Action Replay Gamecube/SD Loader Problems

[noiseredux]

I wonder if the AR disc is just bad? Have you tried the AR disc for actual codes on regular games to test it?

[gtmtnbiker]

The output of your sdpatch does not look right. It should spit out some additional output. When I'm near my system at home, I'll try it paste my output for you.

Your card looks fine. I went through my old notes in a thread on thepurplecube.org. I used 2 SD cards. One is 32MB and the other is 2GB microSD. The 2GB card did not work initially for me until I formatted it FAT/FAT16.

Do you have another SD card that you can try?

[gtmtnbiker]

Here's the output from when I run sdpatch:

H:\GameCube\Tools\SD Boot>sdpatch g:\
SDLoad Card Patcher V1.00 by Costis
(Windows 2000\NT\XP Version)

Querying device name of drive g:...OK!
Device name: \\.\GLOBALROOT\\Device\Harddisk4\Partition0
Obtaining low-level access to drive...OK!
Reading first sector...OK!
Master Boot Record found in Sector 0.
Inserting level 2 boot-code in MBR...OK!
Verifying Master Boot Record...OK!
Releasing low-level access handle...OK!

The SD card has been patched successfully. The file
system on it should remain completely functional as
before, and you may now proceed to the next step of
the Action Replay SD card bootloader installation
process.

I did an experiment and formatted the SD card (regular, not quick). Then I copied files to it and it still worked. Maybe format doesn't affect the MBR?

I would suggest finding an XP system and trying sdpatch there. Maybe sdpatch is not vista compatible?

[gtmtnbiker]

I downloaded the Panasonic SD Formatter and formatted my SD card. Then I copied the SDLOAD.BIN and testdemo.dol to the card. SDLoad failed to boot up. I would get a black screen.

I then ran sdpatch and copied the files. Again, SDLOAD failed to boot.

Finally, I formatted the card FAT (FAT16), ran sdpatch, and copied the files. It worked.

Because you didn't get the output from SDPatch, it seems that the program is not compatible with Vista.

[lisalover1]

I tried running SDpatch in compatibility mode, but that didn't help. I think I'll have to download a Live CD version of XP to run this. I'll let you know when I'm done if it worked.

[gtmtnbiker]

Does sdpatch work if you specify an invalid drive? I have Vista at work but I didn't bring my flash reader with me. Here's the output that I get:

C:\sdload>sdpatch d:
SDLoad Card Patcher V1.00 by Costis
(Windows 2000\NT\XP Version)
The drive selected is not a removable device.
Please specify the drive letter of the SD card adapter!

C:\sdload>

Since you didn't get any output whatsoever, it seems that it didn't launch at all.

[lisalover1]

I was able to find an XP computer to try this on, but it still doesn't work. This time, it gives me the output:
Invalid drive letter selection.

I tried an external SD card reader, but got the same output. I'm using SDpatch.exe v1.00. Is there a newer version out?

[gtmtnbiker]

It sounds like you have a backslash after the driver letter. Try g: instead of g:\ or vice versa.

[lisalover1]

Thank you, that worked. Now I have to wait a few days to get home from vacation so I can get access to my Gamecube again.

[GenPDP7]

It's 2019 and I have no access in any way to a system running XP. All I have is Windows 10. Yet I still see people talking about using SWISS, Action Replay, etc. How are they doing it? How can I get Action Replay to recognize my SD card?

Hopefully somebody can help. Thanks!