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SD2VITA Setup Tutorial (With Pictures!)


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Hello all!

Today we're going to be putting together your new and shiny SD2Vita Adapter!

The end goal, is to have your SD2Vita MicroSD Card mount to ux0 at boot, and your Vita card mount as uma0.

 

Getting Started

First, we need a couple of things before we get started.

  • SD2Vita Adapter from somewhere. I personally got mine from Srident (
    This is the hidden content, please
    )
  • a REAL Micro SD Card (See this thread for testing and why you should test it first)
  • Vita (Slim or Phat) Running 3.60 Enso (
    This is the hidden content, please
    )
  • Micro USB to USB Adapter
  • FTP Client (WinSCP/Filezilla, I personally use Filezilla)
  • Win32 Disk Imager
  • Driver for SD2Vita (
    This is the hidden content, please
    )
  • a zzBlank Image
  • You can get Win32 Disk Imager, and zzBlank from 
    This is the hidden content, please
     link.

First Steps

Now that you've gathered the required materials, you now need to put them all together!

First, Open MolecularShell or VitaShell on your Vita, and FTP over EVERYTHING from ux0. Every folder, every file, every single thing. The reason this is important, and in this tutorial, you'll be "replacing" your Vita Card with SD2Vita, and it'll be using it as it's core storage. So if you miss files, it can cause issues later down the road.

Once all files have been copied to a safe space on your desktop, MAKE SURE nothing got missed. FileZilla in my case would stop ~20 minutes into the X-Fer, and I had to manually do some work. Take your time with this, it's worth the time!

Now wait, couldn't I just use VitaShell or MolecularShell and use USB to move things? It's much Faster! - I'm glad you asked! The answer is NO. VitaShell does not show all the files, only FTP does, and you need EVERY FILE.

Next Step, is to move your "ux0:tai/" folder over to "ur0:tai" - Change all of your plugins to ur0, like so: 

Next, move your gamesd.skprx file to "ur0:tai/" and add it to config.txt under *KERNEL, like so: 

Now, reboot your Vita! You should see the Molecular Boot Logo, and it should take your to the LiveArea/Lock Screen. If it hangs on the Molecular Icon, hold the Power Button for 30 seconds, hold the "L" Trigger, and restart it via the menu that comes up, and make sure everything looks correct and try again!

You've now successfully gotten the drivers for SD2Vita installed and working. Now to getting the SD Card setup!

 

Imaging/Setting up the MicroSD Card

First, plug in your MicroSD to USB with your MicroSD Card you've tested, and make sure it shows up. Do not start to move things over, we still have to format it.

Open WinDisk Imager and load the zzBlank Image like so: 633b4deb37e9a87b9d4a8c0440b986a5.png 

The path will be different for each person and where you've saved it.

Press Write and wait until it's done.

Unplug the USB Adapter, and plug it back in. Windows will say it needs to be formatted, hit "Format" - Make sure you follow this very carefully

  • exFAT as File System
  • Default Allocation Unit Size
  • LEAVE VOLUME LABEL AS BLANK
  • Click Format and wait until it's done

And NOW you can move over all of the files you copied from ux0 back to the MicroSD Card.

Once it's done, unmount the USB Adapter, turn your Vita OFF, put your MicroSD Card into the SD2Vita, and plug it in, it should NOT push against any springs, or have any resistance, it'll just slide in. You might have to give it a little wiggle, but it'll fit.

After that, turn on the Vita and watch the Game Cart LED (Orange LED by where you put your SD2VITA) You should see it light up and flashing, that's a good sign!

It should boot, it might say "Rebuilding Database" this is fine, let it finish and load into the LiveArea.

Open VitaShell, and it should look (Depending on your MicroSD Card size) something like this: dQkeRGc.jpg

Notice my ux0 says "98.37GB / 183.34GB", I have lots of games installed, but you should now be good to go!

 

If you have any issues or questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help!

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  • 2 weeks later...
11 hours ago, Kerfirou said:

The reason why the folder in USB mode doesn't show because it was hidden right?

Shouldn't 'view hidden items' is enough to show all of it?

Technically speaking yeah but that never worked for me (i have show hidden files/folder on windows always on one) so the only way is either to FTP or mount the VITA card as UMA0 and copy the files via vitashell to the new SD2VITA in ux0

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  • 3 months later...

Hey there! Seems fairly understandable for me, but I would still be incredibely grateful for reuploading those two pictures - I can't see them there.

Also a question: Is it possible for me to delete the games I currently have on my ux0 (so I don't have to copy them using FTP back to my PC, since I do have the files on my PC already) and then copy them over to my VITA2SD without losing save files?

Thanks a bunch!

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  • 2 months later...

Hey thanks allot for this guide. I followed a different guide at first that didn't say anything about imaging the zzblank.img on the SD card, I thought I lost everything lol. Anyways now that my sd2vita works I'm wondering, what can I do with my 16 gb Sony memory card that is now mounted at uma0? Retroarch can't load roms from there, only ux0 and ur0... So can I put Vita games on there or something? Thanks in advance

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@Djdragon44  Anyway, any info on what I can do with uma0? We were talking about it in chat but It was all gone in the morning. Thanks again

EDIT: WELL damn I guess the new retroarch CAN load roms from uma0 and you can also set adrenaline to load it's contents from uma0.  So I have a purpose for the Sony memory card again. Thanks guys. And sorry @djdragon for that garbage method of posting I did the other day 😂😂 thanks for fixing it. 

Edited by phillybluntz530
Fixed... Whatever that was.
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  • 2 months later...
On 22.8.2017 at 6:10 PM, Djdragon44 said:

Next Step, is to move your "ux0:tai/" folder over to "ur0:tai" - Change all of your plugins to ur0, like so: 

Next, move your gamesd.skprx file to "ur0:tai/" and add it to config.txt under *KERNEL, like so:

Great tutorial so far. I suppose you added pictures to these two steps which are now gone. Could you (or someone else) at least explain what I have to do here? I mean step 2 is pretty obvious, but I'm not quite sure with step 1...

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 9/3/2017 at 11:40 AM, Kerfirou said:

The reason why the folder in USB mode doesn't show because it was hidden right?

Shouldn't 'view hidden items' is enough to show all of it?

Yes, but there's also an extra layer of "hiding" and that is "Hide protected operating system files" in "Folder Options" menu (for some reason, some of the folders are marked as system files and will not be visible with that feature enabled).

Uncheck it and you shall see all the files on Vita memory card, connected via USB (or you can use Total Commander and unhide all the hidden and system files with a single click)

It's a shame that most of the links in the tutorial are 404 now (had to find zzblank.img and Disk Imager software elsewhere and sd2vita driver is, I presume, this plugin here  

This is the hidden content, please
)

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@Lambada Download storagemgr.skprx and storage_config.txt from

This is the hidden content, please
and do the same steps as described in OP's instructions, but type "storagemgr.skprx" instead of "gamesd.skprx" in taihen config file.

By default the storage_config.txt has been set up in a way that mounts vita memory card as uma0 and sd2vita as ux0 - if you wish to change that, you can do so by changing the values in that text file.

Edited by Martin K
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