GCN MemCard Recover

GCN MemCard Recover
General
Author(s)	GerbilSoft
Type	PC utility
Version	0.1
License	GPLv2
Links
File:Mcrecover-0.1.tar.gz
Peripherals

GCN MemCard Recover is a utility that can recover files from corrupted or reformatted GameCube memory cards.

Usually, when a GCN memory card is corrupted, only the file system or header is unusable. Similarly, when a memory card is formatted, only the file system blocks are erased. The data area is left intact. By searching for specific patterns within the data area, files can usually be recovered.

How to use

In order to recover files from a GCN memory card, you will first need to dump the memory card image to a computer-readable format using a Nintendo Wii. Two programs are available for this purpose:

• GCMM: GameCube Memory Card Manager
• ctr-gcs-DacoTaco-Edition

GCMM is more up-to-date and has more functionality, so GCMM is recommended.

You will need an SD card or USB mass storage device in order to dump the memory card.

See the GCMM page for information on how to dump a raw image of a GCN memory card.

Once the memory card image is dumped, you can open the image file in GCN MemCard Recover: 1. Start GCN MemCard Recover. 2. Drag the memory card image file (e.g. 1019b_2013_07Jul_17_23-57-22.raw) onto the GCN MemCard Recover window.

GCN MemCard Recover will open the image file. If there were any save files that were normally visible on the GameCube (e.g. the card was reformatted and reused), they will appear in the list.

To search for files deleted and/or lost due to reformatting or file system corruption, click the "Scan" button in the Memory Card Details toolbar. GCN MemCard Recover will scan each block of the memory card image to see if it can find matches for known files. Once it's finished scanning, any files it found will appear in the list highlighted in yellow.

Highlight the file(s) you want to extract, then click the "Save" button. The file(s) will be saved in GCI format, which you can then restore onto the memory card using GCMM.

Limitations

GCN MemCard Recover works by searching through the file data instead of using the file system's directory tables. Unfortunately, this means that file recovery has a few limitations:

1. If files are heavily fragmented, GCN MemCard Recover may not be able to successfully recover them. If this happens, the file will appear to be extracted successfully, but attempting to load the save file in the game will result in either a "file corrupted" error or a crash.

GCN MemCard Recover does support verifying the checksums of some files, which is indicated by the icon in the rightmost column:

• Checkmark: Checksum is known and is valid. File can be recovered.

*X: Checksum is known and is invalid. File cannot be recovered using the current version of GCN MemCard Recover.

?: Checksum is unknown. If you know the correct checksum algorithm for this file, please contact the author (GerbilSoft) so he can add support for the algorithm in the next version.

Note that checksums are only currently checked for "lost" files (that is, files found using the scanning algorithm). Files that are visible on the card normally are not checked, and hence won't show any icon in the rightmost column.

2. Some games don't store the game description in the first block of the file. This includes "Mario Kart: Double Dash!!" and "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess". Due to limitations in the current scanning engine code, these files cannot be recovered yet. Support for these files will be added in a future version.

3. Games that have multiple slots but don't have a slot identifier in the comment section will all be restored with the same filename. This includes "Animal Crossing", so if e.g. multiple "Animal Crossing" save files are restored from the memory card, they will all have the same name, so you can't restore them to the same card. This will be fixed in a future version.

4. The included database currently only has entries for NTSC-U titles. If you have save files for PAL, Japanese, or Korean GameCube games, or other USA games that aren't supported by GCN MemCard Recover yet, please send the author(GerbilSoft) copies of the GCI files so he can add support for these games to the database.

Screenshots

Downloads

• Windows (32-bit): mcrecover_0.1-win32.zip
• Ubuntu 10.04+ (32-bit): mcrecover_0.1_i386.deb.zip
• Ubuntu 10.04+ (64-bit): mcrecover_0.1_amd64.deb.zip
• Source code: mcrecover-0.1.tar.gz