Hacking Dumb question: What is emunand and what version should mine be?

[Sandvich1]

So I currently have Gateway 2.0 on my 3DS (firemware 4.5) and I'm looking to upgrade 2.2 and get my 3DS playing online. I read something on the Gateway page about updating my Emunand for 7? What exactly is this and how do I do it? Is it necessary to play online?

 

[Huntereb]

You can't make a working updated Emunand partition anymore. At least not until they update their launcher to support 8.x.

 

[IronClouds]

emuNAND is like a second "OS" that runs off of your 3DS' big SD card. This second OS is created when you run the Gateway launcher and follow their instructions on setting it up. Your "main OS," or sysNAND should always be on version 4.5. But the "emulated OS," or emuNAND can be updated to later versions as long as your sysNAND remains on 4.5 at all times (technically, 4.1 - 4.5, but in your case, you're on 4.5, so yeah).

When you first set up emuNAND, it's an exact copy of your sysNAND, which will mean it'll be on 4.5 at first. Since you're running emuNAND, you're free to update the emuNAND without fear of losing Gateway compatibility since your sysNAND is not being messed with whatsoever when you update emuNAND. The problem is, updating emuNAND involves going into the emuNAND System Settings and updating from there. The reason this is a problem is because updating via this method means you will always be updating to the latest firmware version offered by Nintendo at that time.

Right now, the latest firmware version is currently 8.0, so it's only possible to update your emuNAND to this version. People have reported that the emuNAND does not launch at all on version 8.0, so it essentially breaks it. emuNAND 8.0 will not run until Gateway releases an updated version of their launcher.dat that has 8.0 compatibility, which they are currently working on. The only way to have an emuNAND that's version 7.x is to have updated the emuNAND back when 7.x was the latest version. This means there's 0 chance you can do it now, unless you already updated your emuNAND prior and made a backup before updating again (which I'm assuming you hadn't done).

I wouldn't worry about it, though. The Gateway team seem very dedicated, so just sit tight for a month or 2 because it seems 8.0 emuNAND compatibility is right around the corner. Nothing is ever set in stone, but their announcements suggest we don't need to worry, and won't have to do it much longer.