Manual System Transfer for Saves/Content

[Tutorial] "Manual System Transfer" for Saves/Content

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA OR DAMAGE TO YOUR SYSTEM! You proceed with this tutorial at your own peril!
PLEASE MAKE BACKUPS FOR EACH STEP AS YOU GO! This will make it easier to recover if some step fails/a mistake is made.
Unless you have a hard-mod for your console, it is HIGHLY recommended to attempt this tutorial on EmuNAND on the target system to avoid bricks.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

This tutorial will instruct you how to do a "Manual System Transfer" from one 3DSsystem to another 3DS system.
It is reversible back to the original system, but will invalidate content on the target system as a normal system transfer would.
Due to this fact, PLEASE BACKUP ANY SAVES YOU CARE ABOUT on the target system with SaveDataFiler/etc. before you proceed.
This method will ONLY transfer saves and give you the ability to install content on the target system.
This method will NOT move your NNID over to the target system/re-link it. This is a server-side thing and must be done by Nintendo.
This method should be especially useful for people with region-changed systems that want to move over saves for Mii Plaza/etc.
This tutorial is a HIGH LEVEL process. Many steps will not be completely spelled out, so if you don't understand a specific term/procedure, please consult the forums.

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED MAKE THIS TUTORIAL POSSIBLE!!! ^_^


Requirements:
Both the source and target systems must be on exploitable firmwares (for the purpose of this guide, this basically means <= 9.2 SysNAND FW)!
The method used to run unsigned code on the source system (for example Gateway, or a 4.5 CFW) must also be able to be run on the target system for full transfer.
Example: If you utilize a 4.5 exclusive CFW on your source system, you wouldn't be able to transfer with that onto a New 3DS as New 3DS systems cannot run 4.5 FW.

Note: I personally used this method between the 9.7 EmuNAND of an original 3DS system to a region-changed 9.5 EmuNAND New 3DS system.
I also utilized a Gateway card for running my transferred content on the target, New 3DS system. Other methods are possible, but again, they must be compatible between systems.
For optimal results, you will want to utilize firmwares on both systems in the same major version (for example, 9.x and 9.x on both systems).


Limitations:
This method will NOT transfer over your NNID from the source system to the target system as a legit system transfer would.
This method was mainly born from the issues stemming from region-changing a 3DS system and then wanting to transfer content to that system.
Personally, having done this method between my US O3DS and my originally JPN N3DS, my NNID was left on my O3DS and all my saves were copied to the N3DS.
From there I continue to make future purchases on the O3DS under my NNID and then manually install said purchases on the N3DS with Gateway.
Please note this part of the procedure is specific to my issues with not being able to system transfer from a US O3DS to a region-changed N3DS completely, but hopefully this tutorial will still be useful for you!


Let's get this show on the road!

A. Source System
1. Dump/extract your source NAND
  • On the source system, you will first need to dump the NAND you will be pulling your save data from (either SysNAND or EmuNAND).
  • This can be done either through something like the Gateway menu with a SysNAND backup or EmuNANDTool to extract your EmuNAND from your SD card.
2. Extract the Fat16 CTR partition from your source NAND backup
  • This can be done with a script such as Cearp's "3DSFAT16tool.py" python script.
3. Generate NAND XORPads for your source NAND
  • This can be done with a tool such as Decrypt9 (which runs through Ninjhax and is currently the only method to generate XORPads for the New 3DS).
4. Decrypt your NAND backup with the XORPads from the previous step
  • This can be done by simply xor-ing your extracted Fat16 CTR partition with your NAND XORPads (using something like the "XOR Tool" in 3DSExplorer).
5. Mount your decrypted NAND backup for editing
  • This can be done with a tool such as WinImage in Windows or directly as an ISO in Mac OSX.
6. Extract necessary files/saves from source NAND
  • The files you want to extract and are safe from your source NAND are as follows:
    • NAND://private/movable.sed - THIS IS THE MAIN FILE FOR THIS PROCESS! It is the file which identifies/is used to decrypt the saves from your source NAND/SD card.
    • NAND://dbs/ticket.db - This file will be used later to recover our purchased content for the target system.
    • NAND://data/<ID0>/extdata - You may extract and save all the subfolders in this folder (<ID0> will be a randomly generated number, matching the number of your save folder in the "Nintendo 3DS" folder on your SD card).
    • NAND://data/<ID0>/sysdata - Extract and save ONLY the following folders! (For reference, these titles are for US systems and may vary by region - consult: http://3dbrew.org/wiki/System_SaveData for your region):
      • 000200bd - Miiverse
      • 0001000f - Unknown
      • 0002021b - Nintendo Zone
      • 0002021d - Face Raiders
      • 0002021e - AR Games
      • 00010011 - FS module (for Anti Savegame Restore games like Animal Crossing/PKMN/Smash)
      • 00010022 - Pedometer
      • 00010026 - Streetpass (active games)
      • 00010032 - Friends
      • 00010034 - Spotpass
      • 00010035 - News
      • 00020093 - Game Notes
      • 00020094 - Internet Browser
      • 00020096 - Friend List
      • 00020212 - Activity Log
      • 00020214 - Nintendo 3DS Camera
      • 00020215 - Nintendo 3DS Sound
      • 00020217 - Mii Maker
      • 00020218 - Mii Plaza
Note: These are the only saves I have tested to work and transfer safely. If you try to transfer saves for more system apps (such as NNID/config) I cannot guarantee success/positive results.
Further Note: I CAN confirm that if you transfer the app of something like Config from original 3DS to New 3DS, you will likely have weird results for screen display/etc. [DON'T TRY THIS!!!]

B. File Modification
1. Open your "movable.sed" file from the source system in you favored hex editor (such as "HxD").
2. Once open, you will want to remove the last 0x20 bytes from the file (actually shrinking the size of the file from 0x140 to 0x120).
3. At the beginning of the file, clear the 4 BYTES after the 'SEED' value (each byte should consist of two hex-based numbers, such as '00' or 'AF'; when clear, the value for that byte should show '00'/'.').
  • For example, the beginning of your file after modification should show '53 45 45 44 00 00 00 00' or "SEED...."
4. Save changes to your "movable.sed" file and close it (Recommend saving in a new copy of the file in case any mistakes are made!).
Note: Thanks to motezazer for the instructions on this step! ^_^ (This was the most important step of this process!)

Note: REMEMBER! THIS METHOD WILL INVALIDATE EXISTING CONTENT/SAVES ON THE TARGET SYSTEM! Please backup any important saves before proceeding!
C. Target System
1. Dump/extract your target NAND
  • On the target system, you will need to dump the NAND you will be injecting your save data to (either SysNAND or EmuNAND).
  • This can be done either through something like the Gateway menu with a SysNAND backup or EmuNANDTool to extract your EmuNAND from your SD card.
2. Extract the Fat16 CTR partition from your target NAND backup
  • This can be done with a script such as Cearp's "3DSFAT16tool.py" python script.
3. Generate NAND XORPads for your target NAND
  • This can be done with a tool such as Decrypt9 (which runs through Ninjhax and is currently the only public method to generate XORPads for the New 3DS).
4. Decrypt your NAND backup with the XORPads from the previous step
  • This can be done by simply xor-ing your extracted Fat16 CTR partition with your NAND XORPads (using something like the "XOR Tool" in 3DSExplorer).
5. Mount your decrypted NAND backup for editing
  • This can be done with a tool such as WinImage in Windows or directly as an ISO in Mac OSX.
6. Inject your MODIFIED "movable.sed" file to your target NAND
  • Simply copy your modified file and overwrite the existing "movable.sed" file.
7. Delete the contents of the of the NAND://data folder
  • This step is necessary to reinitilize the system with the new "movable.sed" file. Do NOT delete the "data" folder itself!
8. Re-encrypt your target NAND with XORPads
  • This can be done by simply xor-ing your extracted Fat16 CTR partition again.
9. Inject your modified Fat16 CTR partition into your target NAND
  • Use the injection function of a script such as "3DSFAT16tool.py", for example.
10. Flash/inject your modified target NAND to the target system
  • Using either a hardware restore method (Gateway menu/hard-mod) or software (EmuNANDTool for EmuNAND).
11. Boot into the target NAND
  • Let the system boot up to the start of the system setup procedure. Once you get to the system setup start screen, you may power off the system without going through the setup.
12. Extract your target NAND again
13. Extract your Fat16 CTR partition again
14. Decrypt your partition with XORPads again
15. Mount your decrypted partition for editing again
16. This time, inject your "extdata" and "sysdata" saves from the source system into the newly created folder under NAND://data/<ID0>
  • Overwrite any existing saves with your source system data.
17. Re-encrypt your target NAND with XORPads again
18. Inject your modified Fat16 CTR partition into your target NAND again
19. Flash/inject your modified target NAND to the target system again
Note: DO NOT POWER ON YOUR SYSTEM YET!

D. SD Card Content
*. Now that we have prepared and transferred the NAND content from the source system to the target system, we much now transfer our SD card content to get ALL our saves for system titles
1. From the source system, start by copying the following folders and their contents from the source SD card the target SD card:
  • SDMC://Nintendo 3DS/<ID0>/<ID1>/backups
  • SDMC://Nintendo 3DS/<ID0>/<ID1>/extdata
Note: <ID1> won't match between source/target SD card folders, but <ID0> should match. This is normal.
2. Next, we will need to obtain any system application updates/DLC you had on your source system on the target system
  • This can be done utilizing your "ticket.db" from the source system and a script like "FunkyCIA2.py" (again by Cearp ^_^) to obtain the CIAs
  • For reference, the title IDs of the Mii Plaza update and DLC are:
    • 0004000e00021800 - Mii Plaza Update
    • 0004008c00021800 - Mii Plaza DLC
3. You may now insert your target SD card and boot up the target system
  • Once you have reached the home menu, install the CIAs obtained from the previous step using your favorite CIA management tool (I recommend FBI, by Steveice10 ^_^).
4. You may now run system apps and your save data should be intact and available!
  • If you had updated the Mii Plaza/purchased DLC and then tried run your transferred save without installing them in the target system, you would get an error saying your save is not on the correct version.
  • Note: The main limitation of this transfer method is we cannot yet locally transfer the tickets for purchased content from from one system's "ticket.db" file to another.
  • In a legit system transfer, the tickets are sent to Nintendo from the source console and then returned to the target console, rewritten with the console ID of the target system.
  • For this reason, we must utilize CIAs/unsigned installations for our purchased on content on the target system.

E. Remaining SD Card Content
*. Once you have achieved access to your system applications saves on the target system, you can proceed with installing and transferring the saves of your other purchased content
1. Obtain CIAs for your remaining purchased content
  • Utilize your ticket "ticket.db" from the source system again and something like "FunkyCIA2.py" to obtain CIAs of your purchased content.
2. Install CIAs on your target system
  • Utilize an installer such as FBI.
3. Once installed, copy your saves for the associated content from the source SD card to the target SD card
  • Locate the matching title ID and save file on the source SD card and copy it to the appropriate folder on the target SD card.
  • For example: On the source SD card, your save for Animal Crossing: New Leaf [US] (titleID: 0004000000086300) would be in the folder:
    • SDMC://Nintendo 3DS/<ID0>/<ID1>/title/00040000/00086300/data/00000001.sav
  • Copy that save file to the corresponding folder on your target SD card and your save should now be accessible on the target system!


Closing Thoughts:
I really hope this tutorial has helped some people who may be in the same boat I was, wanting to transfer my content from my O3DS to my region-changed N3DS.
Thank you for your reading and have a "Nintacular" day! ^_^
 

Ichii Giki

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One more thing, what if i was able to install mii streetpass plaza on the SD card instead of nand as a installed.cia and will the native 3ds savedata option become available?

You'd probably have to delete the installed Mii Plaza on the NAND (which is possible), but I'm not sure if there would be any issue with installing it on the SD card instead of NAND with something like FBI. It MIGHT be possible, but I have no idea on whether or not it would actually work (only way to find out would be to try it).
 

ubergeek77

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So for this part of the guide:

D. SD Card Content
*. Now that we have prepared and transferred the NAND content from the source system to the target system, we much now transfer our SD card content to get ALL our saves for system titles
1. From the source system, start by copying the following folders and their contents from the source SD card the target SD card:
  • SDMC://Nintendo 3DS/<ID0>/<ID1>/backups
  • SDMC://Nintendo 3DS/<ID0>/<ID1>/extdata
Note: <ID1> won't match between source/target SD card folders, but <ID0> should match. This is normal.

After booting into emuNAND and waiting for a few seconds after System Setup starts, my SD card only has 1 folder inside "Nintendo 3DS," and this is the folder corresponding to my sysNAND. But the ID inside the /data folder in the emuNAND image itself matches the one on the source SD card, so the movable.sed part was correct, at least.

But that folder isn't being created, so I can't move my SD data over yet. How should I proceed?
 

Ichii Giki

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After booting into emuNAND and waiting for a few seconds after System Setup starts, my SD card only has 1 folder inside "Nintendo 3DS," and this is the folder corresponding to my sysNAND. But the ID inside the /data folder in the emuNAND image itself matches the one on the source SD card, so the movable.sed part was correct, at least.

But that folder isn't being created, so I can't move my SD data over yet. How should I proceed?

What are the 3DS firmware versions of your target 3DS system's Sys/EmuNAND? Is it a New/Old 3DS? If it is an O3DS with a standard-sized SD card, is the write-protect switch enabled and so the EmuNAND can't create the necessary folders?
 

ubergeek77

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What are the 3DS firmware versions of your target 3DS system's Sys/EmuNAND? Is it a New/Old 3DS? If it is an O3DS with a standard-sized SD card, is the write-protect switch enabled and so the EmuNAND can't create the necessary folders?

It's a New3DS, with a region-changed emuNAND on 9.5.0. But I was able to get through the tutorial by setting up emuNAND completely at that point and letting the HOME menu create the folders. I guess it doesn't always make a folder during setup.
 
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Sephirosu

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Don't know what I'm doing wrong but after injecting the modified fat16 emunand to emunand it refused to inject into the regular emunand on my SD with emunand tool 1.03 so I used the 1.0.1 version. It worked. Now to continue with your tutorial, I tried to extract the emunand with bothversion 1.0.1 and 3 but it keeps saying unknown nand size and it keeps failing to extract. Help plz.
 

Ichii Giki

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Don't know what I'm doing wrong but after injecting the modified fat16 emunand to emunand it refused to inject into the regular emunand on my SD with emunand tool 1.03 so I used the 1.0.1 version. It worked. Now to continue with your tutorial, I tried to extract the emunand with bothversion 1.0.1 and 3 but it keeps saying unknown nand size and it keeps failing to extract. Help plz.

So you're unable to extract your EmuNAND on the destination system? Are you sure you are trying to extract from the correct SD card? (I would also recommend always using the newest version of the EmuNAND Tool. I used 1.0.3 throughout my process without issue.) Happy New Year! ^_^
 

Sephirosu

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So you're unable to extract your EmuNAND on the destination system? Are you sure you are trying to extract from the correct SD card? (I would also recommend always using the newest version of the EmuNAND Tool. I used 1.0.3 throughout my process without issue.) Happy New Year! ^_^
In the end what was giving me trouble was the pyhon version of the 3DS FAT16 extracting program. When it reinjected into the emunand, it added unnecessary bytes into the emuNAND thus it increased its size to a point where it wasn't a normal emuNAND anymore and thus emuNAND tool wasn't detecting it.

Long story short, use the C version that has a GUI. It'll make your life easier.

Also, for people that might not be getting the correct mii maker/plaza files, when it says corrupted files, go into your dlcs (using your 3ds) and erase them all. That was giving me problems. If you also lost all your previous panels, fret not. Just extract the emunand you now have and recopy the mii plaza/maker saves once more (also make sure to update your miiplaza using .cias).

One last thing, for people who lost their old gold pants personal mii, you can use your old config file from your old 3ds which contains your miis.
 

CiroOtta

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Hello! i am fairly new to this whole hacking thing, i have an european old 3ds and an american new 3ds(both on 10.3) i have bought games on both consoles and i would like to transfer the ones on my old 3ds to the new one, is that possible?
 

Sephirosu

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Hello! i am fairly new to this whole hacking thing, i have an european old 3ds and an american new 3ds(both on 10.3) i have bought games on both consoles and i would like to transfer the ones on my old 3ds to the new one, is that possible?
Not possible. Would have been possible if you were 9.2 or bellow on your new 3DS to be able to have an emunand of it. I take that the old 3DS doesn't have an emunand as well or does it?
 

MelonGx

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This guide is better than
- System Transfer 3DS-A to 3DS-B emuNAND
- Backup 3DS-B emuNAND
- System Transfer 3DS-B emuNAND to 3DS-A or 3DS-C 7 days later
- Restore 3DS-B emuNAND so your 3DS-B emuNAND becomes a 3DS-A/C's clone (without valid ticket & NNID access since they're always tied to System Transfer target)

With this guide, you can not only clone your NAND saves (such as Mii Plaza), but also clone/import SD saves & dump purchased 3DSWares.
 
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WolfHeroEX

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I'm trying to figure this out, and I've gotten to step 3 but it's very confusing. I have EMUNAND set up alongside a reset SYSNAND, but I backed up the original SYSNAND (started at 10.3, backed up when it was 9.2) before formatting it for the EMUNAND installation. How do I generate xorpads from the original backed up NAND.bin?

I'm trying to get all of my mii plaza stuff back, but this has become a very long and technical process that I can no longer wrap my head around. D:
 
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Ichii Giki

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I'm trying to figure this out, and I've gotten to step 3 but it's very confusing. I have EMUNAND set up alongside a reset SYSNAND, but I backed up the original SYSNAND (started at 10.3, backed up when it was 9.2) before formatting it for the EMUNAND installation. How do I generate xorpads from the original backed up NAND.bin?

I'm trying to get all of my mii plaza stuff back, but this has become a very long and technical process that I can no longer wrap my head around. D:

So in my understanding, XorPads are system based, so it doesn't matter if you have formatted your system or not, the XorPads for NAND should not change between formats. Therefore, you should be able to generate XorPads with Decrypt9/etc. now and then use them to decrypt your old NAND.BIN backup from the same system.
 

WolfHeroEX

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So in my understanding, XorPads are system based, so it doesn't matter if you have formatted your system or not, the XorPads for NAND should not change between formats. Therefore, you should be able to generate XorPads with Decrypt9/etc. now and then use them to decrypt your old NAND.BIN backup from the same system.

Alright, I have the XorPads, but I downloaded 3DSEXPLORER and looked at the XOR Tool section. Where do I place nand.fat16.xorpad and nand_file? Also, what kind of output file type should I expect?
 
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Ichii Giki

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Alright, I have the XorPads, but I downloaded 3DSEXPLORER and looked at the XOR Tool section. Where do I place nand.fat16.xorpad and nand_file? Also, what kind of output file type should I expect?

You put the xorpad and the nand_file in the two boxes of the XOR Tool section of 3DSExplorer. Then you XOR them by clicking the button and saving the output file. That output file will be a decrypted disk image that you can open with something like WinImage in Windows or directly as an ISO in Mac OSX (as specified in Section A - Step 5 of the tutorial).
 

WolfHeroEX

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You put the xorpad and the nand_file in the two boxes of the XOR Tool section of 3DSExplorer. Then you XOR them by clicking the button and saving the output file. That output file will be a decrypted disk image that you can open with something like WinImage in Windows or directly as an ISO in Mac OSX (as specified in Section A - Step 5 of the tutorial).

Ah, I was expecting an Iso. I had tried it before and got the xor file, the extension name just confused me.

Alright, final question and thanks for the answers so far... The offset in the file Movable.sed goes up in tens, starting at 00000000 and going up to 00000130. If I have this step correct, I'm to delete the entire row of 00000130 so it only goes down to 00000120?

If that's not the case, I'd delete the 00000130 and 00000120 rows, leaving the final row at 00000110. Is that right?

What does 0x20 and 0x140/0x120 mean? That'd give me my answer.

EDIT: I figured out that 0x140 was referring to the file size of 320 bytes, and after removing rows 00000130 and 00000120 (and editing the other portion of the step after SEED) the file size became 288 bytes, or 0x120. Alright.

EDIT2: Shouldn't I be able to use my SYSNAND's xorpads to decrypt my EMUNAND file and vice versa? If so, I would only need to get the xorpads once right (In step A3)?

EDIT3: I've accompished the full thing, but my save files were still missing. My Miis were also gone (the 3ds said they were corrupted) and I ended up throwing my original emunand onto the system to get what I had back.
 
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