Hacking Is it possible to extract from 3ds .cia files?

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Deleted User

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Hey Guys.

I've got a .cia file for a 3DS game, I've no interest in putting the game on the console as I already have it in cartridge form anyway, but I would like to take a look at the files within.

From my understanding .cia files are unencrypted .3ds files, so after the XORpad decryption and so on. Is there any way to just extract the .cia files at all?

I'd ideally like to checkout the files using EveryFileExplorer.

Is this at all possible?
 
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makerom -ciatocci <file>.cia
This'll convert to to .cci (.3ds) format

Okei great.

So the steps would be as follows.

make rom -ciatocci
Then I get a .cci file, from there I can extract that .cci file using what? 3DSExplorer perhaps?

Sorry if it sounds like I'm asking some basic questions, I scoured the forums for an answer before posting.
 

Vappy

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Yes, 3DSExplorer should be able to extract from it. I read some time ago that 3DSExplorer had some issues with extracting files, though I'm not sure how accurate or up to date that information is with more recent builds of 3DSExplorer.
 
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Deleted User

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Yes, 3DSExplorer should be able to extract from it. I read some time ago that 3DSExplorer had some issues with extracting files, though I'm not sure how accurate or up to date that information is with more recent builds of 3DSExplorer.
Fantastic. I can open it perfectly just using 'open' in 3DS explorer.
Things are a bit messy inside though.

From here I've been able to get the .cxi file, but now I'm stumped as nothing opens that (well 3ds explorer does, but all the hex/string values are 0.

This cia is already a decrypted file so I hadn't expected this.
Perhaps it would be easier to share the encryptedRomFS.bin with someone to make a Xorpad from (unfortunately I've updated my 3DS as it was necessary to play Fantasy Life), however I know this is against the forum rules so I won't request this.

Do you have any suggestions at all, I'm quite stumped now, I appreciate everything so far, you've been very helpful.
 

Vappy

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You could try extracting using ctrtool instead? If you use
Code:
ctrtool -p --romfs=romfs.bin --exefs=exefs.bin --exheader=exheader.bin game.cci
ctrtool -t romfs --romfsdir=romfs romfs.bin
That should extract the romfs contents.
 
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Deleted User

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You could try extracting using ctrtool instead? If you use
Code:
ctrtool -p --romfs=romfs.bin --exefs=exefs.bin --exheader=exheader.bin game.cci
ctrtool -t romfs --romfsdir=romfs romfs.bin
That should extract the romfs contents.

Thankyou, though I can't seem to get it to work. ctrtool -p --romfs=romfs.bin --exefs=exefs.bin --exheader=exheader.bin BravelyDefault.cci but I get an error saying unknown file.

My understanding of CMD isn't perfect, but after doing -h to check the commands, that does appear to be the correct setup, I'm unsure what I'm missing here.
 
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Still a bit stumped here, starting to think I'll need to find an entirely diffrent way of doing this, any suggestions?
 

piratesephiroth

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You say you got a CIA version of the game, so you should have downloaded an already decrypted and repacked version of the game.

In that case you don't have to use the '-p' switch with ctrtool when extracting the contents
 
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Deleted User

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Abcdfv:

I can open the .CCI file in 3DS Explorer with no problems at all, its just the insides are a bit messy, romFS.bin and so on so forth, what I'm after are things like directories, ie: Stage (or really any directory other than NCCH).

piratesephiroth.

Even in removing the -p I simply get the 'unknown file' error.

My command is like so:

ctrtool --romfs=romfs.bin --exefs=exefs.bin --exheader=exheader.bin (mygamenamehere).cci

According to the help file within ctrtool, this command should be perfectly fine, but for some reason its not, I've tried the same commmand with the .cci and the .cia version.

I'm sure its a simple case of me missing something rather obvious though, but for the life of me I can't work out what.
 
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Okei I figured out the issue.

I was, rather stupidly, not extracting the romfs and other files along with it, so the 'can't find' error, was for those.

The bad news, is that when I try to extract the exheader,romfs etc from the rom via 3ds explorer, I get asked to put in a key (or leave it blank for encryption) and if I leave it blank I get a C++ error, however I've no idea what the values it wants are.

The values thing is, likely something I just don't anything about, but since its a CIA file I figured there would be no key at all.
 

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