Hacking .CIAs, EmuNAND, a New SD Card, and Losing Freaking Everything

[Sirius64]

So... I'd heard that transferring emuNAND between SD cards would carry over .CIA installations. Mine did not, and I now need to spend roughly five hours reinstalling them.

Here's what I did:
Backed up emuNAND from original SD using EmuNAND Tool
Copied files from old SD to HDD
Formatted new SD in Gateway Launcher, launched new emuNAND, turned off 3DS
Restored emuNAND backup to new SD using EmuNAND Tool
Copied files from HDD to new SD

Did I miss something? Was I meant to do this in a certain order?

Oddly, my eShop purchases are still on the new emuNAND, as well as their saves. I'm hoping the .CIA saves still work...

 

[Relys]

keyY in moveable.sed only changes when you format System Memory from the System Settings. If you have done this in emunand then the keys will change. You can format emunand through Gateway menu as many times as you want and the keys will remain the same since all that it's doing is copying 1:1 NAND over to SD card.

 

[Sirius64]

keyY in moveable.sed only changes when you format System Memory from the System Settings. If you have done this in emunand then the keys will change. You can format emunand through Gateway menu as many times as you want and the keys will remain the same since all that it's doing is copying 1:1 NAND over to SD card.

I'm not following. I did format through the Gateway menu, didn't touch system settings.

 

[piratesephiroth]

Yeah that should have worked fine.
There was a guy recently that had the same trouble.
Apparently he fixed it by deleting the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder from the SD card and letting the 3DS create the management information again.
Then he restored his old files again and it magically worked.

 

[gamesquest1]

before you copy all your files back on, you first delete the newly created "nintendo 3DS" folder from the new SD card, then you copy the old one back on, assuming you used the same emunand as the content was originally installed on they will now show up fine

basically the steps are
1. backup your emunand and SD card contents to your PC
2. copy the launcher.dat onto the new SD card
3. pick format emunand in the gateway menu
4. turn off 3ds, insert SD into computer, restore your emunand, delete everything from the SD card and copy your original contents back on

basically if you insert a blank SD it creates a new folder structure on the SD card, this is different than the old folder layout which causes issues, just delete the newly created layout and copy the old one and it will use the old one instead

 

[Pitalacta]

Yeah that should have worked fine.
There was a guy recently that had the same trouble.
Apparently he fixed it by deleting the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder from the SD card and letting the 3DS create the management information again.

Yeah, that was me.
Try this OP, it might work for you too.
Also, don't replace anything when you restore your old files.

 

[quantumboy]

So... I'd heard that transferring emuNAND between SD cards would carry over .CIA installations. Mine did not, and I now need to spend roughly five hours reinstalling them.

Here's what I did:
Backed up emuNAND from original SD using EmuNAND Tool
Copied files from old SD to HDD
Formatted new SD in Gateway Launcher, launched new emuNAND, turned off 3DS
Restored emuNAND backup to new SD using EmuNAND Tool
Copied files from HDD to new SD

Did I miss something? Was I meant to do this in a certain order?

Oddly, my eShop purchases are still on the new emuNAND, as well as their saves. I'm hoping the .CIA saves still work...

I had the same problem but I figured it out after some messing around, if you are still having trouble I could explain, but its not super easy to convey in plain text.

 

[piratesephiroth]

With me it always worked without issues, transfering my emunand between different SD cards and from emunand to CFW and back.

 

[quantumboy]

basically every time I changed the sd card the files needed to be moved manually from 2 levels down in nintendo 3ds dir to the new card after the emunand was recovered, took a me a while to figure that out

 

[Sirius64]

I really appreciate the replies. Thank you all so much!

Yeah that should have worked fine.
There was a guy recently that had the same trouble.
Apparently he fixed it by deleting the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder from the SD card and letting the 3DS create the management information again.
Then he restored his old files again and it magically worked.

Yeah, that was me.
Try this OP, it might work for you too.
Also, don't replace anything when you restore your old files.

No joy.
Glad it worked out for you, though.

before you copy all your files back on, you first delete the newly created "nintendo 3DS" folder from the new SD card, then you copy the old one back on, assuming you used the same emunand as the content was originally installed on they will now show up fine

basically the steps are
1. backup your emunand and SD card contents to your PC
2. copy the launcher.dat onto the new SD card
3. pick format emunand in the gateway menu
4. turn off 3ds, insert SD into computer, restore your emunand, delete everything from the SD card and copy your original contents back on

basically if you insert a blank SD it creates a new folder structure on the SD card, this is different than the old folder layout which causes issues, just delete the newly created layout and copy the old one and it will use the old one instead

The first time I did this, I didn't think to not boot into the new emuNAND before restoring mine. I tried deleting everything on the SD card the first time; then I did a fresh format and restored without booting, then copied files over and booted. Still, no joy.

I did notice something odd, though. The second time I did this, it kept my premium theme. None of the others were selectable from the menu, but the theme I had applied was still active. So, on my third attempt, after formatting/restoring/copying/booting, I went into the DevMenu to see what tickets carried over. I had less than half of what I had before.
I'm not sure where the tickets the DevMenu reads are stored on the 3DS, but I remember that the Wii stored tickets on its NAND, even when the software was uninstalled. Is there something wrong with my backup, or is this normal?

I had the same problem but I figured it out after some messing around, if you are still having trouble I could explain, but its not super easy to convey in plain text.

basically every time I changed the sd card the files needed to be moved manually from 2 levels down in nintendo 3ds dir to the new card after the emunand was recovered, took a me a while to figure that out

This sounds promising, though I'm not sure what you mean by "2 levels down". Two folders deeper?
I'm still not entirely clear on how the filesystem's laid out, as I haven't needed to dig around in there much before now. Would you mind going into further detail?

 

[quantumboy]

I really appreciate the replies. Thank you all so much!




No joy.
Glad it worked out for you, though.



The first time I did this, I didn't think to not boot into the new emuNAND before restoring mine. I tried deleting everything on the SD card the first time; then I did a fresh format and restored without booting, then copied files over and booted. Still, no joy.

I did notice something odd, though. The second time I did this, it kept my premium theme. None of the others were selectable from the menu, but the theme I had applied was still active. So, on my third attempt, after formatting/restoring/copying/booting, I went into the DevMenu to see what tickets carried over. I had less than half of what I had before.
I'm not sure where the tickets the DevMenu reads are stored on the 3DS, but I remember that the Wii stored tickets on its NAND, even when the software was uninstalled. Is there something wrong with my backup, or is this normal?




This sounds promising, though I'm not sure what you mean by "2 levels down". Two folders deeper?
I'm still not entirely clear on how the filesystem's laid out, as I haven't needed to dig around in there much before now. Would you mind going into further detail?

ya two folders deeper

 

[Sirius64]

Where, then?

My card is currently like this:

E:\Nintendo 3DS\297d1cf0f2fb3f7c77f3304caa2ef77b\200f00d5200200005344553100744a45\
Frome here, three folders:
dbs
extdata
title

What do you mean for me to do with them?

 

[quantumboy]

ok so take that stuff from your old card( dbs ext title) and copy it to your new one in the similar but new parent directory location that was created when the software was made on your new card.
basically your new card should have just the gateway launcher and the emunand partition, after 3ds creates the files, power off and put the files in, then boot emunand, it should all be back (still wrapped) but good

 

[Sirius64]

I see.

That's what Piratesephiroth and Pitalaca recommended. I tried. It didn't work.

I appreciate the help, though! Thanks.

 

[quantumboy]

I see.

That's what Piratesephiroth and Pitalaca recommended. I tried. It didn't work.

I appreciate the help, though! Thanks.

Sorry it didn't work

 

[Pitalacta]

I see.

That's what Piratesephiroth and Pitalaca recommended. I tried. It didn't work.

I appreciate the help, though! Thanks.

Damn, I like your username and avatar so much, I wish I could help you.
After launching both sysnand and emunand, how many folders are there inside the Nintendo 3ds folder?

 

[Sirius64]

Damn, I like your username and avatar so much, I wish I could help you.
After launching both sysnand and emunand, how many folders are there inside the Nintendo 3ds folder?

Well, that's sweet of you. Thanks.

On a fresh format, there are two: 23e04cd0b9d992593f25438e5f02c9c2 (SysNAND) and 297d1cf0f2fb3f7c77f3304caa2ef77b (EmuNAND).
In those are the three folders for each NAND: dbs, extdata, and title.

I've found something interesting, though.

Just copying over my "title" and "dbs" folders only carries over my actual eShop purchases, none of my .CIA installations. Replacing the new "extdata" with the old one just makes its respecting NAND generate a new folder with a new "extdata."
Reinstalling the .CIA makes a new installation, of course. It installs fine, and the game's playable, but I lose the hours of progress in my save.
Here's the interesting bit:
Installing the .CIA, and then moving my title folder over makes the game disappear from the menu. Installing the .CIA, and then replacing only the new save file with the old one works perfectly. No corrupt save message, no converting, no nothing. So far I've reinstalled and successfully replaced .SAVs for Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Project X Zone, without issue.

I'll still have to wait ages to reinstall about 26GB of .CIAs (Which is especially painful because my new, bigger SD card averages at about 2.5MB/s write speed), and now I've wasted hours formatting, copying my old "title" folder to different folders, and reformatting... but now I'm not stuck losing all of my progress. I don't have to worry about losing my saves when I inevitably replace this awful SD card.

I think I can live with this.

Thank you all so much for your help. I hope this thread is useful for someone else.
Remember to keep your .CIAs and .SAVs backed up.

 

[Pitalacta]

That's great that you can restore your save files.
Very weird problem though.