My DSi XL seems to only detect 32MB SD Cards?? (Not an april fools joke)

I'm having this ridiculously weird problem where my DSi will only and ONLY accept a 32 MB SD card and nothing else.

I have tried using several SD cards ranging from 2 GB to 64 GB, including Micro SD cards with their proper adapters.
I tried formatting all of them to FAT32 using Nintendo's recommended SD Card Formatting software, using an allocation size of 32 KB. Nothing.
I tried formatting them using AOMEI Partition Wizard and using cylindrical alignment (which apparently was the fix for a lot of people) but nada.
I also tried formatting them with RUFUS using MBR partition system instead of GPT (which was also the fix for some people) and still nothing.
I wondered if there was something wrong with the card reader itself, so I checked if the ribbon cable was properly connected to the motherboard, and it was fine. I tried searching for ugly or broken traces but everything seems to be mint. There's also no rust or dirt or anything weird.

It just refuses to accept anything other than the silly 32 MB card lol. The funny thing is that the card that works is formatted to FAT16 and uses an allocation size of 512 bytes, which I had no idea was even possible, so I tried formatting all my cards with those exact same settings, and they didn't work.

At this point I just believe my DSi is mocking me. How the hell do I fix this silly problem lmao

Posted Apr 1, 2026, 8:35 PM UTC

28
Loading comments…