New DS ROMs not loading on original R4 DS running 1.18

My 5yo nephew is sporting a black Nintendo DS with original R4. His parents asked if there was a way to consolidate all of his original cartridges because they were either getting lost or broken. Since I use the Acekard 2i and SuperCard DSTWO now and had a spare original R4 DS laying around, I gave him the R4 and consolidated all of his original game cartridges onto the R4. Just recently he bought Mario vs. Donkey Kong Mini-Land Mayhem! and Monster Jam: Path of Destruction and neither one of those game ROMs worked with the original R4 DS running firmware v1.18. Being the family DS and flash card expert, I had to fix my nephew's DS compatibility problem. Since the original DS firmware (version 1.18) was the last release by TeamR4 and a new version hasn't been released in a couple of years, it would make sense that the newer DS ROMs are not compatible with the original R4.

Anyhow, to make a short story longer.. Enter the Wood R4 firmware that's compatible with the original R4!

The Wood R4 is just another R4 clone that works just as good, if not better, than the original R4 as it's compatible with all of the newer game ROMs. The Wood R4 firmware is maintained by a DS enthusiast named Yellow Wood Goblin. This firmware is also compatible with the original R4 and can be used in place of v1.18! If you're experiencing problems with newer DS ROMs not loading and just sitting on a white screen, give the Wood firmware a try as it'll most likely fix all of your compatibility problems. The Wood firmware (v1.26) is available for download on the R4 Guide page under the R4DS (original) column.

Here's a quick tutorial on updating your original R4 DS firmware from v1.18 to the Wood firmware v1.26:

Step 1: Backup the content on the R4 DS Micro SD card. Plug your microSD into the reader on your PC or Mac and copy of the content on there to your computer. (IMPORTANT!)

Step 2: Download the Wood R4 firmware (v1.26), extract the files using WinRAR or WinZip (PC) or StuffIT (Mac).

Step 3: Now that you've backed up the content of your R4's microSD, let's remove the old and busted and add the new hotness!

• You should have the following files and folders on your microSD:
  _system_
  moonshl
  _DS_MENU.DAT
  _DS_MSHL.NDS
  (
  It's fine if you see other directories and files other than the ones listed above: eg Games, Videos, MP3s etc)
• Delete the files listed above from your microSD.
• Go to your Wood_R4_v1.26 folder and copy the following files and folders onto the microSD:
  __rpg
  _DS_MENU.DAT
• Plug the microSD back into the R4 DS and boot that baby up! Your newer game ROMs should now boot!

Post a comment if you have any questions. Have fun!