R4 SDHC Install Guide
The R4 Revolution was a popular brand of linker cartridge used to run homebrew software on the Nintendo DS. We say “was”, because the original R4 is no longer in production. A series of other companies have taken the R4 design and produced knockoff clones. Many of these clones are sold with packaging that closely resembles that of the original, authentic R4. Many users have reported huge problems with the R4 SDHC clones, and that is why we no longer advise that people buy these cards in our R4 review. Just about every single new R4 card being sold since 2008 is a clone card, but you can also tell if you have one by looking on the front of the package it came in. If the box has the SD HC logo anywhere, it is a clone. The original R4 cards never supported the micro SD HC (high-capacity) format. If you have purchased an R4 clone and you can’t get it to work, the following install guide may be helpful.
Problem: Nintendo DS Stuck on Black Loading Screen
The biggest problem that people face with the R4 SDCH clones is that the DS fails to load to the R4 menu on bootup. Instead, users are stuck on a black screen that says “Loading”. Here is how to get your R4 SDCH clone card to work
Step 1: Download the appropriate firmware for your card. Do NOT download the official firmware from r4ds.cn. Your card is not an official card and that firmware will not work. There are lots of different clone cards out there, so you need to find out which one you have by looking at the front of the box. There should be a little white text box near the bottom of the front of the box with a web address that is also the unofficial name of your particular clone (see picture below). Once you have a good idea of what card you’ve got, got to the following website and download the newest firmware for your card: Linfox Domain
Step 2: Format your micro SD card properly. You have to format your micro SD card, and this can be tricky on windows machines. The best bet is to download the Panasonic Micro SD format utility located here. Put your card in the USB attachment and fully format it.
Step 3: Put the appropriate files on your card. Extract the .rar file you downloaded with your clone card firmware. Inside you should find several folders as well as moonshell.nds file. Copy all of these to the ROOT of your Micro SD card. You can also create a new folder called “games” and copy over any game files you may have.
Step 4: Try the micro SD in the R4 clone card and see if it works. Hopefully if you found the right firmware, it should get past the black loading screen. If it doesn’t work, you can try other firmwares for the same card, or double-check to find out which clone card you have.
Photo of an R4 SDCH clone card. Notice the SD HC logo and alternative website address on the front of the packaging.
On top of all the problems that are firmware related, some people have reported problems with the build quality of the R4 SDCH cards. For example, many people have found that inserting a thin piece of cardboard above the Micro SD card to push the pins down onto the connectors inside the unit sometimes works. If you are absolutely certain that you have the correct firmware for your card, this is something to try.
We wish you luck getting your R4 SDHC card to work. Just a word of advice however. We ordered an R4 clone card and we were unable to get ours to function, even using all of the pointers contained here. We recommend that people steer clear of these cards, and go for something more user friendly like the Cyclo DS.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Thanks for the info, I bought a
few of these “clones” I installed the correct software
version (R4 ultra V1.52) and they all work properly…
Regards,
pierre
January 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
thanks for the info. i was about to throw away my r4 card as i couldn’t find the proper firmware until i went through ur site. thanks a lot. cheers
February 1st, 2009 at 8:38 am
he guys!
so if you don’t recommend r4 anymore, is there any card you do recommend?
especially for use with dsorganize?
btw.one more question, is there any way to download to the sd card directly from the web?
cheers!
February 8th, 2009 at 4:02 am
I bought N5 and almost trashed it, until I found this website.
Thanks for the pointers on the “clone”, which my card actually is, and the firmware needed from the website on the box of my clone card.
Got it working.
Cheers.
February 9th, 2009 at 12:20 am
I have an M3, one of those cards that was developed prior to the DS Lite. I am wondering if the price value is worth it since they automatically patch now and are a lot cheaper than what I paid back in the day. Then again, I have been too busy to play the awesome games that have come out for the DS.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Thanks for the info, I like many other people was about to throw this r4 out when I came across your site. Fyi, my 2gb card deemed to work fine with v1.21 but when I bought the 8gb card it was jacked up. Now it work fine.
Thanks a million
February 15th, 2009 at 1:48 am
Many thanks for the tutorial, my clone card now works a treat.
February 17th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Thanks, took a while but I got there and as I am practically pc illiterate makes it more impressive
February 18th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Thank you for an informative and helpful article. Having given a handfull of the R4 SDHC carts & Kingston 4g SDHC to nephews for Xmas,I was disappointed to find that they stopped working after a week or so.
After looking through hundreds of pages on the web, I finally found this one, followed the steps set out, and bingo! they work again.
Because I had a number of these to deal with, I was able to test for the root cause.
The formatting tool is they key, as cards formatted on Vista or XP with the 1.25 firmware would still hang at the loading screen. Formatting with the panasonic utility made the difference.
I must admit to a degree of ignorance, as I had previously bought original R4 carts for the kids, and didn’t realise there were so many permutations available.
Thank you for taking time to write the original article.
OHC
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:23 am
Hey everyone,
I am so glad I was able to help people suffering from this problem. I originally had a double issue with my R4 SDHC — not only was it a clone card, but it was also defective.
Thankfully, I was able to exchange mine in the shop where I got it, and after installing the correct firmware, it works great.
Seems like despite all of the problems reported, the R4 clone is still a great linker cartridge. It has the best ROM compatibility out there as far as I can tell.
February 24th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
thanks for the r4 clone info.Im so gonna demand the chop that sold this to me.I now how to work with my clone,but im stil gonna demand the chop.You rock keep riting ,thanks i´l rhite if ihave more problems.im so thankful,i was about to cry i thot i brok it en on the island that i live it kost me a!lot!!!!!!!! of money p.s i live in Aruba,its close to Venezuela
March 5th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Thanks!
Your information was vital for me to get my R4 SDHC (clone) to work properly.
Once again, like ACDC “we salute you”
/cheers
March 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am
My son bought an R4 off the internet,it arrived yesterday, we all tried to make it work without success (A house full annoyed people!!) -
I found your website and now it does!!
Many thanks
March 11th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Ordered the R4 Card after my 9 year old son informed me of it’s existence. Arrived with no software or Firmware on the card.
Found your site and got my son to set the card up himself. It’s all working for him now. Thought I bought a DUD Card.
Remember he’s only 9 Years old
which makes your tutorial impressive.
Cheers for your efforts,
Mick
March 11th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
THANK YOU!!!!
March 14th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Thanks for the great info! One question regarding formatting: When I look at the properties of the SanDisk 4 gb SD card, Windows XP reports it as being formatted FAT32 already. Do I still need to reformat the disk using the Panasonic tool? I just hate the idea of screwing with something if it is not broken…:)
March 18th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
THANKS VERY MUCH BEST WEB SITE EVER I HAD R4 SDHC AND IT DONE MY HEAD IN FOLLOWED ALL THE RULES AND IT NOW WORKS THANKS A ALOT
March 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
my r4 says R4 upgrade revolution for ds (ndsl/nds) but i still can’t find the correct firmware can someone please tell me which one i need to download. Plz
March 25th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Thanks so much, like many of you, R4 delivered yet does not work! Check real close for that white text box and read the address that’s in it properly! I was stumped for a while because of a - in between the text when there wasn’t one, doh!!
March 30th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I have spend hours trying to sort this out, found this site and sorted it in 5 mins. YOU FUCKIN ROCK
April 21st, 2009 at 8:04 am
Many, many thanx
it really worked for me!
thanx
thanx!!!
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:01 am
Nice 1 Kris, cheers for all the information about the R4 and the help
April 25th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Thank you so much for posting this VERY helpful page. I did have the problem of screen freezing but also another. I have an 8gb sdhc card and the file system seems to get all messed up. I used the sdformat file u linked to and it all works now! thanks u are a savior
April 29th, 2009 at 12:49 am
I just got a R4 SDHC clone, with the supporting website r4sdhccn.com.
I downloaded the latest firmware, v 1.25, formatted the 4GB sandisk micro SD HC with the utility recommended above (Panasonic tool)
I copied the firmware onto the root folder of the micro.
However, when I insert it into the DS Lite, it just says “There is no gamepack inserted”
Note that regular gamepaks still work fine. is there anything I can do to make the DS recognize the R4? pls help..thanks
April 29th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I just got an R4 SDHC and when I tried to use it, all that came up was a red ‘?’ with the word ‘Menu’ written underneath and it wont open a menu. What’s wrong?
May 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I just recieved my r4. However, the link on the bottom still says http://www.r4ds.com is it still a clone?
May 7th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Thankyou but i wanna play lameboy and other emulators on my r4 sdhc whitch dldi file i must have???
Greetz DownOne
May 21st, 2009 at 10:03 pm
i got the r4 sdhc one and im using a pny 2 gbmicro sd card. I’am also using the first gen ds the one that came out before the ds lite. For some reason i have the 1.25 fw and my sd card was formatted to fat32 before i placed the files. whenever i turn my ds on with the card already in the ds doesnt seam to find the r4. any solution to this?
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:49 am
Brilliant, i thought my R4 sdhc wouldnt work, but now it does! cheers
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Thank you for this article! Very great guide!
July 25th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Hi,
my r4 didnt come with the micro sd card, and other ones i have bouht have not fit. What do i do?
Thnks
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:59 am
Accisently deleted the firmware…oops. Numerous peer to peer sites could not produce the right stuff, until i stumbles across your site. Now i’m up and running and loving it. You Guys are the Dogs B****cks
September 4th, 2009 at 11:09 am
i think i’m actually in love with you!! =D thankyouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!
September 6th, 2009 at 7:16 am
My R4 SDHC always says Loading in a black screen, the pack perfectly says:
R4 NEW R4-III Upgrade Revolution for DS (NDSL/NDS),then says this website:
Http://www.r4dsl.net , and then says: MicroSDHC.
In the back says the box includes: R4,Micro SD card reader and a CD.
But when I opened the box theres not CD,theres only the USB and The R4 , can u give the website where i can get the correct software? or the link u give us have the software?
POST DATA:where i can get some roms?
September 11th, 2009 at 9:47 am
do the games and media files need to go in a certain folder on these SDHC cards?
September 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
just bought a r4 upgrade sdhc for my ds.it doesnt work all that appears on screen is red menu message and unable to open it .please can you advise
October 1st, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I have just recently bought a R4 SDHC upgrade, Is this type a fake?
October 3rd, 2009 at 3:17 am
HELP!! I’m fuming right now as i have bought 2 R4 SDHC Upgrade from WWW.R4I-SDHC.COM and i am struggling to get this to work, been on it for days on and off can someone tell me what site i need to use to get the menus etc from. I have followed most of the above, already formatted the card from the link above (linfox domain) now just need to work out which version i need to put on the SD CARD to enable the games to work.
October 11th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Brilliant, sat there for hours and couldn’t figure it out till i found this site
Thanks
i’ll save it to my favourites
October 13th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Thankfully found your site on the first night of effort, THANK YOU…!
October 24th, 2009 at 10:14 am
my R4 is a R4 Gold revolution i sdhc and its a clone.
The firmware update ( 1.3 latest ) from the link works a treat
thanks guy
November 7th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
You just saved my a** this christmas. My sisters would have killed me.
no joke
November 20th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Hi there, bought clone R4 while clueless. Have been following your instructions, but still says “loading”. When you say copy all the files to teh ROOT of the SD card, do you mean copy the firmware folders into the root, or copy the files from those folders into the root? Thanks Maura
November 27th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Hey
Just wanted to tell you guys that I bought a bunch of these R4 cards -> http://alturl.com/rp9b. The website URL on the box says www.r4i-sdhc.com, and it works perfectly with the r4i-sdhc_v1.12b_English.rar firmware from linfoxdomain.com, on a 2GB Sandisk MicroSD card. No games have failed, no freezing, no lag and fast loading
Excellent card.
December 7th, 2009 at 4:38 am
thank you so much!
this helped me a lot, for a second there I thought I broke my friends r4 and I thought I would buy her a new one
Thank you very much ^_^
Its been a life saver
December 16th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Yay, just got an r4sdhc and thought it was broken, thanks to you it works! thnx
December 18th, 2009 at 1:10 am
There is only one place to buy your r4 card, http://www.dsicarte.com offers an impressive range of r4 ds cards, r4i cards, Acekards and m3 real cards, you will find all the information you need to choose the correct R4 card for you ,plus all the latest r4 downloads.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Hi Guys,
i Have R4SDHC and have downloaded the files from Linfox Domain (i downloaded version 1.28) i extraced the .RAR file and i have no folders such as moonshell i just have a lot of files (89 to be exact) is there something wrong with the download or do i have to do something else?
Thanks in advanced (:
December 29th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
We’ve also got the R4 - SDHC uograde from website www.R4I-SDHC.com and we’ve managed to format and get beyond the black loading screen, it is nopw saying “An error detected while trying to access disx or file. Please confirm the followings: Wad the ROM file of a correct DLDI patch started? Please re foramt the media and try again. Please try with different media from another manufacturer.” Someone help us! Can you tell us which version we need or how we can make it work! Thanks!
January 1st, 2010 at 7:31 am
Thankyou, I bought this card and like others I did’nt realise it was a clone and not being exactly an expert in these things I was about to give up and bin the card. However followed your instructions and deep joy SUCCESS !
January 15th, 2010 at 8:12 am
At last found the correct firmare for my R4SDHC UPGRADE.I almost give up and wanted to throw away the R4 card after trying so many firmware kernel. Thanks alot.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Downloading my clones firmware with 1 min remaining! YAY!!!!
January 25th, 2010 at 12:53 am
I purchased an R4 card for my daughter’s DSlite last week. The DS does not recognise that the R4 is in it - get DS menu screen and “game pack not inserted”. To reassure myself it was the card and not the DS, I took out the R4 and inserted a standalone Game card, which workerd fine. Soooo, back to the drawing board and tried the R4 again. No luck. then to my horror, tried the standalone game card again and now it doesn’t even recognised that! WTF???????????
I’m going nuts here. Somebody please help
February 6th, 2010 at 7:26 am
yes thank u people now my themes work
February 26th, 2010 at 1:36 am
Bloody hell thats brilliant, I had tried the proper firmware from the site on the box and got stuck on the loading screen, used the panasonic sd formatter you suggested and hey presto it bloody well works!!!!
like Janne said “we salute you”
April 18th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
I bought an R4 chip recently and suspected it may have been a clone. Your website helped me identify the card and find the correct software. I now have a fully functioning DS!!
Thanks a million!!