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.

 

[Janthran]

Uh.. If you hit home and cancel after GW_Installer freezes, it'll un-freeze it. If you went to the home menu then I don't know what to do for you

 

[SirGray]

It seemed to have worked so far. Still working on it.

 

[SirGray]

Okay so I got the big blue menu installed. But when I restarted my 3ds it told me failed to open application please reinstall from nintendo. Do I have to go into the setting/profile every time I restart my device?


Cause it's really annoying. I go to settings/profile and it fails to do the whitescreen on the bottom and load the cfw. 1 every 20 tries seems to load the cfw properly.

 

[varua1986]

Hey guys, having trouble launching the browser exploit.

I have launcher.dat and the downgrade file for my region on my sd card root from the gateway website.

Cleared cookies and history with wifi off. Closed the browser and re-enabled wifi and went to go.gateway-3ds.com

When i load this, it says gateway is loading on the bottom screen before crashing and freezing my 3ds.

Can someone help me out

 

[daaanieeel]

Please help, I have 3DS USA in 9.2, put the Launcher and Gateway.dg from USA on the root but when I try to downgrade it says that the Gateway.dg it's not from my region, I try so many times but nothing.

 

[coolfuze]

Please help, I have 3DS USA in 9.2, put the Launcher and Gateway.dg from USA on the root but when I try to downgrade it says that the Gateway.dg it's not from my region, I try so many times but nothing.

Verify your dg file with hashtab and make sure the md5 is 425234a6d4faf5caf63d0ca620631d79
If not download it again

 

[mid-kid]

Here goes an alternative for drag_emunand_here.bat on linux:

fallocate -l 512 REDNAND.bin  # Or just create a blank 512 byte long file another way (dd, for example)
cat emuNand.bin >> REDNAND.bin

(Just 2 commands and no weird echo loop... Beat that! )

For backing up and restoring the emuNand partition, here's how: http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/3DS_Ha...my_EmuNAND_partition_located_on_my_SD_card.3F

ctrclient/run.bat just work well enough with wine/wineconsole.

 

[iZackefx]

Hello, can anyone please help? I think I've done everything correctly, but whenever I go to the exploit through DS Profile I get a permanent blue screen.. Help!!

 

[Janthran]

Hello, can anyone please help? I think I've done everything correctly, but whenever I go to the exploit through DS Profile I get a permanent blue screen.. Help!!

As far as I can tell, it just does that sometimes. Keep trying.

 

[KingAsix]

How can I find my 3DS's IP Address cause the network tool isnt showing it

EDIT - Nevermind...A quick restart of my router did the job

 

[MrDaveIsAwesome]

EDIT: WHooooops, wrong thread!

 

[KingAsix]

I want to mention (and I think it should be put somewhere in the 1st post for those having problems) that when I just couldn't boot into CFW I just redid part 2 and now I boot into CFW almost every time (its only failed twice since)

 

[benserwa]

I'm having trouble... when I try to launch any software installed from a cia, the 3DS logo with the animated red waves stays and the software never launches.

 

[75mak]

I have a new 3ds xl on version 4.3 firmware. I wish to install CFW

Is this the guide I should use?

Or is there another guide more specific to my circumstances?

will I lose my pre installed game super mario 3d land by following thgis guide?

thanks in advance

 

[coolfuze]

I have a new 3ds xl on version 4.3 firmware. I wish to install CFW

Is this the guide I should use?

Or is there another guide more specific to my circumstances?

will I lose my pre installed game super mario 3d land by following thgis guide?

thanks in advance

You have to be more specific, when people say new here they don't mean they bought it new or second hand, they mean it's the latest model 3ds with the dual analogs. If that is the case I don't think cfw is possible on it.

 

[75mak]

You have to be more specific, when people say new here they don't mean they bought it new or second hand, they mean it's the latest model 3ds with the dual analogs. If that is the case I don't think cfw is possible on it.

sorry about that, I meant a standard 3ds XL that was bought brand new with 4.3 and mario land 3d pre-installed.

 

[zackworldzack]

i can do that if my 3ds version is 3.1 ?

 

[eggwolio]

I just finished the downgrade and was looking at the next steps. My L button doesn't work. Is there any way to finish this project without a working L button?

 

[Hammyface]

I got almost all the way to the end but I cannot get Palantine CFW to connect to the internet.

I can get it to eventually boot after rebooting a bunch of times and trying over and over. But once it finally launches, I cannot get it to connect to the internet at all. Why is this? Thanks!

 

[Almamu]

I got almost all the way to the end but I cannot get Palantine CFW to connect to the internet.

I can get it to eventually boot after rebooting a bunch of times and trying over and over. But once it finally launches, I cannot get it to connect to the internet at all. Why is this? Thanks!

Im having the same problem, doing a ping to the console just shows "unreachable host" (when pinging it on the 4.5OFW it answers without problem). I'm going to test it with a different access point in some hours...

EDIT: I've tried with a different router, It looks like the CFW ignores the IP settings in the Networking configuration, so I had to look at the DHCP table of my router. Still no success, "ctrclient: failed to connect" when trying to send BlueBigMenu.cia to the console. It answers correctly to pings but no luck installing any .CIA

EDIT2: Finally got it working! Formated emuNAND again and repeated the process worked this time, looks like the CFW's NAND was not correct at all.