Okay, so here is a summary of what I've tried so far:
I am simply trying to write an original Super Mario Bros. ROM (not a hack or anything special) to a flashable NROM board that I bought from infiniteneslive.com. The ROM is from the GoodNES set and is named "Super Mario Bros. (W) [!].rom" and you can see below in the attachments a picture of it's file properties. I tried another version of this ROM but it failed when attempting to split the file into PRG and CHR.
I use ReadNES (both the online version
http://www.kevinselwyn.com/ReadNES/ and the command line version) to split the ROM into PRG and CHR. Super Mario Bros. is iNES mapper 0. It has 32KB of PRG and 8KB of CHR. This information can be seen on the NES Cart Database here:
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=270. When I split the ROM file using ReadNES I get a 32KB file named "Super Mario Bros. (W) [!]Program.bin" and a 8KB file named "Super Mario Bros. (W) [!]Character.bin".
Before attempting to write either of these files to the NROM board, I first reset the INL Retro-Prog device using the button on the device. I insert the NROM board. Then I open the INL retro-prog v1.1beta.exe application. Clicking the Test button gives me a "Test OK" message. I select "header" from the drop-down menu in the upper left corner and then click the Load button. I navigate to the ERASE_PRGCHR.bin file. I then click the Write button and receive a "Verify OK" message. (I have also erased the PRG and CHR individually with the ERASE_PRG.bin and ERASE_CHR.bin files.)
Next to write the CHR I select "8kB CHR" from the drop-down menu, click the Load button and navigate to the "Super Mario Bros. (W) [!]Character.bin" file. I click the Write button and the message box clears and the progress bar shows. When it finishes it says "Verify OK".
Next to write the PRG I select "32kB PRG" from the drop-down menu, click the Load button and navigate to the "Super Mario Bros. (W) [!]Program.bin" file. I click the Write button and the message box clears and immediately shows "Error : -116". The light on the device is now solid red and to continue I have to reset the device.
The following text is taken off of the infiniteneslives.com page for the NROM board:
Code:
MAPPER #0 NROM
This is the most basic circuit board for the NES. Lots of early NES games used this board prior to the creation and development of mappers. These boards have "no mapper" and therefore no complex bankswitching and are limited to 32KB of PRG-ROM, and 8KB of CHR-ROM/RAM. If you're making your first homebrew game, we (and most developers) recommend starting with this configuration. See the nesdev wiki for more information on this mapper.
Supports NROM-128 and NROM-256
All boards are actually NROM-256, just double a NROM-128 rom file to convert it to NROM-256.
Mirroring selection:
Flash boards include toggle switch to select H/V mirroring (no soldering required).
Excludes large order of 50 or more, we can solder jumper for you if you tell us your mirroring config.
EPROM boards have mirroring solder jumper to allow you to select mirroring yourself while soldering EPROMs.
After reading this I have tried to create a 128KB (4 times the 32KB file) and 256KB (8 times the 32KB file) PRG file. Both of these also fail with the -116 error. I noticed that with the 256KB file, the progress bar does start, but then fails soon after. I have created the files using ReadNES and also using HxD. I actually did a file comparison using ExamDiff on a 256KB PRG from ReadNES and a 256KB PRG file from HxD and they were identical.
I submitted a ticket with infiniteneslives.com several weeks ago and I still have not heard back from them.
I also emailed
sales@infiniteneslives.com this morning. Nothing yet.