Hacking [QUESTION] Can emuNAND be used as a backup sysNAND?

[mokonayoshi]

Well, today I went full retarded and updated an old 3DS XL sysNAND using a rom. Silly me. Full brick. Also, my first time bricking something! Yay! A very good record for somebody who was softmodding since 2008.
Anyways, searching through my files I discovered I have an old emuNAND backup of the console.

The question is: can I use this emuNAND backup (a 954 MB bin file made with Gateway and extracted with emuNANDTool) to recover the console or I'm just plain screwed? The last time I used this console was to extract the secureinfo file and I wanted to sell it now, I updated it to 9.2 using a Smash Bros v02 rom because I couldn't find my Smash catridge (I wanted to leave it at least with 8.0 to run a clean cia of MonHun4 and Pokemon OR) but I didn't wanted to use the official update because I wanted to leave it with an usable firmware. I was thinking about sending it to the official Customer Service in my country and say "I just updated it and it blackscreened", hoping they don't ask me an eye and a leg for the repair (if it is even repairable, obviously, maybe they're going to laugh in my face if anything).

Also kids, remember, ALWAYS make a backup of everything you're doing, don't be dumb. And most importantly, PUT IT IN A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN FIND IT EASILY, I had to search through my Dropbox forever to find the file.

 

[Luckkill4u]

Well I assume a version of your NAND is in your emuNAND. I'm not sure if you could use it to restore your sysNAND if you did the NAND Access USB Mod though.

 

[Deleted-19228]

emunand is literally the sysnand just located in another area. I regularly flash my emunand to sysnand and vice versa.

 

[Arkansaw]

unless you have a hardmod, flashing an updated emunand into sysnand might lead to other problems

 

[mokonayoshi]

Well, it's a backup from december 2014, and I remember I just started to use updates from catridges and CIAs this year, when my N3DS arrived from Japan.

I guess there's hope for a revival, but what would Tech Service say about this? I want to take it there just for being curious. I wonder if they're capable of even doing something about it.

 

[mvmiranda]

Well, it's a backup from december 2014, and I remember I just started to use updates from catridges and CIAs this year, when my N3DS arrived from Japan.

I guess there's hope for a revival, but what would Tech Service say about this? I want to take it there just for being curious. I wonder if they're capable of even doing something about it.

Well, They'll surely notice you've "tampered" your console. Assuming they accept to "fix" your console, I guess they'll charge you something AND will flash your console to the latest firmware.

So, try it at home: do a NAND hard mod and flash your emuNAND back to your console sysNAND.

If that doesn't work for you, then reach out to the Ninty support

 

[Hammyface]

Why does updating the sysNAND brick the system anyway? I would have thought it would just update your system and lock you out of the Gateway exploits. What causes it to brick?

 

[nastys]

You can restore an emunand backup to sysnand, but since you need a hard mod anyway, backup your bricked nand first.

 

[Deleted-19228]

Why does updating the sysNAND brick the system anyway? I would have thought it would just update your system and lock you out of the Gateway exploits. What causes it to brick?

I'm guessing he used an out of region rom.

 

[mokonayoshi]

Why does updating the sysNAND brick the system anyway? I would have thought it would just update your system and lock you out of the Gateway exploits. What causes it to brick?

Long story short: I wanted to sell my o3DSXL in 4.5, so I installed some clean CIAs to sell it "bundled". I wanted to update it to at least 8.0 so Pokemon ORAS and MonHun would work but I couldn't find my Smash cartridge. I used my sysNAND in Gateway mode (the same I did to install the CIAs) and a Smash 3DS rom to update it to 9.2. It was too late when I remembered the stuff I had to do to update my jap 3DS with NTR debugger and stuff and it was just there asking me to restart.

TL;DR unsigned CIA updates or cartridge updates from roms in sysNAND kill the console, but work on emuNAND just fine.

Well, They'll surely notice you've "tampered" your console. Assuming they accept to "fix" your console, I guess they'll charge you something AND will flash your console to the latest firmware.

So, try it at home: do a NAND hard mod and flash your emuNAND back to your console sysNAND.

If that doesn't work for you, then reach out to the Ninty support

But can they check if I opened my console? If so, can they just refuse to do it? I wanted to sell it anyways (and having it dead I can rest safe about the secureinfo file) but maybe I can practice my soldering skill with this. So, what'cha say, hardmod or Ninty support?

 

[mvmiranda]

Long story short: I wanted to sell my o3DSXL in 4.5, so I installed some clean CIAs to sell it "bundled". I wanted to update it to at least 8.0 so Pokemon ORAS and MonHun would work but I couldn't find my Smash cartridge. I used my sysNAND in Gateway mode (the same I did to install the CIAs) and a Smash 3DS rom to update it to 9.2. It was too late when I remembered the stuff I had to do to update my jap 3DS with NTR debugger and stuff and it was just there asking me to restart.

TL;DR unsigned CIA updates or cartridge updates from roms in sysNAND kill the console, but work on emuNAND just fine.



But can they check if I opened my console? If so, can they just refuse to do it? I wanted to sell it anyways (and having it dead I can rest safe about the secureinfo file) but maybe I can practice my soldering skill with this. So, what'cha say, hardmod or Ninty support?

Well, I guess they can "tell you had tampered" by the "kind" of the brick or something like this...
So, my advise is for you to try it at home before...

Soldering tips:
1) Do not use a solder iron that heats much
2) Use flux in the motherboard to help you solder. Also, pre solder the motherboard pads (the ones you need to solder the wires to)
3) Pre solder your wires, it'll help you solder better (specially if you followed tip 2)
4) keep it clean, I mean, gently wipe clean the board with a swab and some Isopropyl alcohol after you solder it (including the pre solder, tip 2)
5) DO NOT RUSH! You literally have the rest of your time to make this work and just a couple of rushed seconds to screw up for good

Good luck!

 

[forcefield]

TL;DR unsigned CIA updates or cartridge updates from roms in sysNAND kill the console, but work on emuNAND just fine.

You can't jump from 4.5 sysnand directly to 9.2 from rom cartridge update with Gw. Tried it myself (I got a nand mod) it just bricks sysnand because it seems Gw interferes with firm partitions when updating.
What I did to successfully update from 4.5 sysnand to 9.2 :
1 - Format 4.5 emuNAND on my 4.5 3ds with Gateway & update the emuNAND with a rom update or CIAs from 3dnus to 9.2.
2 - Obtain firm0.bin & firm1.bin (or emu_firm0.bin & emu_firm1.bin) from a friend's 9.2 3ds using RxTools.
3 - Inject firm0.bin & firm1.bin from (or emu_firm0.bin & emu_firm1.bin) to my 9.2 emuNAND 3ds with RxTools.
4 - Backup emuNAND to obtain emuNAND.bin image and flash it to sysNAND.

If you happen to nand-mod your 3ds to restore a 4.5 image, you can try what I did.

 

[hippy dave]

^ I can confirm that works, tho I think you only need firm0.bin as the safe mode firmware hasn't changed since about 2.x/3.x - having said that, I haven't tested my recovery mode.

 

[mokonayoshi]

Well, first things first, I've looked at some hardmod videos and doesn't look that hard, it's just 4 wires, and everything looks like easy things to find in a regular electronics store. However, the usage of the PC seems a bit weird, but anyways the console is already dead, I don't really mind what gonna happens now.
And just for the record, I updated to 8.0.1 using Smash before and downgraded back to 4.2 just for the sake of it, but I couldn't find my cartridge yesterday and screwed it up. Damn you Sakurai.

 

[forcefield]

However, the usage of the PC seems a bit weird, but anyways the console is already dead, I don't really mind what gonna happens now.

For the PC part, soldering the 4 wires to a microSD SD card Adapter worked just fine for me. (Having no SD port on my computer, I had to connect it to a SD-to-USB adapter).
Once everything is connected, put your 3ds on. It should come up with a Bluescreen with a Bootrom error. The device should be recognized by your computer and Win32 Disk Imager.
You can then use Win32 Disk Imager to backup and flash your nand with options "Read" and "Write".

^ I can confirm that works, tho I think you only need firm0.bin as the safe mode firmware hasn't changed since about 2.x/3.x - having said that, I haven't tested my recovery mode.

I assumed you would need both. My recovery mode works fine btw.