EZ-Flash USA Forum

Cool, thanks for the info guys.

Hey, since the sources are listed for the firmware, are the sources listed for the EZflash4 client? Time permitting, I am willing to port this client to Linux for the masses. Yeah, it doesn't work in wine at all for me, and I can gather it is pretty darn simple code (just massages some data around on the roms, easily portable probably). BTW, I wish folks used standard Windbloze GUI widgets when they made windows applications, it would obviate the need to port. But actually I would likely add features such as wildcard globing multiple files to convert at a time, a feature the current client is lacking.

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Status Update: Just got back from a trip while using EZF2: Had a mess of Sector errors each time it was used, each becoming progressively more frequent (more sectors sighted with errors).

Eventually the card was rendered unusable as either the EZflash device deleted all content except the Save folder (but also deleted all contents of the save folder) or when writing to the flash card ended up corrupting the file system card (my money is on the later).

Argh it happened again, so may sector errors then the EZFlash can no longer read 1 file on the device, and immediately after, it truncates the only visible file name e.g. MARIO~.gba, a DOS naming convention. Very frustrating, and of course it will not play. In addition, when the EZflash does work (after formatting), many times there are bitmap errors and inversions resulting in scrambled sprites/maps and other lovely "features".

The device works about 50% of the time and I have to reset the GBA several times (or NDS) to get the game to "load" completely then pound my head and guess what some scrambled sprites or tiles are "supposed" to be.

Over all this is a ridiculous waste of time. It's too bad, so much potential, supposedly runs all games at full speed (just like my ECube) but larger potential capacity. Well, if it doesn't work at all.... then its NOT much better

Is anyone else pulling their hair out with this thing?

I am going to attempt to clean the metal contacts on the EZflash. I am slowly exhausting all possibilities except one.... : The EZflash is non functional (as was my previous one).

I am not happy with the probability of such a possibility and am leaning towards a VERY likely quality control issue.

I will try some more ghetto engineering and trick out my EZFlash with some paper! Really guys, no offense, but a card that needs this kind of thing makes me wonder LOL. I'll post the results.

[Edit] Thought paper trick solved it... no such luck...

1) I think the paper thing is a fluke. It just happened to work ok for a few times, regardless of the paper. (similar results with or without). So....

2) I think this is a MiniSD Flash card problem. I've noticed right after formating that the Linux Kernel gives a multitude of errors even when the EZFlash hasn't touched the bugger.



Most unlucky SD card buying experience ever..

This has been a very unfortunate experience for you.

It's not my fault but I'm sorry it's been so tough.

I hope you can soon find a solution and see just how rewarding the ez4 _can_ be.

Thanks for the encouragement man! Yeah it seems like part of the issue is not even related to the EZflash. I had an old EZflash 3 and an original EZflash 256mbit back in the day (same developers?) and they both worked great. So I am hopeful.

I am getting a replacement sent for the 512MB MiniSD from the merchant for free . Hopefully this one will work.

My main reason for getting one is for GBA usage. But I am also a hobby game developer (so it has multi uses, but I heard homebrew support is low for EZF4? I will see). I am making a mario style R&J game right now. But I am so busy with work and MS classes I keep putting it down and the projects sits too long. Right now it branched into making a level editor too (well really just tile placement anyhow) in GTK+. Old school games are more work then they look like on embedded hardware like a GBA , but a lot of fun to work on .

I am all about the GBA and DS so I am anxious to get this up and running. I will post my results when I do for others who may have issues.

I had the same trouble using a 2Gb micro sd card with mini sd adapter. FAT FILESYSTEM ERROR ! Tried to format it over 500 times but no solved the issue!
This micro sd card is working fine when tested in a lot of others devices!
SO I decided to buy another 2Gb micro sd card (kingston but i don´t know if it is really an original one). Formated once and it works very fine!!!
It appears that Ez-Flash devices does not accept all memory cards.
You must to try several ones until to find one that works!
Hope to be useful post

pcrock

Aha. Congrats on getting it to work right. Yeah, I still have shaky functionality (basically 33%).

Was that a name brand Kingston then? Did you also use a name brand kingston micro to Mini adapter?

I guess you said you were not sure if it were original, but do you mind disclosing where you bought it from? That might give me an idea of where to buy from

I think it would be a great idea to start a compatibility thread... like what we used to do with GameCube DVD-rs. These things are so picky, I think it would help to document what works.

Thanks!

Fat filesystem error with a samsung 2gb microsd.
But first, I had a "dry battery"

And when I installed ezfla_up.bin in the ez iv, it had a black screen. Dunno if normal or not. Anyway, Im very tired with this *****

When I use a kingston 2gb, it can't find this. Now, I think ez-flash iv slot 2 is really crappy.

Hi from Spain, I´ve the same issue, I´ve tried to format it with command console from windows and it doesn´t works. Someone know how to solve this prolem?

I bought two microSD SanDisk with 2Gb each one, but it doesn´t works, and i don´t know how to resolve it.

could you help me?

Thanks.!!!!

I resolved my issue. Got a real Transcend 2GB miniSD (NOT MICRO) and the EZ Flash 4 seems to like this media. It seem to play flawlessly!

I haven't tried my Homebrew project on it yet though, but I don't anticipate many issues.

It seems the device is just picky about media (but in fairness a few that I tried were pretty crappy), and also micro adapters seem to not allow a proper connection (in my findings).

Mine "Warning: FAT FILESYSTEM ERROR" error was fixed by changing the partition type from 'logical' to 'primary'

Hello, new user here from Montréal, Canada

I was having the same problem, even after formatting the microSD card in linux and windows, making sure it was in fat16 (aka just "fat")

At least in my case, it wasn't a physical/mechanical issue like bad contacts, shorts etc... I fixed the problem by rewriting the card's partition table with: only 1 partition as first primary, type ID=6 (which is fat16) -- which is just the way it was by default on the card -- and enabling the partition's "boot flag". For this i used the fdisk program that comes with most linux distributions. The same or equivalent fdisk program very probably exists on recent mac's, and for windows users, i assume there must be some shareware program that can do the same thing.

Hope this helps!

Hello buddy, thanks to your tip I recalled a program that I used once before to repair my 1TB Sansumg HDD because of a NTFS filesystem error (if was not for it I may have lost all my data). I used this same software for this error on my Kingston 2GB Micro SD and it worked just fine. All I have to do is to scan the flash and the program told me that it was a problem with the FAT Filesystem Table. With a few steps I repaired it very easily.

If anyone have this problem and don't have access to a linux just use the same software that I used, it's free and friendly.

TestDisk by Christopher GRENIER
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk