Revolution for DS - Getting Started

If you've bought a R4 and a MicroSD, and you don't know how to set it up, keep reading.

Step 1: Downloading the R4DS Firmware

First off, you're going to need the necessary firmware files that makes the R4 work, get them from the Downloads page. Without these files, your R4 device would be useless and would not work.

Save these files somewhere and move on to the next step; we're not going to do anything with them just yet.

Step 2: Reformatting your MicroSD

Insert your MicroSD carefully into the MicroSD reader which should have came with your purchased R4, if not, refund it, get a new one or hopefully one came with your MicroSD; you're going to need one.

Now plug it into your computer via a USB port. Go to My Computer, find your removable drive or your MicroSD, right click it and go Format > Select FAT > Check Quick Format > Click Format. That should reformat your card.

Why reformat your card you may ask? Well, just in case your MicroSD has any data on it or is fragmented in any way, reformatting it will completely fix all those problems. You must be in your computer's Admin account to do this. If you can't seem to do this, it's probably corrupted; run chkdisk or get it refunded for a new one.

Step 3: Installing the firmware

Now, go find the firmware file you downloaded in Step 1. It will most likely need to be extracted, so do that. Don't know how to extract, go to my .Rar and Archive Tutorial.

Once you have extracted the compressed file, you should have received a folder of some sort, labelled english or whatever language file you downloaded. If nothing like that appears, and/or you seem to get an error with extracting the firmware file, it may have gotten corrupted during download or it didn't finish downloading, so download it again.

Take everything inside the folder (some people mistakenly drag the folder), and put it on your MicroSD. You should have these files/folders:

_system_ (all your system files)
moonshl (the inbuilt media player program)
_DS_MENU.DAT
_DS_MSHL.NDS

Step 4: Placing files

Now you have all the required firmware files necessary to make your R4 work. You can insert it into your DS and see if it works. If a menu pops up with 3 icons, games, media, slot 2 etc., you successly installed your firmware. You realize there's nothing you can do, so I recommend you add some .nds game files which can be downloaded from RomUlation for free, some music (.mp3) and images (.jpg, .png, .bmp), homebrew applications and maybe even converted videos (.dpg) to your MicroSD.

So, now you have correctly set up your R4, and it is ready to be used! Happy gaming!