Arm9loaderhax coupled with AuReiNand gives us lucky 3DS users the amazing option of running Custom Firmware on sysnand. The advantages of this are as follows:

• Much faster and more reliable CFW cold booting compared to menuhax + emunand
• Slightly faster CFW cold booting compared to arm9loaderhax + emunand
• Using 2GB of SD card space for emunand is no longer needed (but still recommended to keep a 9.2 emunand around)
• GBA ROMs only need to be installed once, since they run from sysnand now!

Most CFW users will already have a 9.2 sysnand which is usually kept as vanilla as possible, and then an emunand running a higher FW version (i.e. 10.5) booted through CFW. With arm9loaderhax and AuReiNand, we can now swap the firmware versions over so 10.5 runs directly on SysNand, and EmuNand is used only when 9.2 is really needed (e.g. for running decrypt9). This tutorial will walk you through the process of swapping your sysnand and emunand, and changing your arm9loaderhax to use AuReiNand in order to cold boot directly to a patched 10.5 sysnand.

This tutorial assumes the following:

• You have a 9.2 or below sysnand and CFW running an emunand of a higher firmware version
• You know how to verify a SysNAND backup using md5
• You know how to back up your sysnand, emunand and SD card
• You know how to access hax to get to the Homebrew Launcher
• You know how to install homebrew apps on your 3DS
• You know how to install CIAs
• You have already captured your OTP and built an arm9loaderhax installer
• You have FBI installed on your sysnand

I won’t explain how to do all of these as this guide is intended to be an overview of the process I used to swap my sysnand and emunand.


If you follow this guide and do not have a valid sysnand backup, you risk bricking your console and this may not be recoverable without a hardmod.

This guide involves updating your sysnand to 10.5. If you don’t have a reliable way of downgrading to 9.2 if you need to, don’t follow this guide. This means you need to be able to use arm9loaderhax to boot CFW, or have a hardmod and a NAND backup, if you want to undo this.

Do not attempt this procedure without a working arm9loaderhax installer. A hardmod is not required but is recommended.


You will need:

• Homebrew hax already set up and running on your sysnand
• CFW already installed with a working emunand
• Decrypt9
• EmuNAND9
• MiniPasta
  
• AuReiNand mod (do not install this yet)

If you already have arm9loaderhax set up to boot your emunand, you will need to remove it. This is because one of the needed tools, decrypt9, can only run from sysnand. Arm9loaderhax will prevent you from entering sysnand at all, so will need to be removed. I did this by restoring a vanilla 9.2 sysnand backup which I took from the console prior to installing arm9loaderhax.


Stage 0: Make a backup of your SysNand, EmuNand and 3DS SD card

Seriously, you’ll be glad you did if something goes wrong. This process involves a lot of messing around with both sysnand and emunand.


Stage 1: Dump EmuNAND partitions

1. Boot your 3DS to sysnand
2. Launch hax and run MiniPasta
3. When back at sysnand, launch hax and run Decrypt9
4. Go to “EmuNAND Options” and then “Partition Dump”
5. Dump each of the partitions with the exception of FIRM0 and FIRM1, pressing B after each one to return to the menu and dump the next partition
6. Press START to quit Decrypt9, and reboot back to sysnand

Stage 2: Downgrade EmuNand to 9.2

1. From sysnand, launch hax and run MiniPasta
2. When back at sysnand, launch hax and run EmuNAND9
3. Choose “EmuNAND Manager Options” and then choose “Clone SysNAND to EmuNAND”
4. Once this is complete, press START to reboot
5. From sysnand, launch hax and run TinyFormat to format SysNand and unlink NANDs
6. Once the system reboots, complete the initial setup without linking NNID
7. Once you are at the home menu, set your sysnand theme to red
8. Launch hax and run CFW to get into emunand
9. Once in emunand, set the theme to blue
10. Power off the 3DS

At this point, your sysnand and emunand should both be on 9.2, and you should have dumps of your original emunand. The purpose of setting the NAND colours to red and blue is to ensure you can tell which NAND you are in, since they are both at this stage running the same FW version and will look identical.


Stage 3: Update SysNand to AuReiNand CFW 10.5

1. Take out your 3DS SD card and put it in your computer
2. Replace the rei folder, arm9loaderhax.bin and ReiNand.dat in the root of your SD card with the ones from AuReiNand.
3. In the new rei folder on your SD card, place the firmware.bin and firmware90.bin from the FIRMs archive linked from the AuReiNand GitHib page
4. Create an empty file on the SD card in the /rei folder called updatedsysnand
5. Put your SD card back in your 3DS and boot it up to sysnand
6. Launch hax and run arm9loaderhax.3dsx to install the loader
7. If you get stuck on a message saying “Exploiting arm9…”, you can safely reboot your 3DS
8. The 3DS will reboot once this process is complete
9. You should now be in sysnand but running ReiNand. Verify that arm9loaderhax has been installed by powering off your 3DS, removing the SD card and powering on again. Your system should hang on a black screen because the arm9payload is not available. If your 3DS boots to sysnand without the SD card inserted, this means that arm9loaderhax has not been installed properly and you MUST NOT proceed
10. Once you have verified that arm9loaderhax is working, replace the SD card and power on your 3DS to boot to sysnand
11. Open System Settings set up your Internet connection
12. Update to 10.5 (seriously, don’t do it unless you’re certain the CFW is running by doing the SD card removal test in step 9. If you update to 10.5 without CFW up and running, you risk not being able to run any unsigned code, meaning you could end up stuck on 10.5 with no CFW)
13. Once the update is complete and the system has rebooted, enter System Settings to verify that you are now on 10.5

Step 4: Reinject emunand partitions to sysnand

This stage will make your new 10.5 sysnand how your emunand used to be

1. Power off the 3DS
2. While holding L, power the 3DS back on. This will boot into the 9.2 emunand
3. Launch hax, and run Decrypt9
4. Choose “SysNAND Options” and then “Partition Inject”
5. Inject each of the partitions in turn, with the exception of FIRM0 and FIRM1, pressing B after each one to return to the menu and inject the next partition
6. Press START to quit Decrypt9 and reboot back to SysNand.

If everything went according to plan, you should be looking at your sysnand but with all your CIAs showing. In my case, they were all back in presents and out of their folders which was a mild inconvenience. I also lost my custom theme, so that had to be reinstalled.


Final checks

1. Launch a CIA from sysnand to verify that it works. Successful launching of a CIA will indicate that the sysnand CFW is working
2. Enter System Settings from sysnand to confirm that you are on 10.5
3. Power off your 3DS, and power it back on while holding L. You should then be booted to your emunand, which will resemble your sysnand before the swap over
4. Enter System Settings from emunand to confirm that it is on 9.2
5. Now, do another sysnand, emunand and SD backup!

 

[dkabot]

kind of wonder if updating sysnand with emunand injections would work out correctly or if it would corrupt sysnand since it now has the emunand partitions :/

I updated it to 10.5 just fine. A NAND is a NAND, and the only issues I recall involved FIRM (or maybe NATIVE_FIRM, either way we don't care)

 

[Svaethier]

I updated it to 10.5 just fine. A NAND is a NAND, and the only issues I recall involved FIRM (or maybe NATIVE_FIRM, either way we don't care)

ah,well my sysnand is already 10.5 from the injections, but if updating works then a restoration will work as well.

 

[hackotedelaplaqu]

I did the swap too (based on @dkabot simplified instructions). All went right ! Enjoying permaCFW now.

 

[jon2491]

I saw a tutorial in another site which says that inyecting 10.5 emunand's ctrnand in 9.2 is enough to have 10.5 sysnand with cfw. Can anyone confirm it?

Edit: Well, I can confirm it works. Maybe I'm missing something for not doing all those OP steps but it seems to work.

 

[ITJesse]

From sysnand, launch hax and run TinyFormat to format SysNand and unlink NANDs

If you run TinyFormat to format SysNand and unlink NANDs with your SD out, you won't loss anything in your emunand.
When the swap finish, everything which installed in your emunand before will stay in your sysnand now, include custom themes, games...all the thing.

 

[mashers]

If you run TinyFormat to format SysNand and unlink NANDs with your SD out, you won't loss anything in your emunand.
When the swap finish, everything which installed in your emunand before will stay in your sysnand now, include custom themes, games...all the thing.

Oh is this why I lost my theme, my games came out of their folders and went back into presents? I thought TinyFormat would have no effect at all on EmuNAND if it's run from SysNAND, but I suppose if they're linked it's reasonable to assume it might change some things. In any case, my saves and the games themselves were preserved on EmuNAND so it wasn't really a problem.

 

[dkabot]

I saw a tutorial in another site which says that inyecting 10.5 emunand's ctrnand in 9.2 is enough to have 10.5 sysnand with cfw. Can anyone confirm it?

Edit: Well, I can confirm it works. Maybe I'm missing something for not doing all those OP steps but it seems to work.

Yeah, you can probably simplify it a good chunk more, I took the advice of playing it safe (though not overly/unnecessarily so).
It seems the AGB Save partition from EmuNAND had my GBA saves, though, as they stayed when I did it all.

 

[Audioboxer]

I can confirm swapping them works, but I followed a slightly simpler set of steps.

Start: AiReiNAND latest is running thorough A9LH, 9.2 SysNAND and 10.X EmuNAND. Backups exist of both for safety but are not directly used should it work.

• Use SysUpdater on EmuNAND to downgrade it to 9.2
• Run SysNand with 9.0 FIRM (hold L on boot, needs latest AuRei)
• Open Decrypt9, backup all partitions of both NANDs that aren't FIRM
• Inject SysNand partitions into EmuNAND
• (Optional) Reboot now to make sure it worked, since all you changed so far is EmuNAND
• Inject EmuNAND partitions into SysNand
• Eject SD or shut down and add updatedsysnand flag to rei folder on SD
• (Re)Boot, update SysNand, and you're done

Of course, there's only one safety check in these steps, but so long as you're sure of what you're doing it's pretty easy.

Cheers. Does this make it so no NAND unlinking is needed? As I assume the 3DS folders on the sdcard just get switched around? My NNID is linked on emunand and I would think doing this would just carry that link over to sysnand.

 

[Supster131]

Cheers. Does this make it so no NAND unlinking is needed? As I assume the 3DS folders on the sdcard just get switched around? My NNID is linked on emunand and I would think doing this would just carry that link over to sysnand.

NANDs will stay unlinked (if you simply switch your NANDs around).

But yeah, everything from your emuNAND gets transferred to your sysNAND (including your NNID). You don't need to downgrade your emuNAND though, simply open decrypt9 on sysNAND (while it's on 9.2) and switch the partitions around.

 

[Audioboxer]

NANDs will stay unlinked (if you simply switch your NANDs around).

But yeah, everything from your emuNAND gets transferred to your sysNAND (including your NNID). You don't need to downgrade your emuNAND though, simply open decrypt9 on sysNAND (while it's on 9.2) and switch the partitions around.

I've downgraded it anyway. Dumping partitions just now (minus FIRM0 and FIRM1).

 

[dkabot]

I've downgraded it anyway. Dumping partitions just now (minus FIRM0 and FIRM1).

I would imagine the same linked/unlinked caveats would apply if they were already linked.
Of course, with arm9loaderhax, you're basically not going to boot the now-EmuNAND with (presumably) lower firmware unless you know you're going to, so I guess it's slightly better?

 

[Audioboxer]

I would imagine the same linked/unlinked caveats would apply if they were already linked.
Of course, with arm9loaderhax, you're basically not going to boot the now-EmuNAND with (presumably) lower firmware unless you know you're going to, so I guess it's slightly better?

Nah they aren't linked (NANDs). Only my emunand is tied to NNID as well.

 

[dkabot]

Nah they aren't linked (NANDs). Only my emunand is tied to NNID as well.

Ah.
Your Emu- and Sys- swap entirely, so your Sys would be linked and your Emu would be... whatever your old sys was.

 

[Audioboxer]

Ah.
Your Emu- and Sys- swap entirely, so your Sys would be linked and your Emu would be... whatever your old sys was.

It still feels worrying to put sysnand on 10.5, but I guess as long as the arm9lhax always remains in place it's all good. Should be quite easy to update the loader as well if for whatever reason something like screen init needs the actual hax updated.

 

[dkabot]

It still feels worrying to put sysnand on 10.5, but I guess as long as the arm9lhax always remains in place it's all good. Should be quite easy to update the loader as well if for whatever reason something like screen init needs the actual hax updated.

Yeah, hopefully screen init is figured out by a new arm9 binary and not a new hax loader... I don't need that clenching again.
So long as you're certain it's A9LH, you should be good to update it if you want.
Worked out fine for me, and certainly less risky than other tricks I've done (NTR debugger region swap, AKA "enter an update URL and pray it worked")

 

[Supster131]

It still feels worrying to put sysnand on 10.5, but I guess as long as the arm9lhax always remains in place it's all good. Should be quite easy to update the loader as well if for whatever reason something like screen init needs the actual hax updated.

I wouldn't worry about until Nintendo releases a new update, since who knows, they're probably working their ass off to find a way to fix this.

 

[daxtsu]

I wouldn't worry about until Nintendo releases a new update, since who knows, they're probably working their ass off to find a way to fix this.

Even if they do "block" it, it probably doesn't matter since AuReiNand blocks FIRM updating altogether, so anything Nintendo would add into the kernel wouldn't be able to affect your A9LH install, at least in theory. We'll have to let people with hardmods take that plunge.

 

[dkabot]

I wouldn't worry about until Nintendo releases a new update, since who knows, they're probably working their ass off to find a way to fix this.

The updater is still working the same as ever, so for now we're probably safe with "backup, try it, restore from Emu if it fails".
Update after this one, we'll see, but I doubt they'll change the way updates apply, you never know.

 

[Audioboxer]

I wouldn't worry about until Nintendo releases a new update, since who knows, they're probably working their ass off to find a way to fix this.

Without a doubt I'll let the hard modders be the guinea pigs for 10.6 haha.

 

[Supster131]

Even if they do "block" it, it probably doesn't matter since AuReiNand blocks FIRM updating altogether, so anything Nintendo would add into the kernel wouldn't be able to affect your A9LH install, at least in theory. We'll have to let people with hardmods take that plunge.

Yeah, I was just thinking if Nintendo would bother with it. Since it can probably be fixed (even with the FIRM patching in AuReiNAND), but Nintendo would probably have to do a massive overhaul to the firmware, and who knows if it's worth Nintendo's time.