How to make .img files for use with melonDS


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koreanturtleship

Posted on 10-31-20 11:15 PM (rev. 3 of 11-15-20 10:51 PM)

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hi, nice to meet everyone here! I'm new here but I noticed there is a distinct lack of tutorials on how to make a FAT32 SD card .img for melonDS here. The step below has been tested to work on both Linux and Windows (and macOS if you are particularly brave).

Steps:

0. for context we will be using the Virtual SD Card Maker from Dolphin (or the Android development SDK if you wanna be specific) and the command line, so download the program at https://www.mediafire.com/file/cfr9q8542e9lsos/Virtual_SD_Card_Maker.zip/file
1. extract it, and launch a command line in the extracted directory (for Linux users that would be your terminal; for Windows users, either PowerShell or the command prompt will do)
2. there should be a Windows folder and a Linux folder, so navigate to the OS you use.
3. on Windows, use "./mksdcard.exe -l label size (for MB use xM) name.img" (for example)

./mksdcard.exe -l melonDSi 4096M sd.img

3.5. on Linux, use "./mksdcard -l label size (for MB use xM) name.img" (for example)

./mksdcard -l melonDSi 4096M sd.img

4. give it a second to create the file and boom! you have yourself a functioning SD card image you can mount with 3rd party software (I use the imDisk virtual disk driver program) and dd!

if you have any questions, I would be glad to answer. happy emulating everyone

- pee.

TR_mahmutpek

Posted on 11-04-20 07:16 PM

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Thx for tutorial, was looking for this!

poudink

Posted on 11-05-20 05:29 PM

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xG for GB sizes doesn't appear to work. I tried opening cmd in the executable's directory and doing mksdcard.exe -l melonDSi 2G sd.img but it didn't work and I ended up getting a 17kb file accompanied with an error about files larger (or smaller? pretty sure it said larger though, which's weird considering 4096M works fine) than 8MB not working with the Android emulator (or something like that).

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hmm

Posted on 11-17-20 07:37 AM

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what will be the exact code for 128M sd card??

poudink

Posted on 11-17-20 02:19 PM

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pretty sure that'd be mksdcard -l melonDSi 128M sd.img

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Nadia

Posted on 11-17-20 04:04 PM

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https://kuribo64.net/get.php?id=mRJJ5GggXOPbKUMZ
Alternatively here are some pre-made empty images in 128M, 256M, 1G and 2G, just extract the one you want from the zip and its size is inflated to what it says.

hmm

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#2782

hmm

(post deleted)

#2879

hmm

Posted on 12-03-20 08:00 AM

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I cant mount it via file explorer

Rayyan

Posted on 12-03-20 05:33 PM

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You can mount it using a tool like OSFMount.

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keeeeeken

Posted on 03-11-21 05:37 PM

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i keep getting a bash ./mksdcard: Permission denied error, help

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Rayyan

Posted on 03-11-21 06:01 PM

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Posted by keeeeeken
i keep getting a bash ./mksdcard: Permission denied error, help (Pop!_OS 20.10 NVIDIA)

I don't think zips preserve file permissions, try:

chmod +x mksdcard

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keeeeeken

Posted on 03-11-21 06:11 PM (rev. 4 of 03-11-21 06:55 PM)

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Posted by WaluigiWare64
I don't think zips preserve file permissions, try:
chmod +x mksdcard

thanks! it worked!

how do i mount a .img file? i cant really find anything useful with dd

hoangson

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hoangson

Posted on 11-16-22 07:53 AM

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Something that would've been nice is to have an SD image that's Unlaunch-ready from the start. The image that mksdcard generates gives an "Empty MBR entry" error when Unlaunch loads it.

J0131 SIUMM

Posted on 08-04-25 08:25 PM (rev. 2 of 08-04-25 08:31 PM)

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Sorry for the dumb question but where do i Place file SD.img? It's 4G Is It ok? PLS answer

Btw im on android i have de .img file on my pc

keiichicom

Posted on 10-17-25 01:45 PM

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Hi Jo,

It's not a dumb question, you can place the .img file anywhere and 4gig is ok; bigger is better if you have lots of games, but I am little bit puzzled, where are you running melonDS? You mentioned Android, are you running an Android port of melonDS? . If so, you would then need to copy the image file to Android and mount the .img file and then configure melonDS to to use it, which is not straightforward on Android - you would need something like Termux to mount it and it might require root access. On the other hand if you run melonDS on Linux on your PC it is easier with the mount command.

-Kei

SmartCreeper456

Posted on 03-15-26 03:36 PM (rev. 2 of 03-15-26 03:37 PM)

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I already have an img on my phone, how do I add it onto the android melonds? Settings don't seem to show anything

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