Hacking Flash cart safety guide

[Habbert]

I think there is a need for a simple, easy to follow friendly flash cart safety guide, so I decided to make one in hopes to avoid as many bricks as possible. This thread is ONLY about 3DS flash carts.

3DS flash carts:

Flash carts that are able to play 3DS roms/games on your 3DS.​

DS flash carts:

Flash carts that play original DS roms/games on your 3DS and original DS.​

Currently all 3DS flash carts also come with a DS flash cart because it is needed for the exploit to work.

If you are reading this there is a good chance you have already bought a 3DS flash cart or are going to very soon. The first thing you should do is backup your nand. If anything happens to your 3DS (Such as the Blue Screen issue) recovering it may be possible, You can also downgrade back to your older system if you accidentally update your 3DS but only with a nand Hardware MOD and a good nand backup.You can backup your nand even without having bought a 3DS flash cart as long as you have a DS flash cart that works on your 3DS.

First your going to have to download Gateway release 2.0B1NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!!! 2.0B2!. Go to the gateway website (I am not allowed to link it here directly) and click on downloads. When using google chrome right click the very first download link. **THE CURRENT VERSION ON THE GATEWAY SITE IS 2.0B2, DO NOT USE THIS! KEEP READING*** and select "copy link address". Now click the URL bar (the area where you type what website you want to go to) on that same google chrome window and erase all text currently in it. Now right click and paste the link you copied earlier, at the end of the text change "2.0b2.zip" to "2.0b1.zip" and press enter. The download should start.

Open the file you just downloaded and go into the "Blue Card (R4i)" folder and copy the "GW_INSTALLER.NDS" file onto your DS flash cart micro sd card. Start it like a normal DS game and follow the on-screen instructions turning off your 3DS when prompted.

Once that is done copy the Launcher.dat file inside the GW_BETA_RELEASE_2.0b1 folder onto your 3DS sd card (the large card inside your 3DS). make sure you have at-least 1 gb of space free on your SD card, Then put the SD card back into your 3DS. Turn on your 3DS and go into Settings -> Other Settings -> profile -> HOLD L + nintendo ds profile. The Gateway screen should pop up. Once again check at the top of the bottom screen and make sure it says 2.0B1NOT 2.0B2. Go over and select "Backup system nand" and ONLY "Backup system nand" never go into any other options!. follow the on-screen instructions. This will take about 10 minutes, just leave your 3DS alone during the process. at the end you will see "Done, press A to exit" press A then turn off your 3DS by holding the power button for 15 seconds. Take the 3DS SD card (the large one inside your 3DS) and plug it into your computer again. You should see a NAND.BIN file on the sd card copy this to your computer, burn it too a disk and upload it to dropbox. You NEVER want to loose this file. While the SD Card is still connected to your computer please delete the Launcher.dat file off it now.

the NAND.BIN file is now your nand backup.

nand:

This has your entire 3DS system on it, much like the hard-drive on your computer has windows on it.​

​

nand Hardware MOD:

This involves opening your 3DS and soldering small wires in specific places on the motherboard of your 3DS. This obviously voids your warranty, however this not only lets you fix your 3DS should it ever get the Blue Screen issue but you can upgrade and downgrade your 3DS whenever you want. (Update to play a retail cartridge like pokemon and get access to the ESHOP downgrade to play homebrew and use your 3DS flash cart). Attempt this mod only if you are comfortable with soldering! this is high risk and could very easily break your 3DS. This should be considered a last effort to fix your already Blue Screened 3DS.​

​

3DS XL: HERE​

3DS: HERE​

​

Blue Screen:

This is the screen that pops up when your 3DS system has been damaged or corrupted. This is the largest threat when using 3DS Flash carts. It is now fixable but only when you have a good nand backup the nand Hardware MOD and a Raspberry pi.​

​

More info: HERE​

​

This is how it looks:​

​

​

Below is all known 3DS flash carts and the safest currently available firmware for that cart.​

​

​

WARNING AVOID THE DIAGNOSTIC TEST OPTION ON 2.0B2​

MORE INFO​

​

 

[longxa762]

What about the Brickway under MT card?

 

[Habbert]

What about the Brickway under MT card?

Defiantly, 2.0B2 but you have to run the diagnostic test about 5 times to get it to work.

DON`T ACTUALLY DO THIS!

 

[dagro]

Defiantly, 2.0B2 but you have to run the diagnostic test about 5 times to get it to work.

DON`T ACTUALLY DO THIS!

You owe me a 3DS for giving bad advice

 

[Habbert]

You owe me a 3DS for giving bad advice

lol, if anyone actually does that they deserve a bricked 3DS

 

[Foxi4]

We're actually in the process of writing a guide very similar to this one which will be on the GBATemp front page, but hey - the effort is highly appreciated.

I'd like to point out that there were a couple of reports of Gateway Firmware 2.0B1 bricking systems as well, although probably unconfirmed. That being said, officially, we recommend reverting to stable firmwares and avoiding the Beta releases altogether. As for R4i Gold, 3DS Link and Orange 3DS, firmwares 3.0-3.3 are all not recommended for use, even by the teams responsible. We recommend reverting even further back. I quote:

Attention: Please don't use the firmware V3.0~V3.3 at the moment, which might cause a potential "blue screen" risk, we are still working on a solution for this critical issue, will fix it in the coming firmware V4.0(with mutiROM feature).

http://www.r4ids.cn/r4i-download-e.htm
http://www.3dslink.com/download/

In fact, the Orange-3DS website no longer hosts 3.0 firmware. Please, for your safety, we urge you to downgrade to firmware 2.0 on clone cards other than MT-Card.

 

[masterzero]

they are just playing it safe.... if there is no brick code in version 2.0b1 neither it is on 3.0... there are people using 3.0 ( including me) without a problem , and there won't be one since like I said , the bricks are caused with the brick code only present on 2.0b2.

Also clones posted that before the brick code was discovered , so they didn't even knew the issue ( they haven't removed it yet , so before people discovering it was a brick code they wouldn't even have a clue..)

 

[AngryRussianKid]

My advice is not to use 2.0b1, there are some confirmed bricks

 

[Foxi4]

they are just playing it safe.... if there is no brick code in version 2.0b1 neither it is on 3.0... there are people using 3.0 ( including me) without a problem , and there won't be one since like I said , the bricks are caused with the brick code only present on 2.0b2.

Also clones posted that before the brick code was discovered , so they didn't even knew the issue ( they haven't removed it yet , so before people discovering it was a brick code they wouldn't even have a clue..)

Firmware 2.0B1 and its derivatives are considered unstable, they often freeze and may lead to loss of save file data and as such are not recommended - the isolated brick cases only make it worse. The official policy is to only use 2.0B1 to dump the NAND and then revert to stable firmwares.

 

[Joe88]

There is no confirmed b1 bricks
just one guy who posted on a spanish forum who said his friend bricked on it

 

[Habbert]

We're actually in the process of writing a guide very similar to this one which will be on the GBATemp front page, but hey - the effort is highly appreciated.

I'd like to point out that there were a couple of reports of Gateway Firmware 2.0B1 bricking systems as well, although probably unconfirmed. That being said, officially, we recommend reverting to stable firmwares and avoiding the Beta releases altogether. As for R4i Gold, 3DS Link and Orange 3DS, firmwares 3.0-3.3 are all not recommended for use, even by the teams responsible. We recommend reverting even further back. I quote:

In fact, the Orange-3DS website no longer hosts 3.0 firmware. Please, for your safety, we urge you to downgrade to firmware 2.0 on clone cards other than MT-Card.

Updated...

 

[Foxi4]

There is no confirmed b1 bricks
just one guy who posted on a spanish forum who said his friend bricked on it

That's true - I don't think there are any truly confirmed cases, but firmware 2.0B1 has a variety of different issues as well which the average user shouldn't have to worry about on top of the bricking. Save file corruption problems and freezing are prominent in 2.0B1 and its clone derivatives and as such, we can't officially endorse its use for purposes other than dumping the console's NAND.

Updated...

Thank you, and thanks for understanding. We really appreciate the work you've put into this guide, the safe use of flash carts on our user's devices is very dear to us.

 

[masterzero]

ye it's k if you dont' want to risk. However i'm on the spanish forum and yes the guy thought he had 2.0b1 and he had 2 in fact. About the freezing well ye that happens , save problem hasn't happened to me yet and afaik if you check before starting a long play session by using home +x and it doesn't freeze then you're safe until you power off the 3ds. Also I read to wait a bit after pressing home before pressing X and it also prevents the problem.

Well if you are not going to play anything that needs 2.0b1 of course fall back to 1.2 . I decided to play bravely next and the save file with the 131 villagers was not compatible with 1.2 , so I had to go with it.

Just think that even if it has issues there can't be any bricks with 2.0b1 or less , we would have known by now otherwhise and that version doesn't have brick code.. it's impossible to brick. Even if it bricked by any chance it wouldn't be a gateway brick with locked emmc , should be much much easier to restore

 

[Foxi4]

ye it's k if you dont' want to risk. However i'm on the spanish forum and yes the guy thought he had 2.0b1 and he had 2 in fact. About the freezing well ye that happens , save problem hasn't happened to me yet and afaik if you check before starting a long play session by using home +x and it doesn't freeze then you're safe until you power off the 3ds. Also I read to wait a bit after pressing home before pressing X and it also prevents the problem.

Well if you are not going to play anything that needs 2.0b1 of course fall back to 1.2 . I decided to play bravely next and the save file with the 131 villagers was not compatible with 1.2 , so I had to go with it.

Just think that even if it has issues there can't be any bricks with 2.0b1 or less , we would have known by now otherwhise and that version doesn't have brick code.. it's impossible to brick. Even if it bricked by any chance it wouldn't be a gateway brick with locked emmc , should be much much easier to restore

That's all very fine and dandy, but please try to understand the official side of things. As a website, we can't recommend software that we know is flawed and can malfunction. We don't want to be held accountable for someone's loss of save data or a completely accidental brick, we'd rather if the users were safe on firmware that's known to be stable and thoroughly tested. Sure, there aren't any confirmed 2.0B1 bricks, but we've heard of those occuring, so with all this in mind, we can't recommend 2.0B1. If the user wishes to risk it, he or she can even use 2.0B2 to their heart's delight - that's the user's choice and it's the user who does it at his or her own peril - the official recommendation has to be surefire though.

 

[lonesome_killer]

Chrome? Firefox is better.