If I properly understand the reason for needing to hit reset in order to save, it's because the save is stored in volatile SRAM which is gone at power-off, but reset does not actually power-cycle the console, allowing the cart menu software to detect the existence of a save in the SRAM and save it to the flash memory at start-up after a reset. Would it at all be possible to use a battery to maintain power to the SRAM the same way as the original games and allow normal power-off? I think if it were possible, I'd definitely find it beneficial, as I have forgotten more than once to reset the game...

While I'm not Marshallh and my answer should be taken with a grain of salt this isn't possible. The simple reason being that the 64drive uses SDRAM for all the obvious reasons and this is volatile and requires quite a bit of power as it needs to be refreshed quite often (thousands of times every second I believe). You can't just drop in a replacement either. Using the refresh button is the most convenient fix that you could have. Trust me, I spent ages thinking about this for my controller which has the same problem except not enough RAM to use to store the saves.

I think my 64drive might have died,

it did have a lot of play time :/ computer still recognises it and I tried firmware updates but had no luck,
,multiple n64's now no longer read it

would the best bet be for me to open it to take a look?

All but 1 failures the 64drive has had so far were due to the type of flux I used when reflowing -- it was water soluble flux. Turns out even after you clean the board perfectly, over time + heat, some trace remains will crystallize and cause shorts.

Sometimes you can use a knife or some fine tool to scrape between the pins and remove all the left-overs on the biggest Altera fpga. However, I've found the only solution that works 100% is to reflow the board with good old rosin flux.

Send an email to the support address if you want to do an exchange also.

Curse you water soluble flux!

Unfortunately haven't gotten a response from the support email yet, might be my emails are not getting through?

Marshall takes awhile to respond to emails, but he does eventually. In my case, I emailed him about a week before I ordered my 64Drive, and he responded about a week after I received it. Don't know what to tell you other than that.

Got my new 64drive in the mail. I'll be sending the old one back now, thanks.

I'm experiencing a very strange problem with my 64drive. For some reason when I try to use it with either my N64 or my PC it won't boot. The wierd thing is that If I leave it alone for a few hours it will work once but once shut down it will stop functioning again. What's even stranger is that sometimes even if it boots it won't load games properly. Once when I tried to load a game I got an error like "Sector too close to mbr". Does this mean that something is wrong with the SDRAM? Also sorry if I posted this in the wrong place, I'm new to the forum. Thanks.

^^it's probably the reflow problem that Marshall mentions in his last post. Your only option would be to send it back for a replacement. Write to the retroactive support email address describing your problem.

marshallh are you still around?
Still doing these?

The website suggests he is.

Hello marshallh!
On may 20th I ordered and made the payment for a 64drive, I was wondering when I should be expecting it. Thanks bro! Can't wait!

Well I'm kind of starting to panic..

3 months ago I ordered and paid a 64drive and I haven't received it.. I sent two emails to Marshall and still no word

Marshall if you read this, could you check your email please? Thanks man

Since your original post, I've noticed that the order status of units shipped has been updated twice - from all orders up to March 20 shipped -> April 20 -> May 2nd. If you're May 20th it seems you'll be up soon. It took me somewhere around 3 months to get mine, but it was worth the wait.

Personally I keep checking back hoping to see a new menu update; here's to hoping one will come after he gets caught up on orders