Preparation

Hardware Requirements:

• A Windows PC
• A 3DS on 9.2 or lower
• A SD Card reader or some other adapter to allow you to copy files from your PC to the SD
• A DS flashcard that works on 4.5 (R4i, etc),
• A SD Card (preferably 16 GB to hold games, but even 4 GB should work)

Software Download Links:

• Dev Menu CIA (Look for either BigBlueBox CIA or GovanifY’s CFW. Google is your friend, the file name will be either BigBlueBox.cia or DecMenu_2x.cia)
• Gateway 3.0+ Launcher.dat and DS Exploit files.
• Gateway Downgrade for your region
• Emunand Dummy Data Creator (credits to piratesephiroth) http://gbatemp.net/attachments/drag_emunand_here-zip.11716/
• Emunand Tool http://gbatemp.net/threads/emunand-tool-release-and-support-thread.359239/
• Palantine CFW http://jheberg.net/captcha/palantine-cfw-2/
• Network Scanner - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_network_watcher.html

Part 1 - Downgrading

1. Copy the Gateway Launcher.dat and Gateway.dg file to your SD Card.
2. Turn off wifi and open the 3DS Browser. Go into the settings and delete cookies/cache.
3. Optionally, reboot your 3DS.
4. Navigate to the browser with wifi on this time, and go to go.gateway-3ds.com.
5. The exploit will now load. Go over the options using the D-Pad and backup your NAND.
6. After the NAND backup is done, power off the 3DS by holding down the power button. Put the SD Card into your computer, and copy the NAND.bin somewhere safe. This is your fail-safe, so don’t lose it!
7. Put the SD card back into the console, with the NAND.bin still on it.
8. Go run the downgrade process (it’s the last one in the menu). Wait for it to finish. Once it’s done, reboot your system. Put the SD card into the computer and ensure Launcher.dat is still on it. Do not delete NAND.bin just yet.

Part 2 - Installing CFW

1. Now, copy the GW Installer DS file to your DS flashcard. Pop it into the console and run that file from your flashcard. When it’s done, press home and go into System Settings. Go into other settings —> profile and tap DS Profile. The Gateway menu will load once again. This time, run the format emuNand process. When it’s done, shutdown your 3DS.
2. Pop the SD Card back into your PC. Run the emuNand tool you downloaded earlier and press “Extract emuNand”. Save the file as emuNand.bin somewhere.
3. Now, drag the emuNand.bin onto the bat file that was downloaded. After a while, a resulting REDNAND.bin will appear.
4. In the emuNand tool, press “Inject NAND into emuNAND”. Select the REDNAND.bin file, and just ignore the warnings about not finding NAND.bin.
5. After it’s done, delete everything on the SD card. It should only be a LAUNCHER.DAT file.
6. Now, copy everything from the SD Card folder in Palantine CFW onto the SD card. Delete the launcher.dat, and rename the launcher_gw.dat to launcher.dat
7. Insert the SD card into the console and boot up. It will create software management information. Take the SD card out again and open it on your computer.
8. Now, in your SD card, there should be a Nintendo 3DS folder. Open it, and open the folder inside that. There should be another, so open that too. You should see a exdata folder.
9. Make a new folder (not inside the exdata folder, but in the same directory as it) called “dbs”. Go into the folder and make a blank text file, named “title.db” or “import.db”. Doesn’t matter which.
10. Insert the SD back into the system and go into Settings —> Data Management —> Software. It’ll ask to reset your software management information, so allow it to do so.
11. Now, go into Other —> Profile. Hold down the L button, and tap DS Profile. If all goes well, the bottom screen will flash white and the CFW will load. If not, simply reboot the system by holding down power and trying again. Make sure to hold L while you do it.
12. Now, once you’ve gotten into CFW, you’ll need your 3DS’ IP Address. You can use the tool you downloaded earlier (the network scanner) to find the devices from Nintendo. Note the IP (usually looks like 192.168.1.1xx)
13. Edit the run.bat file in the Palantine CIA folder. Replace the DevMenu_2x.cia part with the name of your CIA, and the IPTOMODIFY with your IP.

installcia IPTOMODIFY 1 DevMenu_2x.cia

installcia 192.168.1.155 1 DevMenu_2x.cia

22. Now execute run.bat by double clicking on it. It should return result-code of 0.

• If you get a failed to connect, make sure the IP is correct and the 3DS is connected to the Internet.
• If there’s another return code, try steps 8 and onward again.

23. Once you’ve succeeded, press Power —> Home and unwrap your new gift. You can now enter the CFW without holding L using the regular way.

Installing CIAs

1. Find a CIA to install. Google is your friend.
2. Copy the CIA to your SD Card.
3. Use the standard method to get into the CFW. Open the DevMenu and import away.

 

[3dsnoobz]

does this work with a Japanese n3DS?? Thanks

 

[ezalore]

Hello i have a 3DS with ver 1.1.0-0E what is the best to with it please ?? I don't want to lose the exploits or anything like a noob. Thank you !
also i want to backup my 3DS games for my SKY3DS for my N3DS ambassador and go online safely with a good template

 

[mickael28]

Hi guys,

Can you play games in the 3ds format with this method as well?

And do you know if an M3 DS Real card (which was used in the original DS) is valid for this? I never tried in the 3DS because the firmware of my console was higher, version 7....

Many thanks!

 

[coolfuze]

Hi guys,

Can you play games in the 3ds format with this method as well?

And do you know if an M3 DS Real card (which was used in the original DS) is valid for this? I never tried in the 3DS because the firmware of my console was higher, version 7....

Many thanks!

Not sure about the m3ds but a quick google revealed it won't work, 3ds format games don't play on cfw, they need to be cia format which is easy enough to download or you can go through the tedious process of converting 3ds to cia.

 

[elmoemo]

followed the guide and now have CFW running, can i put my 3ds file from before i put cfw back on the sd card to play my installed games and saves?

I assume I need to boot CFW through setting each time I want to use a .cia?

The CFW seems to run on the sys nand, is there anyway to get it to run on emunand?

Thanks

 

[elmoemo]

UPDATE - i turned the 3ds off and when i went back to it and tried to load CFW instead of loading it, it actually opened the ds profile, why wopuld this be?

 

[coolfuze]

UPDATE - i turned the 3ds off and when i went back to it and tried to load CFW instead of loading it, it actually opened the ds profile, why wopuld this be?

It's because you played a ds game so you just need to run the ds profile again from your r4 card, nothing is broken no worries.

Oh and I don't think your ds is running cfw from sysnand, if you want to try it shut down your 3ds, take out your sd card on the side and then try and run the ds profile exploit, once you've sorted out your 3ds actually going into the ds profile.

 

[elmoemo]

It's because you played a ds game so you just need to run the ds profile again from your r4 card, nothing is broken no worries.

Oh and I don't think your ds is running cfw from sysnand, if you want to try it shut down your 3ds, take out your sd card on the side and then try and run the ds profile exploit, once you've sorted out your 3ds actually going into the ds profile.

Thanks for the reply. The only D's game I would have played is my r4 so once I run the D's exploit again I'll be ok?

Once I loaded in cfw before I could play .cia's but my system settings didn't say gw before it

 

[coolfuze]

Thanks for the reply. The only D's game I would have played is my r4 so once I run the D's exploit again I'll be ok?

Once I loaded in cfw before I could play .cia's but my system settings didn't say gw before it

Yeah you'll be fine, until you play a DS game again then you just need to run the exploit afterwards again if you want to load CFW. This CFW doesn't say GW in front of it so thats normal, I recommend creating a folder once you're in CFW mode because when you reboot the 3DS that folder will be gone then you know you're not in CFW anymore.

 

[Wizzx]

Please help : everytime i try too run this tool i get a No emuNANAD SD detected Message.

I formated emunand several times nothing changed.

 

[coolfuze]

Please help : everytime i try too run this tool i get a No emuNANAD SD detected Message.

I formated emunand several times nothing changed.

I don't think formatting through windows will achieve the result you are looking for. Try this tool https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/eula_windows/SDFormatterv4.zip

Also the settings for it are full write and format size adjustement on,i think, can't find my gfs sd card to test.

 

[Jpp]

Hi,

I have a 3DS with firmware 4.5.0U. I've just bought it brand new out-of-the box. I'm trying to use this guide to get CFW but when I click on my nintendo internet browser it says: ("The internet browser will be available once you update your system via the internet. For details visit support.nintendo.com").

I have all the WiFi settings done and checked. All OK.
The console is 100% operational.
The only thing not working is the d... internet browser. (Obviously I do not want to update it to the latest firmware via Nintendo).

How do I fix this?
I've checked Nintendo website and nothing on it, except regular system update.
Any ideas?

Please help!
Thanks!!!

 

[Adr990]

Works wonders, just done this on a friend's old 3DS red EUR 8.1.0!

So, only Legit (4.x spoofed) CIA's will work on this (emu)RedNand, right?
There is no way to load random CIA's atm, right?


Edit:

[...]
I have a 3DS with firmware 4.5.0U. I've just bought it brand new out-of-the box. I'm trying to use this guide to get CFW but when I click on my nintendo internet browser it says: ("The internet browser will be available once you update your system via the internet. For details visit support.nintendo.com").
[...]
How do I fix this?
I've checked Nintendo website and nothing on it, except regular system update.
Any ideas?
[...]

You could try removing the pre-downloaded update:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/guide-delete-predownloaded-update-spotpass-nag.381489/
And then start the browser on 4.5, may works without that update message.

But at that, you might want to block the Nintendo servers in your Router or via a Proxy, or with that DNS. You want to use the Search for that one.

 

[jacey.sunshine]

Is there a way to get 9.2 when you are on a 7x firmware without a gateway?

 

[FOL]

So, I have a 8.1 3DS (updated with SSB EUR). I have an AK2i lying around(which I used on my DSlite, and it says it works on 3ds), can I use it to do this? Won't I need specific DS exploit files for my Acekard?
If I understood correctly, with this the 3DS will only run games before 4.5 update? No way around it? No way to patch the games or anything? So no Pokemon X/Y and Alpha/Omega?

Thanks

 

[Tsuku]

Pokemon X/Y works, but when you want save, then crashes.

 

[Digital.One.Entity]

Does the Network Scanner work on Win 8 ?

 

[jhiean]

can i use spider ds profile rop loader instead of ds cartridge? i have no ds cartridge.. thanks in advance

 

[porky]

Do these instructions change at all when dealing with the New 3DS XL? I have one on 9.0.0 so it should be fine, but I thought I'd check as a brick is no good as a console.

 

[mechagouki]

So I finally bought a 3DS (red Super Mario 3D Land edition) yesterday, thought I'd give this tutorial a try. Followed the instructions to the letter and everything went just fine up until sending the Dev Menu .cia over WiFi.

I have successfully booted into CFW 4 times now (I assume - blue screen appears at top, lower screen flashes white, then goes black, returns to home screen), but when I run run.bat to send the .cia I just repeatedly get "Failed to connect".

I've checked and rechecked and rechecked the .bat file settings, everything is correct, I have the little IP watcher app running in a window so I know the address is right.

Anyone got any clue what's wrong? If I run the run.bat without the 3DS in CFW it doesn't do anything, so it must be seeing the unit in some way.