Is there a way to backup game saves without booting into atmosphere?

[Deleted member 598269]

I can only boot to hekate, I get all kind of error messages after updating my switch, one of them is 1 bit mode in hekate that from what I understood is a hardware failure, not even sure how to fix that... and the other one is when I try to boot to atmosphere I get the message in the photo below. I want to format my sd card hopefully it will fix everything, but I don't want to loose my saves. So is there any way I can backup my games saves?

 

[Gamerjin]

unless your situation is one of these:

• have manual backup saves like thru dbi/checkpoint/jksv.
• you are using an emunand (file or partition based)
• or you have it setup that atmosphere redirects your save to the sdcard. (if you dont know what im talking about, then this doesnt apply.)

the switch normally stores its saves on the nand of the switch, not the sd card.

also, could you list the errors you have gotten?

 

[Deleted member 681324]

OP, your picture looks like you have conflicting versions of Atmosphere & Hekate.

 

[Jayinem]

No there isn't I think Nintendo backs up your saves on their server if you're on latest firmware but you can't be banned or have a exploited Switch.

However I still think your situation is fixable. I had trouble when I upgraded to 18.1 a few weeks and got the same error and solved it. I just can't tell you the exact step I did to solve it because I don't remember.

Post automatically merged: Oct 15, 2024

OP, your picture looks like you have conflicting versions of Atmosphere & Hekate.

I told him to get the customized fusee.bin in the sigpatches thread and he said he did, but I wonder if he just got the sigpatches and assumed it was included because it's not. You have to read the first post and get a link to it on some page in the thread.

 

[Deleted member 598269]

unless your situation is one of these:

• have manual backup saves like thru dbi/checkpoint/jksv.
• you are using an emunand (file or partition based)
• or you have it setup that atmosphere redirects your save to the sdcard. (if you dont know what im talking about, then this doesnt apply.)

the switch normally stores its saves on the nand of the switch, not the sd card.

also, could you list the errors you have gotten?

I am using emunand as far as I know... this is the error I get with the one on the original message of the post.

Post automatically merged: Oct 15, 2024

OP, your picture looks like you have conflicting versions of Atmosphere & Hekate.

my hekate is 6.2.2 so as far as I know it should work with any atmosphere right?

 

[Jayinem]

I am using emunand as far as I know... this is the error I get with the one on the original message of the post. View attachment 464986

Post automatically merged: Oct 15, 2024

my hekate is 6.2.2 so as far as I know it should work with any atmosphere right?

You failed to mention the error in your thread yesterday. Your Switch may need repairs.

 

[Deleted member 598269]

No there isn't I think Nintendo backs up your saves on their server if you're on latest firmware but you can't be banned or have a exploited Switch.

However I still think your situation is fixable. I had trouble when I upgraded to 18.1 a few weeks and got the same error and solved it. I just can't tell you the exact step I did to solve it because I don't remember.

Post automatically merged: Oct 15, 2024

I told him to get the customized fusee.bin in the sigpatches thread and he said he did, but I wonder if he just got the sigpatches and assumed it was included because it's not. You have to read the first post and get a link to it on some page in the thread.

unfortunately I think I have a hardware issue now from inserting the sd card too many times... I want to format my sd card and install everything again, but I don't want to loose my save files. I am not talking about the ones with nintendo I am talking about the ones on the cfw

Post automatically merged: Oct 15, 2024

You failed to mention the error in your thread yesterday. Your Switch may need repairs.

the new error message happened today... what should I do then?

 

[Jayinem]

I stopped ejecting my sd card years ago, they have homebrew where you can just hook a cable up to your computer and transfer files. I don't know if it works on Macbook though never had one.

The only way to get your saves is through checkpoint or jksv which are homebrew apps, that requires that you boot successfully into atmosphere launch one of those apps and back them up. No other way.

 

[Deleted member 598269]

I stopped ejecting my sd card years ago, they have homebrew where you can just hook a cable up to your computer and transfer files. I don't know if it works on Macbook though never had one.

The only way to get your saves is through checkpoint or jksv which are homebrew apps, that requires that you boot successfully into atmosphere launch one of those apps and back them up. No other way.

Ok, and for the hardware issue? what should I do?

 

[Deleted member 681324]

Replace card reader?

 

[Jayinem]

Ok, and for the hardware issue? what should I do?

Start calling repair shops unless you know how to fix it yourself. I mean if it's a hardware issues those are your options, you can't send it to Nintendo.

 

[Hayato213]

Ok, and for the hardware issue? what should I do?

Check your motherboard for missing gold pins, if you don't got missing gold pins you can replace the SD card flex.

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

As long as you have access to the emmc/nand you want to get the saves from, and a way to boot into hekate, there are ways to get the saves even without cfw.
But best first create a backup of the nand you want the saves from on the pc, just in case, it should be possible to do this from hekate via usb.
Also make sure you have the console keys for your consoles emmc/nand via lockpick rcm.

With that out of the way, there is a tutorial somewhere here in the forum on how to extract save games from the emmc but I don't have it at hand.
But in short, the saves are on the big partition (user) of the emmc, and as long as you have a way to decrypt the partion (e.g. keys from lockpick+hacdiscmount or what it was called), you can at least create a backup of the saves. But keep in mind, the format is not the same as when dumped via save manager, so you will not be able to directly install them back, without converting them.

Edit:
Should be this guide:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-extract-savegames-from-nand-dump-for-checkpoint.550343/

Its for a nand/emmc dump, but would only be slightly different when opening the nand/emmc directly

 

[Jayinem]

As long as you have access to the emmc/nand you want to get the saves from, and a way to boot into hekate, there are ways to get the saves even without cfw.
But best first create a backup of the nand you want the saves from on the pc, just in case, it should be possible to do this from hekate via usb.
Also make sure you have the console keys for your consoles emmc/nand via lockpick rcm.

With that out of the way, there is a tutorial somewhere here in the forum on how to extract save games from the emmc but I don't have it at hand.
But in short, the saves are on the big partition (user) of the emmc, and as long as you have a way to decrypt the partion (e.g. keys from lockpick+hacdiscmount or what it was called), you can at least create a backup of the saves. But keep in mind, the format is not the same as when dumped via save manager, so you will not be able to directly install them back, without converting them.

Edit:
Should be this guide:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-extract-savegames-from-nand-dump-for-checkpoint.550343/

Its for a nand/emmc dump, but would only be slightly different when opening the nand/emmc directly

I wasn't aware of this, however it really won't solve anything if he just has a hardware issue with the sd card reader. But it's always good to have a nand backup and saves backed up. I do it often.

 

[Deleted member 598269]

I wasn't aware of this, however it really won't solve anything if he just has a hardware issue with the sd card reader. But it's always good to have a nand backup and saves backed up. I do it often.

Ok something weird just happened, so I was in hekate, I clicked on payloads fusee.bin and it loaded atmosphere, first time it crashed, the second time it is working and I am able to play games. I am still on the old version of atmosphere though. not sure what to do now... I guess the sd card reader is not broken? or half-broken. How should I proceed? should I try and do the update and then try to reboot again and see if I have problems like now with all the error messages I received? I am obliviously using that chance of it booting up and doing a backup for my games, but after that with all the errors I got trying to update it, I don't know what to do...

 

[Hayato213]

Ok something weird just happened, so I was in hekate, I clicked on payloads fusee.bin and it loaded atmosphere, first time it crashed, the second time it is working and I am able to play games. I am still on the old version of atmosphere though. not sure what to do now... I guess the sd card reader is not broken? or half-broken. How should I proceed? should I try and do the update and then try to reboot again and see if I have problems like now with all the error messages I received? I am obliviously using that chance of it booting up and doing a backup for my games, but after that with all the errors I got trying to update it, I don't know what to do...

If you are getting 1 bit mode then you have a SD card connector/flex problem.

 

[Deleted member 598269]

If you are getting 1 bit mode then you have a SD card connector/flex problem.

is it soldering problem? or something I can fix just by opening the switch?

 

[Deleted member 681324]

Backup firstly, then update your Atmosphere and reboot to see if the 1bit is persistent.

 

[Hayato213]

is it soldering problem? or something I can fix just by opening the switch?

Open it up and see if you are missing any pins. If no missing pins, try reseat the connector.

 

[SecureBoot]

Random thought I just had when seeing this thread. Would it be possible to use a traffic sniffer to capture the packets that are sent to Nintendo's cloud backup service to get local saves from stock os? Obviously they'd be encrypted, but there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't get the raw data right?