Hacking Backing up saves from emunand SD backup

[AdowTatep]

Guys, i formatted my emunand but i did make a backup of it completely, and now i'm trying to put my saves back on it. I've already done this before and it worked, but i don't remember what i'm doing now that isn't working and the game is loading as the files are corrupted.

There's only this game installed in the emunand right now so it's easier to know what it is.

Well, besides the emunands folders in the "nintendo 3ds" folder. The folder within it have the SAME numbers and letters sequences fyi.
Inside it there's the title and extdata folders, within their folders i could find the game's ID folder: 00126300

When i find this exact same folder in the backup files, following the exact path, i can manage to find the folders "Content" and "Data" for the same title ID. I copied the files from the "Data" folder in the backup to my emunand sd.

I'm certain that this is the right emunand folder(and not sysnand since they're different and unlinked) because it is the only one that has the game ID folder 00126300 in the SD, and it is the only place(like, the game is not in sysnand) and the only game that is installed right now.

I tested doing the same procedure to extdata folder, and for the file "0004000000126300.sav" in the root of the sd.

Tested:
Copied Data but no extdata folder and no .sav file.
Copied Data AND extdata but no .sav file
Copied everything.

Everytime the game thinks the save is corrupt.

I can't dump saves or anything like that since i already formatted my emunand.
I know this method works because i already did it twice, but now i'm forgetting something.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Have you tried going in SaveDataFiler to extract the save data instead of directly trying to load the save with the game?
Worth a shot, not sure if it'll work but yeah.

If it works for extracting it then you should be able to go in-game, let the game re-initialize save data, then re-import the save with SDF.

Copy everything, both extdata, all game data, everything.

 

[AdowTatep]

Have you tried going in SaveDataFiler to extract the save data instead of directly trying to load the save with the game?
Worth a shot, not sure if it'll work but yeah.

If it works for extracting it then you should be able to go in-game, let the game re-initialize save data, then re-import the save with SDF.

Copy everything, both extdata, all game data, everything.

I do not have CFW, still only gateway emunand with DS profile acess, i'm going to install rxTools, but i'm afraid of having to format my emunand again

 

[Deleted-236924]

For all intents and purposes, GW is a CFW. They have DevMenu.3ds as a download on their website which you can use to install SaveDataFiler (you will have to find it somewhere online on your own.)

One thing that nags me, you had the game installed as a .cia right? Or as a .3ds rom on your GW?
I know some games save to the SD card instead of the cartridge even when played as an actual cartridge, I didn't know MH4U was one of them though.

 

[AdowTatep]

For all intents and purposes, GW is a CFW. They have DevMenu.3ds as a download on their website which you can use to install SaveDataFiler (you will have to find it somewhere online on your own.)

Oh i see. I saw some tutos about SaveDataFiler talking about pasta cfw and etc so i thought i couldn't use it with GW. I'll give it a try right now

 

[Deleted-236924]

If it doesn't work, then I'm out of ideas and I'm not sure if you'll be able to get the save file back.
I'd still recommend keeping the save file somewhere safe if you really care about it, in case there -is- a way to restore it that I don't know of and someone else comes along later to help.
Depending on how much progress you had it might be easier to just start a new save file and re-do everything, which sucks, but if it's the only option then there isn't much we can do about it.

One thing I've learned in my three years of computer science is, backups backups backups! Always keep backups of things you don't want to lose.
I recommend keeping SDF on your 3DS and regularly making backups of save files for your games. Maybe also keep a copy of save files on your computer along with the SD card, in case SD card gets corrupted.
Personally I have svdt in homebrew launcher and I use it to backup my save file every time I put my 3DS down after playing a game. It is much more user-friendly than SaveDataFiler (not sure if it would work for fixing the problem you have atm though, I recommend using SDF for that) but doesn't seem to support every game. Several newer games have new encryption that isn't yet supported by homebrew, all my games work with it though so it isn't a problem for me. But you would need SaveDataFiler for any game that doesn't work on it anyway.

 

[AdowTatep]

If it doesn't work, then I'm out of ideas and I'm not sure if you'll be able to get the save file back.
I'd still recommend keeping the save file somewhere safe if you really care about it, in case there -is- a way to restore it that I don't know of and someone else comes along later to help.
Depending on how much progress you had it might be easier to just start a new save file and re-do everything, which sucks, but if it's the only option then there isn't much we can do about it.

One thing I've learned in my three years of computer science is, backups backups backups! Always keep backups of things you don't want to lose.
I recommend keeping SDF on your 3DS and regularly making backups of save files for your games. Maybe also keep a copy of save files on your computer along with the SD card, in case SD card gets corrupted.
Personally I have svdt in homebrew launcher and I use it to backup my save file every time I put my 3DS down after playing a game. It is much more user-friendly than SaveDataFiler (not sure if it would work for fixing the problem you have atm though, I recommend using SDF for that) but doesn't seem to support every game. Several newer games have new encryption that isn't yet supported by homebrew, all my games work with it though so it isn't a problem for me. But you would need SaveDataFiler for any game that doesn't work on it anyway.

But how i'd use SaveDataFiler with my files on the backup on my pc? Sorry about my dumbness, i'm just confused

 

[Deleted-236924]

You put the saves in the right folders on your 3DS's SD card, so SDF could read them. The same ones you put them in while trying to load them with the game.
-Hopefully- it can read them, saves are encrypted per-3DS and I'm not sure if formatting your 3DS changed the key and made the save files unreadable.

 

[AdowTatep]

You put the saves in the right folders on your 3DS's SD card, so SDF could read them. The same ones you put them in while trying to load them with the game.
-Hopefully- it can read them, saves are encrypted per-3DS and I'm not sure if formatting your 3DS changed the key and made the save files unreadable.

Ok, i exported the files from SDF, but they're totally different from the files i have, the ones i have "00000a" and these ones are like "card1", "card2".

Not to mention the .dat files

 

[Deleted-236924]

So you -did- manage to export saves in SaveDataFiler after copying the .sav file to your SD card, then?

Try going in-game, let the game reinitialize save data, make a new save file, etc. Just to be sure.

Then, back in SaveDataFiler, go in the Import tab, and import the save data that you exported earlier.

Import it exactly as it was exported from SDF. Leave all the folders and all the files exactly the same was as SDF put them in the /filer/ folder.

 

[AdowTatep]

No, like, i didn't copied the .sav file from the backup to the game, i entered the game, created a new save, then extracted it thinking it'd be just replace with my files and then reimport it

 

[Deleted-236924]

Ah, well, then the save data you exported from within SDF is a brand new save file which probably won't help much at all.
What happens if you copy the .sav to the right folder in your SD card? It should be something like sdmc:/Nintendo 3DS/<id1>/<id0>/title/00040000/00126300/data/00000001.sav

(Might not be 00000001.sav, copy your backup over the one that's in there and name it the same as the one that was in there. All of my games seem to be 00000001.sav though so that's probably going to be it for MH4U too.)

After copying it there, try and see if it lets you export in SDF.

 

[AdowTatep]

So i gotta do it before opening the game? So it doesn't delete the data?

Edit:
When i do this, it's shown "Broken"

 

[Deleted-236924]

In that case I'm sorry but you're most likely out of luck. :c
I recommend using SDF to back up save files regularly in the future. It backs up the contents of the save data in unencrypted form, so you will always be able to restore it, to any 3DS any emunand, any game, no matter how many times you would format emunand or change to different 3DSes, you would be able to import that save data in SaveDataFiler.

 

[AdowTatep]

In that case I'm sorry but you're most likely out of luck. :c
I recommend using SDF to back up save files regularly in the future. It backs up the contents of the save data in unencrypted form, so you will always be able to restore it, to any 3DS any emunand, any game, no matter how many times you would format emunand or change to different 3DSes, you would be able to import that save data in SaveDataFiler.

There's somehow to decrypt the save on my pc? I was already in the end of 4 Stars missions

 

[Deleted-236924]

I'll look into it, but I don't think you would be able to decrypt it unless you had the encryption key/unique id/etc. that was used by your nand before you formatted it.

 

[AdowTatep]

I'll look into it, but I don't think you would be able to decrypt it unless you had the encryption key/unique id/etc. that was used by your nand before you formatted it.

Well, i read that if the folder with numbers and letters are the same in the backup and in your SD, i don't have this unique key since it's already using it, and they're the same

 

[Deleted-236924]

You said that you formatted emunand, yeah?
And you also said you made a backup before formatting it, yeah?

I would recommend restoring that backup with emunand tool to go back to before you formatted emunand. Then it -might- let you load the save file normally.

Did you backup the whole Nintendo 3DS folder along with backing up the emunand? You would most likely have to restore that folder along with restoring the emunand backup to make sure the game would be recognized and the save file would be recognized. Then it -should- let you export save file with SDF.

Unless by backing up emunand you meant only backing up the Nintendo 3DS folder, and not extracting emunand.bin from the SD card?
And are you 100% positive that your emunand, after formatting it, still has the exact same folder in /Nintendo 3DS/ ?

 

[AdowTatep]

You said that you formatted emunand, yeah?
And you also said you made a backup before formatting it, yeah?

I would recommend restoring that backup with emunand tool to go back to before you formatted emunand. Then it -might- let you load the save file normally.

Did you backup the whole Nintendo 3DS folder along with backing up the emunand? You would most likely have to restore that folder along with restoring the emunand backup to make sure the game would be recognized and the save file would be recognized. Then it -should- let you export save file with SDF.

Unless by backing up emunand you meant only backing up the Nintendo 3DS folder, and not extracting emunand.bin from the SD card?
And are you 100% positive that your emunand, after formatting it, still has the exact same folder in /Nintendo 3DS/ ?

I only have a backup of the entire SD when i had this emunand, not the .bit of it :/

D:

Well, i guess i'll have to start everything from scratch. Thanks a lot for your help though, little friend.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Yeah, if you had the game installed on emunand as .cia, it is encrypted with a key stored within the nand.

We know how to generate xorpads and decrypt nand images which lets us browse the files in the nand image, I'm not sure if we know which file is used for encrypting save files and games however.
But even if we could extract that file from the nand, I have no idea if we know how to actually use it to decrypt save files (chances are MH4U uses 6.x save encryption, and last I heard we didn't understand completely how that encryption works yet, from a post dated back from February 2015.)

But even if we could extract that key and decrypt the save, well, you would need an actual backup of your emunand partition (emunand.bin) before you had formatted it to actually get the key from it. Unfortunate, but at least now hopefully you will start regularly making and keeping backups of important save files you don't want to lose.