and read the latest roms, but none worked. I tried with the latest N5 firmwares, the original R4's, its clones, TTDS's, and some more, but they all failed.
And just when I was about to surrender, a new ray of hope came to me, showing the Wood firmware, so I thought "why not?" and gave it a try. I first used the Wood version for Original R4, believing that my flashcart was one of those, but NOT; the damned "Loading" screen just showed up. This was also true with the WAIO, that supposedly worked with all of those R4 clones and N5s, etc.
Then, I just started experimenting, so I formatted my micro SD (after backing up everything) and put the "__rpg" folder contents, but NOT the "_DS_MENU.DAT" that came with the Wood R4 1.19 rar file that I downloaded from FileTrip.net, putting, instead, the "_DS_MENU.DAT" file from my old N5 v1.23 firmware. After this, I included the Wood R4 1.19.NDS file in the micro SD, in order to adapt it to the way YSMenu worked in my flashcart. It worked: the menu was just the same as my old N5 firmware, but when I started the Wood.nds file, the new firmware interface showed up and I could finally play my new games. Unfortunately, a new inconvenience came up, and it involved the save files.
I was aware that I had to rename the .sav files to ".nds.sav", because Wood worked that way, so I downloaded (from FileTrip.net, again) the "AKAIO/ Wood R4 Save Manager 1.4", which I used to convert all my .sav files to .nds.sav, so that the Wood firmware could open my games. However, this failed because every sav file was either corrupted or just erased and the New Game option was the only one that could be selected everywhere... and, on top of that, when I tried to play one of the previously-mentioned new games, a "Processing, don't power off" message appeared and stayed like that, just as if it was frozen.
This makes me think that perhaps the .sav file creating process is the problem, but this happens either with both the WAIO/Wood R4 1.19 main firmwares + N5 v1.23 MENU.DAT + Wood R4 1.19.NDS combinations, which are the only ones so far that bypass the "Loading" screen. So, how can I play my old games, without starting from zero, and my new games, without that sav. file creation issue, with the Wood firmware?
Oh, well... sorry for the lengthy post, but I always try to be specific and explain every single detail. Ok, so thanks in advance, have a nice day ;D

 

[twiztidsinz]

Your formatting kinda sucks and makes it hard to read... so I skimmed through it.

WoodR4 won't work with anything but original R4s and 1:1 clones.
WoodR4i Gold won't work with anything bu the R4i Gold from r4ids.cn.

 

[Roy Renard]

So that means I'm damned?

 

[twiztidsinz]

So that means I'm damned?

While buying a crappy clone is a sin... I wouldn't say you're damned.

Either pick up an AceKard2i or 1:1 R4 clone (usually $3~6) or a better card.
Ask before buying though.

 

[Rydian]

Copy-paste incoming.



If you want newer games to run, here's what you should try, in order.[*]Latest official firmware.
Go to the site printed on your cart, download and set up the latest firmware, see if that fixes it. If there's no site printed or the site is down, this is a good resource for finding firmwares.

[*]AP-bypassing options.
Some carts have a setting or mode that will disable AP in games (to get them all running), but it may also disable extra features such as cheating and soft-reset, so these options tend to be turned off by default.

[*]A clean ROM.
If the ROM you're using has been modified in some way there's a chance it might not work on certain carts. In addition sometimes when transferring ROMs between carts small amounts of damage to the data can occur, so while the ROM may appear to be fine, it's actually been modified on accident and may not run.

Download and run this program, then go to Update -> DSFCC. This should update you to the most recent version. After that, browse around the folders in the upper-left to find where your ROMs are, when you click the folder the filenames should show up below the folder area. Select the ROM(s) you want to check, then click the health/heart button below the list, that will check to see if it's clean or not. Beware, trimmed ROMs will always show as having been modified! While trimming a ROM is generally regarded as safe, there's always the possibility of something going wrong.

If you find that the ROM you're having trouble with doesn't match the known clean ROM, then you'll want to redownload it (preferably from a site other than the one you used originally as their copy may be bad/damaged in the first place).

[*]Format your MicroSD card.
If the filesystem on your MicroSD card is damaged it can cause all sorts of trouble with running games. First copy everything off of your MicroSD, then run this program to format it properly. After that copy everything back, and see if the game runs properly.

[*]YSmenu or other alternate firmware.
If there's no official support you can try an alternate firmware. If you have an original R4 or clone of the original (hardware-wise, not neccessarily name-wise) you can try Wood R4, which updates for new games often. If you have something else you'll have to see if you can run YSmenu, it's got updates to the data files to run new games.

[*]Game patches.
If there's no way to run better firmware on your cart, you'll have to hunt out patches for the games and apply them to your ROM. While this used to be very common, it's increasingly rare for patches to be made because there's multiple carts that can run new games without patches now, and multiple alternate firmwares for other carts that add support for new games. Rudolph makes and updates a ROM patcher that will automatically patch many games, but this doesn't support everything. For individual games that patcher doesn't support, you'll need to hunt out the patches yourself via google.

[*]A new cart.
If you can't run any decent firmware and there's no patches for the games you want to play, your cart's a piece of shit and you should buy a decent one, to put it bluntly. While many sites may tout R4 clones as amazing stuff and charge $65 for them, in reality even the best flash cart is only about $40, and mainstream ones with less features (that can still play all the latest games) can be had for $25 or less.