nesdev.org

Well, my Powerpak has decided to stop reading compact flash cards for some reason. It was working great until this week when I flew to NY for Thanksgiving and brought my Powerpak with me. Tried it in my bro's NES and another relatives' NES and they both are giving me "Fatal Card Read Error" messages.

I tried reformatting the card and copying everything back, but nothing's working. The card itself seems to be working great. I've chkdsk'd it and copied files back and forth with no problems.

As far as the Powerpak goes, if I remove the card it does say that no card is found. Also, if I hold down A on boot, the Powerpak will give me the "card busy" message, but it never goes away. Pressing reset will bring the "fatal card read error" back.

Is there anything I haven't tried (sans a new card, which I'll have to wait till I get back home)?

It's may be their NES systems. Maybe you should have brought your NES you use at home. I remember earlier powerpaks having issues on some NES systems but not on others.

Well, I think he's saying it used to work on his NES now doesn't. So, I don't think the NES could cause this. Even then, I thought the NES version number only made sprite glitches and such. I could be wrong on that, though.

-Rob

He didn't ever specifically mention his NES being taken with him on his holiday trip. Maybe his two NES systems he tried when he was on his trip both had poor connectors or something and that caused the issue. Or some other issue with those two systems.

Well, I just got back from my trip and it doesn't work on my NESes (front or top loader) or famicom anymore either.

"10 Fatal Card Read Error"

I will borrow a CF card from work tomorrow and test it, just to make sure it's not the PowerPak.

Looks like the 1 gig card I grabbed from work works fine. The 64 meg card I was using still works in my old digital camera, but not in the Powerpak anymore.

At least it seems that my probs have been solved!

Maybe the 64mb card had something corrupted that the powerpak doesn't like but the camera doesn't care, perhaps proper reformatting of it would help, but if you have it working now I wouldn't worry about it. Good news that your Powerpak still works.