Hacking All my M3 Data got corrupted (Sakura)

Gengar

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[SOLVED]

Hello everyone!
I just downloaded the M3 Sakura 1.40 + 4.3i (E48) package because I couldn't find a GBA - DS linking option in my old system.
There were the following folders before I updated it:

[Nintendo DS Games]
[GBA Games]
[System]

So I deleted the old [System] folder and replaced it with the one I got from "[4808]M3_Sakura_1.40_4.3i.7z".
After that I started my DS with the new files, and this message appeared:

[LANGUAGE: ENGLISH]

No system file found !
Put system file in

At first I thought it wasn't finished copying, so I put it back into my computer.
When I opened it, I was shocked
unsure.gif

There was only one file left, which is called: USBC?föà.

Here's a screenshot:
weirdfile.png

(I'm sorry that it's in German but i think you can guess the most)

The card's memory stats stayed the same:
memoryjzg.png


Now could somebody PLEASE help me? There has to be an explanation to this.
I don't want my savefiles to be deleted for ever :-(
 

BlazerRazor

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You don't have much choice here -- you will need to format your card completely. This occurs when you unplug unsafe from USB.
 

Dark-Sider

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I'm pretty sure your data is still there, but the filesystem itself got corrupted.

On shot would be to run chkdsk on your micro-sd. It might find your lost files and rename them to fileXXXX.chk

You also could try some data recovery software like easy recovery from ontrack.

the FAT file system itself is pretty simple and very robust, but somehow your root-directory container got corrupted.
 

Archimdae

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Time and time again. This tends to happen to people who say "I just unplug my usb cards, I never have any problems from not Ejecting it first." Pish, ALWAYS eject usb storage before removing, even if you *think* it's not being accessed. Also it's good to backup your saves every time you plug your card into the computer. It takes like 10 seconds if you sort the view by file type and just copy paste the .sav files into a storage folder (Personally I keep full backups with game, .cht, .opt, and .sav files but I like to be careful.).
 

Gengar

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Thanks a lot for the answers!

Archimdae said:
Time and time again. This tends to happen to people who say "I just unplug my usb cards, I never have any problems from not Ejecting it first." Pish, ALWAYS eject usb storage before removing, even if you *think* it's not being accessed. Also it's good to backup your saves every time you plug your card into the computer. It takes like 10 seconds if you sort the view by file type and just copy paste the .sav files into a storage folder (Personally I keep full backups with game, .cht, .opt, and .sav files but I like to be careful.).

I always try ejecting it first, but a message always shows up that it's already being used although I haven't left the window open.

QUOTE(Dark-Sider @ Aug 18 2009, 04:49 PM) I'm pretty sure your data is still there, but the filesystem itself got corrupted.

On shot would be to run chkdsk on your micro-sd. It might find your lost files and rename them to fileXXXX.chk

You also could try some data recovery software like easy recovery from ontrack.

the FAT file system itself is pretty simple and very robust, but somehow your root-directory container got corrupted.


Thanks for that! I used the "chkdsk k: /f" command, made hidden system files show up and there was the folder called "FOUND.000" on my card.
yaynds.gif

Now I got "FILEXXXX.CHK" files from 0000 to 2860.

dateienewnl.png


Now, do you guys have any suggestions how I can tell:
a) Which type of data (.sav, .cht, .nds etc.) it is
b) What game it belongs to (probably won't be possible
unsure.gif
)

Thanks again.
 

Fat D

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Many of the files 8MB and greater should be NDS roms, and if you did not trim them, they have a few constant file sizes of 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 MiB, I do not have the time to make a table how much that is in kiB and bytes. When viewing the file in a text editor, or better, a hex editor with ASCII viewer, you will see a mostly human-readable name in the first 12 letters/bytes of the file. The following 4 letters/bytes are the games unique code, which can also help detect the exact game you have if you have a proper table.
The save files are more tricky. Each should be 512 kiB (524.288 Bytes) in size, but which is which might be hard to decipher. Sometimes, the first bytes of the save file give some kind of clue, which you can read like the names on the Roms, other times, you are on your own and can only see which is which through trial and error.
 

Dark-Sider

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Your screenshot is sorted by the filesize.

The lager files are probably your roms, and the smaller ones could be system files or .sav files. I never opend a .sav with a text/hex editor, but perhaps it stores the romID and or rom name in it somewhere. There are also some .sav conversion services on the web, maybe they display addtl. information on the .sav.

When you have saved all your chkdisk recoverd files to your hard drive you can clean up you card (filesystem is ok since you ran chkdsk so no reformat required) and put back the system directory. the bigger chkdsk files are your roms, put them in a "rom" folder and just start them subsequently and note the game name to the number ;-)
 

Gengar

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Thank god I made a backup one week ago.
After that I went on vacation and there I played only 3 games, which I needed the .sav files from.
Thanks to your advice I opened an old .sav file in one Notepad2 program and then opened each and every file with 512 KB next to it and then I compared them.
End of the story: I've found every file I needed, my M3 DS card works perfectly and they all lived happily ever after.
Thanks a lot for all the suggestions and the help! I really appreciate it.
 

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