#145365 - Mr.Peanut - Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:29 pm
My EFA Linker 512 has had corruption type problems for awhile. It appears to write correctly to the card, but when I try to run software on my GBA it looks like the card has corrupted the data e.g. software partially runs then locks up, images have horizontal lines in them.
I have tried writing 512MB files of all 0's and F's to the card. I have tried flashing my roms in different orders (small roms to large, large to small), flashing one rom at a time. Nothing seems to work.
The obvious conclusion is that it no longer works. The strange thing is that it had a year long holiday during which I used a Supercard SD and it seems the holiday is what killed it. It is not a battery issue because the battery is used only for save games.
This was a good piece of hardware that I hate to see go to waste. Is there anything else I can do to test or fix it?
#145420 - mute - Thu Nov 15, 2007 3:04 am
after you wrote 00's and FF's did you read the card to a file and compare?
#145439 - Mr.Peanut - Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:04 pm
I will try that. The 0 and F files provided on the EFA site were only for 256Mb but concatenating them produced a file too large for 512Mb. I think I manually trimmed the concatenated file to fit. I hope I still have those files.
I'm not sure how to recover the files from the device, but I will try a ROM Backup and then use a hex viewer on the result.
Thanks
#145443 - NeX - Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:47 pm
If you write to it over 10,000 times, you may kill a flash chip. Also, writing to fill the card without leaving space for the loader may cause corruption of the firmware. Also, check the contacts. Mine began to wear off.
_________________
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Or maybe you would rather play with sand? Sandscape is for you in that case.
#145447 - mute - Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:15 pm
If the contacts look dirty they can be cleaned with a rubber eraser.
I'm not actually familiar with the EFA but an erased NOR flash should contain all FF. so you shouldn't have to write that file, after a full erase. then you are checking for any bits which cannot be cleared. Writing 00's looks for bits that cannot be set. Might be tough to scan 512MB of FF's for a single FE or whatever the case may be in a hex editor visually. Either way there's not much you can do to fix this, except make sure your ROMs don't use that address.
More than likely you just need to check that your connections are solid and also try it on a different computer.
#145495 - NeX - Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:56 pm
Don't. There's a chance you may lift off the contacts or coat them in rubber. I've tried the same thing on a memory card before, and it did both.
_________________
Strummer or Drummer?.
Or maybe you would rather play with sand? Sandscape is for you in that case.
#145502 - Mr.Peanut - Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:08 pm
Well, a quick look after writing 256Mb of FF and then saving it back to my computer using the Rom Backup shown that there is definitely bad memory in the bottom 2% of my memory. Since I use it exclusively for homebrew, which is very small, that probbaly explains why it doesn't work. I'll leave the first 2% overwritten and see how it goes.
#145503 - NeX - Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:30 pm
Can you give me a rough estimate of how old your card is, and how many times you've written to it? Also, check the cables. Although both of mine looked like USB, one was a... "FireWire".
_________________
Strummer or Drummer?.
Or maybe you would rather play with sand? Sandscape is for you in that case.
#145516 - Mr.Peanut - Sat Nov 17, 2007 1:09 am
My card is about 2 years old, and I did not use it enough to have burned it out so soon. It came only with USB. It was the best flash card at the time, but the company shot themselves in the foot because their next card was inferior and did not work on the NDS.
Even after writing only to higher memory on the card it does not work. It shows a menu, but refuses to load any roms. This make me think that the loader itself is always being corrupted, and since I can not specify where the loader goes in memory, my card is effectively garbage.
#145541 - NeX - Sat Nov 17, 2007 4:17 pm
You might be able to make a rom that forces a jump to the loader itself, later on in the card. It'd be tricky and difficult and not really worth the trouble. It's near enough garbage.
_________________
Strummer or Drummer?.
Or maybe you would rather play with sand? Sandscape is for you in that case.
#145561 - mute - Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:32 am
for GBA homebrew? first thing written is the the address for execution. you can find which bits are stuck there, if any, pick an address from there, and write your menu there, minus the header... leaving u with tons of memory left. i'm a poor sob. i'd do that. =)
i'd even modify GBALdr to do it for me each time... :)