FATSort Tutorial: How to alphabetize your Supercard menu (Slot 2)

onekelly · October 30, 2006, 07:35:53 PM

This is a tutorial on how to use FATSort to alphabetize your Memory cards for your Supercard.

What it is

FATSort is designed to change the order of the files on the disk. FATSort operates directly on the FAT of the drive. The FAT is the part of a disk which holds information of the files and folders on the disk.

What is does

FATSort will organize your memory card alphabetically.

How to do it

1. First off, download FATSort here, updated to 1.0.5 (with invert function).

2. Open and extract it to your memory card

a) Then right click on the file FATSort.exe and click on properties.
b) At the bottom, check the hidden box and click OK. This will hide the file on the memory card when you are in certain programs like Moonshell, that list the files on the memory card.

3. Now you are ready to organize your files.

Launch FATSort:

You are greeted with the info about FATSort, just click OK.

The next menu is:

You will want to make sure to choose alphabetical for the File sort options and the Directory sort options.

NOTE: If you are using Supercard firmware v1.7 or higher, you will want to check the Invert sort that is directly below the file sort options so you directory will continue to be A to Z. Due to the changes in SC firmware, A to Z sorting now requires it to be inverted.

As a reminder, if you are using supercards, you will want to format your SD card FAT (FAT16) not FAT32.

Next you need to Select drive by using the pull down menu and choose your memory card location.

Then choose the Start button.

The whole process takes approximately 5 seconds or less. When completed just close by clicking the X in the top right corner.

Now your memory card is ready to go, totally alphabetized to your needs.

This process is superior and easier than the old method of moving files off your memory card to your pc, then copy them in the order you want them to show up in the Supercard menu.

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Any questions, mistakes, suggestions or requests, please pm me!

ENJOY!

This tutorial (text only) is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

phoood · October 30, 2006, 07:56:21 PM

Usually it won't, but using this method could corrupt your files.
Happened only once to me.

onekelly · October 30, 2006, 08:04:41 PM

Never had it happen. Just an easy way to alphabetize

Nickman · October 30, 2006, 08:18:32 PM

I went to school with this guy and he is my friend

I mentioned to him last week that it is a commonly used program in the gba/nds scene and also in the mp3/mp4 scene.

He thought it was cool that someone finaly used it, because when he made it people didn't understand why it is so great.

I have seen lots of people saying "I just copy over all things from my card to the computer and back again" :lol:
That doesn't take like 200-2000 ms but rather Minutes.

onekelly · October 30, 2006, 08:22:16 PM

nickman, please pass on a thank you to your friend!

dOoBiX · October 30, 2006, 08:24:55 PM

Thanks onekelly!

q_armando · October 31, 2006, 01:05:37 AM

Well it usually doesn't happen, it shouldn't happen, but somehow I had a bunch of games ona 1GB card plus a sub folder with some hundreds of games snapshots(for emulators) and when I used it I think I screwd up my card.
Now it's unreadable and nothing seem to be able to fix it9both phisical all ind of readers and softwares)
I can't be sure it was because of fatsort or because of a foulty card but point is I' m afraid to use it when I have a lot of files on my card.
Now I just move the files between folders on the sd cards, and it's really fast, much , much faster then copying the files to the computer back and fort and it gives the same resoult.
But thank you to the guy who did it.

onekelly · October 31, 2006, 01:17:22 AM

Quote from: "q_armando"....I can't be sure it was because of fatsort or because of a foulty card....

When you say FATSort is screwed up, then say you have a faulty card, it gives out mixed messages.

I have seen quite a few persons (users, moderators, etc..) recommend Fatsort to users in the forum, with no complaints.

I am not saying it is a wonder drug, but I have not had a problem with it. With that said if you have important game saves on your memory card, you may want to back them up periodically whether you use fatsort or not. As it is just good practice.

vlaflip · October 31, 2006, 04:23:35 PM

Works Perfect thanks alot
was looking for this

miner2049er · October 31, 2006, 05:54:51 PM

A known issue is that FATsort doesn't corrupt your files as such but will rename them sometimes, so

Super Mario World.gba will become
SUPERM~1.GBA

The file is intact but obviously won't run with the associated .sav file until you name it back again.

I had it happen a lot.

onekelly · October 31, 2006, 06:42:53 PM

Never had the file renaming issue happen. In fact between the two supercards I have and multiple sd cards along with long filenames, this hasn't happened. That is a bummer it has happened to you.

Nickman · November 10, 2006, 10:34:05 AM

Just wanted to make you all aware of that my friend made a new version of FATsort

I told him how the new firmware reverse the file list so he added a reverse sort.

Get it from the official FATSort home page here: http://hem.passagen.se/chsw/fatsort/index.html

I don't use v1.70 (no skinning) yet so i don't know if it works.
Please report any buggs to me or to my friend.

meangreenie · November 10, 2006, 11:03:42 AM

Nice, people can be happy again

kalabaw · November 10, 2006, 12:50:09 PM

it's still reversed.... i have ver. 1.7 on my sc cf

liquidnitrogen · November 10, 2006, 01:35:50 PM

whoa nice! it works!

kalabaw, please remember to check "invert sort" if you havent done so already