diff --git a/posts/2ds-sd-card.md b/posts/2ds-sd-card.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1680a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/2ds-sd-card.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +title: Getting your SD card to detect on a Nintendo 2DS/3DS +summary: A fix for "Could not detect an SD Card. The software on the SD Card could not be displayed." +time: 1690692039 +--- + +So I recently got a Nintendo 2DS for homebrew reasons, and ran into this incredibly annoying error while trying to follow the guide laid out by the lovely people at https://3ds.hacks.guide: + +
+ +
The home screen on my Nintendo 2DS, with some Miiverse thing on the top and the following error message on the bottom: "Could not detect an SD Card. The software on the SD Card could not be displayed."
+
+ +Googling around did not show anything fruitful, but I found a hint on this [Nintendo support page](https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/220/~/how-to-format-an-sd-card-or-microsd-card), which claims that an SD card must be formatted with the official SD Association formatting utility. If you're on Windows or macOS, you should use [this tool](https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/) and that will probably format your card correctly. If you're on Linux or can't use this tool for some reason, read on. + +It turns out that: + +1. Your SD card must be formatted with an MBR (Master Boot Record) +2. The partition type of your (presumably one and only) partition on the SD card must be FAT32 + +Note that this doesn't _just_ mean your partition should be formatted as FAT32. It should be formatted as FAT32, _and also_ there's a "partition type" byte inside your MBR that should be changed to FAT32. On a Linux system with `fdisk`, this is how you'd do that: + +* Unmount but don't safely eject your SD card +* Run `sudo fdisk /dev/sdX`, where `sdX` is your SD card +* Type `t` to change your partition type, `1` to select your first partition, and `b` to make the partition "W95 FAT32" type +* Type `w` to save and quit + +And now your SD card should detect fine and you should be able to homebrew it or play Nintendo-licensed games on it or whatever. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/static/img/2ds-sd-card/2ds.jpg b/static/img/2ds-sd-card/2ds.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a433cd5 Binary files /dev/null and b/static/img/2ds-sd-card/2ds.jpg differ