Hacking Is CFW / Arm9loaderhax a perma hack?

[ishygdaft]

I have read a lot of times that users are bricking their devices once they downgrade to 2.1. I am a little bit afraid about this. Is there a high chance to brick it currently?

I will buy a new "New Nintendo 3ds XL" tomorrow. It will have a default version of around 9.9 - 10.5 I think. So i will downgrade it to 9.2 and afterwards do the other stuff, like downgrading to 2.1 (as it says in the guide). Do you think it is safe for me to do it on a fresh device directly with the guide?

Or are the 2.1 bricks only because users do it wrong?

It's almost always user error, there is a step in the 2.1 downgrade that requires unbricking your firmware (n3ds only). As long as you follow the guide really closely you should be fine.

Oh and I did the exact thing you're planning on doing, a fresh console will work wonderfully.
Just keep in mind, the downgrade to 9.2 is probably the most dangerous thing you'll be doing.

 

[tombi]

Okay. But the downgrade to 9.2 is really important - there is no way around it to use A9LH, right? So I understand it. I hope if I do everything correctly that the 9.2 downgrade will work fine on my fresh device.

I will do it two times because a friend of me want the same for his device so I hope I will not fail on this. :-)

Another question: Somebody said here that A9LH by default can directly have a CFW on the SysNAND. This sounds crazy. So it will override my default SysNAND, right? That because my backup is really important?! So this also means that my CFW SysNAND will be on 9.2. Without EmuNAND I cannot use version 11.0, this is right?

Or is the "CFW SysNAND" next to the "default SysNAND" and I just didn't understand that?

 

[ishygdaft]

Okay. But the downgrade to 9.2 is really important - there is no way around it to use A9LH, right? So I understand it. I hope if I do everything correctly that the 9.2 downgrade will work fine on my fresh device.

I will do it two times because a friend of me want the same for his device so I hope I will not fail on this. :-)

Another question: Somebody said here that A9LH by default can directly have a CFW on the SysNAND. This sounds crazy. So it will override my default SysNAND, right? That because my backup is really important?! So this also means that my CFW SysNAND will be on 9.2. Without EmuNAND I cannot use version 11.0, this is right?

Or is the "CFW SysNAND" next to the "default SysNAND" and I just didn't understand that?

a9lh lives in firm 0 of your 3ds, it's always running. The reason emunand can be left behind is because of boot-time payload loading. Emunand is a safety net we no longer need.

Oh, when you have a9lh you get "firm protection" with some CFW so you can have a sysnand on 11.0.

 

[Seriel]

You could return to stock by downgrading to <11.0, disabling FIRM protection and updating by system settings.

 

[fikatr]

https://github.com/Plailect/Guide/wiki your every question is answered at that guide

 

[SomeGamer]

So now that apparently the latest SafeA9LHInstaller does some magic to boot without SD (Or is it the payloads?), what's the difference between that and ShadowNAND?

 

[Tephie]

So now that apparently the latest SafeA9LHInstaller does some magic to boot without SD (Or is it the payloads?), what's the difference between that and ShadowNAND?

If you restore the backup with Decrypt9, you can choose to restore it "completely" or to restore it while keeping A9LH.

shadowNAND plans to be a CFW inside your NAND [with no SDCard], a9lh is not a CFW
At least that's what i understood of it

 

[SomeGamer]

shadowNAND plans to be a CFW inside your NAND [with no SDCard], a9lh is not a CFW
At least that's what i understood of it

ShadowNAND is a fork of A9LH, where the payload (in our case, the CFW) is self-contained, written to FIRM0/FIRM1. A general A9LH implementation (which isn't ShadowNAND) can boot ARM9 payloads, that can be CFWs.

 

[tombi]

So ShadowNAND may be the future where we don't need a sd card to boot our device because the payload has been moved to FIRM? Awesome.

 

[SomeGamer]

So ShadowNAND may be the future where we don't need a sd card to boot our device because the payload has been moved to FIRM? Awesome.

Why future? ShadowNAND can already boot fine without an SD card.

 

[Tephie]

Well i guess he meant boot a full CFW with all the features without a SD card
because to have a CFW with shadownand you still need SaltyCFW

 

[SomeGamer]

Well i guess he meant boot a full CFW with all the features without a SD card
because to have a CFW with shadownand you still need SaltyCFW

ShadowNAND can boot a full CFW without an SD card now.

 

[Tephie]

ShadowNAND can boot a full CFW without an SD card now.

 

[SomeGamer]

It's only an option. sysNAND booting has FIRM protection and sigpatches, so it a CFW to me.

 

[Tephie]

Well it's not a FULL CFW because it doesn't have all SaltFW features yet, but whatever

 

[Roomsaver]

If you have the latest update of A9LH, you can take out the SD and boot up the console, it will still work.

EDIT: Posts didn't show up for some reason