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
2. Installing the Software on Your DS Card
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 (consumer-designed software) applications and games,
- Play MP3s,
- Watch movies (in .dpg format),
- Read eBooks.
The potential things you can do with your DS card are much 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. 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. Please note that DS Card World cannot provide support for non-standard DS
card software.
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…". You will see the following screen:
Make sure FAT16 or FAT32 are selected under "File System". Uncheck the box that says "Quick Format", and click "Start". You will be presented with the
following warning dialog 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:
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 removing 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.
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 "unzip" them using software. If you need help with this,
read on to find out how to do this with WinZIP, a popular piece of software used for unzipping files.
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. These are files that function similar to vacuum seal bags for clothes - they 'pack' other files inside of them and make them
smaller.
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 slightly more user
friendly - so we'll focus on using WinZIP here.
To obtain WinZIP, please visit the WinZIP website at winzip.com. Go to the download section, where
you should see the option to download an evaluation version of WinZIP, as shown in the screenshot below.
Click "Download Evaluation" or the equivalent download link, and save the file that attempts to download, onto your computer. Once it has been saved,
run the file directly when prompted or double-click on its icon. You will then be greeted with the following screen:
If you see such a security window, click "Run". WinZIP should then install onto your computer.
Note: WinZIP may ask you if you wish to install the Google Toolbar onto your computer during installation. This is NOT required for installing
software on your DS adapter, so feel free to decline this if you want.
Opening and Installing the Software
Once downloaded, any .ZIP files you have on your computer (including those available from the DS Card World website) will now appear as a WinZIP icon.
You can see that in our example with the R4 SDHC software below.
Upon opening the .ZIP file, you should see all the files contained inside.
Do not simply drag and drop everything inside onto your computer just yet. There are many files here, but some of them go inside other
folders and have a particular structure.
Instead of dragging and dropping, select "Extract" from the top bar. You can then choose where to extract all the files to. In this case, we will extract
all the files onto the desktop. Make sure the "Use folder names" checkbox is ticked as this will make sure the files go into the correct
folders when you extract them.
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).
Transfer the files to your Micro-SD card, and your DS adapter should now boot up when everything is put into your DS console!
For any more questions - feel free to contact us!
