• Staff on-ground in Asia inspecting factories to guarantee authentic cards
  • Full and quick e-mail support by U.S. based experts
  • All orders sent out by the next day from the U.S. - NOT from overseas
  • Every card individually tested before sending to ensure you get quality goods

Support and Troubleshooting



Help with your DS Card

For those of us who are slightly less tech-savvy, we've made an instruction booklet teaching you how to set up your new DS adapter! You can read it here and refer to it as necessary.

This guide should cover what your new DS card can do, as well as instructions for installing the correct software on your DS card. For actual links to downloading software, please see our download page.

 

 

The DSCardWorld Guide to Setting Up DS Cards

 

 

1. Your New DS Card

What Can It Do / What Do I Need?

Your DS card has arrived in the post, and you're ready to start enjoying the benefits your new card can provide! You can do a variety of things with your new DS card, including:

  • Play homebrew (independent developer) applications and games,
  • Play MP3s
  • Watch movies (converted to .dpg format)
  • Read eBooks.

The potential things you can do with your DS card are even longer than this list, and we hope you enjoy squeezing that extra value out of your Nintendo DS / DS Lite / DSi console!

With almost every DS card, there is a slot in the back of the DS adapter into which you must insert a Micro-SD card. The Micro-SD card is the actual memory that stores all your applications and data, while the adapter (and basic software) is simply telling your console how to read it.

Due to the massive number of different things that can be used with DS cards all over the world, DSCardWorld are unable to personally provide support for software beyond the initial set-up explained in this document.  Featres and programs not produced by us are not supported.  However, if we can help, we will always try, so never hesitate to e-mail us!

Note about movies: DPG format actually stands for nDs-mPeG. More information can be found on the Wikipedia page for this video format, right here.

 

Looking After Your DS Adapter

You should treat your Nintendo DS card just like any other piece of electronic equipment. It is small and therefore fragile, it's definitely not good to get wet, and it should ideally be kept in a case or inside your console at all times.


Your Micro-SD card is even smaller than your DS card, and should always be kept in a known place to avoid losing it. Please keep it within your DS adapter or inside a case in a safe place at all times.

The contacts between the Micro-SD card & the DS card, and between the DS card & the DS console, are incredibly important. These contacts are what allow the DS card to work. Please keep them clean at all times, and give the slots (in the DS console and in the DS card) a regular blow of air to remove any dust that may have settled there.

2. Installing the Software on Your DS Card

Formatting Your Micro-SD Card

The first step towards running applications and viewing media on your DS card, is formatting your Micro-SD card. You need to format your Micro-SD card to either FAT16 or FAT32 file formats. To do this in Windows, just follow these few simple steps.

Once you plug your Micro-SD card into your computer (via a USB adapter, or a regular SD adapter, or a multi-card reader - your choice!), it should show up in "My Computer". Right click the drive, and choose "Format".

Make sure FAT32 is selected under "File System". Uncheck the box that says "Quick Format", and click "Start". You will be presented with the following warning dialog box:

Formatting the Micro-SD card - Warning box

Simply select "OK" to start formatting your Micro-SD card. Because you're not using the quick format option, it could take a while. When formatting is complete, you should see the following confirmation box:

Formatting the Micro-SD card - Format complete

Once formatting is complete, your Micro-SD card is ready to have the relevant software installed on it! But first, you need to make sure you have downloaded the correct software.

Remember: always safely remove your hardware by:

  • NEVER remove the Micro-SD card from your computer when being formatted or in the middle of file transfer.
  • If possible, right click the "Safely Remove Hardware" button on the bottom right of the Windows taskbar whenever removing your Micro-SD card from your computer.
Safely Remove Hardware

The "Safely Remove Hardware" button, with the green tick.

Downloading the Correct Software

Note: DSCardWorld can only offer software support for DS cards that are sold by DSCardWorld. Any card not bought from DSCardWorld (even if the name is the same) could require different software, owing to different/fake versions of DS cards and so forth. So, to keep the quality of our service high, we can only offer support to our direct customers.

If you have bought your DS card from DSCardWorld, you can simply download your software through the DSCardWorld website, in the download section.

Please make sure you have the correct software for the name of your DS card, because other versions will NOT work! (i.e. R4 SDHC software will not work on other R4 cards, Acekard 2i software will not work on EZFlash Vi cards, etc.) All current cards will have an updated version of their software hosted on DSCardWorld's website.

The software available through the DSCardWorld website (and most manufacturers as well) will come in a .ZIP file. This is a file format which compresses lots of files to keep them in a smaller space. To install them on your Micro-SD card, you will need to unpack them using an Unzip program such as Winzip or Winrar.

Installing and Using WinZIP

This section explains how to use WinZIP to unzip .ZIP files, to install relevant software on your DS card. Most DS software and games come in either .ZIP or .RAR files.

For .RAR files, you will need to use a similar software called WinRAR which can be downloaded from RarLab. However, DSCardWorld only uses .ZIP files because WinZIP tends to be a more standard format.  Zipping a group of files packages them up together in a single archive file.  Depending on the settings it usually reduces the overall file size as well.  Unzipping the same archive will reveal all of the original files.

To obtain WinZIP, please visit the WinZIP website at winzip.com. Download and install the software.  You may be prompted to install an evaluation trial version or to purchase the full version.

 

Opening and Installing your DS Card Menu Software

Once downloaded, any .ZIP files you have on your computer (including those available from the DS Card World website) will now be eligible to be unzipped.

When ready, download the appropriate menu software for your ds card.  In our example, we are going to use the menu software for the R4 SDHC. We have downloaded the R4 SDHC menu software .ZIP file to our computer's desktop.

When Winzip installs, it creates another option under the Windows "Right-Click Menu."  When you are on the desktop, right click on the .ZIP file and move your mouse to the Winzip icon, and then "Extract to Folder C:..."

Once extracted, you can see the folder structure looks similar to this (it will look different for each type of DS card, the example below is for the R4 SDHC card).

Drag a box around all of the files with your mouse, then drag and drop the files onto your micro sd card drive window.



Once complete, copy your game files alongside the menu software files.  Remove the micro sd from your computer and insert it into your ds flash card.  It should now boot into the custom menu when the game icon is tapped on the DS console.

 

For any more questions - feel free to contact us!