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!

 

[LennartL]

hmm when this was written it was only 10.5 but does it still works with 10.6?

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hmm i wonder what is wrong i boot sysnand start homebrewchannel through browserhax decrypt9wio refuse to start only red screen

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i dont know, i remeoved menuhax but that didnt help much still red screen so i started up sysnand resinstall menuhax still doesnt start decrypt9. But when i boot my n3ds if dont hold any button aureinand starts with its own cfw if i hold right trigger sysnand but anyway if ihoold left trigger from boot and start menuhax then decrypt 9 is working so can i take a backup now or will it became a failure then?

i appreciate if i can get that question answered

 

[Razorbacktrack]

Assuming you use AuReiNand, it automatically detects that you have a9lh installed and prevents updates from overwriting FIRM0 and FIRM1. You can also create a blank file in the rei folder named "installeda9lh" to force that behavior even if the autodetection failed somehow.

So I'll be able to update sysnand using settings after using a9lh and aureinand, right?

 

[FenrirWolf]

Yuppers.

 

[lettuce]

Ok, i think ive successfully swapped nands, but i have just tried to install a gba cia file but when i load the game it get the 'an error has occurred' screen!, does this indicate that im not actual on sysnand??

 

[FenrirWolf]

Might mean you need to patch AGB_FIRM if you haven't already.

 

[LennartL]

Anyway as I said decrypt 9 works for me if I start it from cold boot through menuhax holding left trigger button. So my question is does my backup of emu and sysnand be correct then. Or must I first start sysnand and then try to start decrypt 9.But as I have mentioned decrypt 9 refuse start from homebrew channel, If i use sysnand only get a red lower screen and then it goes back to homebrew channel.

 

[FenrirWolf]

You successfully performed the swap, right? Did you add a blank file named updatedsysnand to the rei folder?

 

[LennartL]

No I have not done the swipe yet because i was unsure if the backups from and emu and sysnand will be correct when cold boot with armloader9 installed right into menuhax as I have explained. Don't want to risk getting the wrong backup and brick it but have you knowledge about it Fenrir ?

 

[FenrirWolf]

As long as you can get into Decrypt9, the backups it makes will be correct.

 

[Rioluwott]

So i suscefully swaped sysnand and emunand i got everything working but i made a backup of my files and formated my sd card to erease the emunand then i moved my backup files back to the sd card and now the sysnand isn´t booting another sd card get everything fine does anybody know why?
they are the same files on both sd cards

 

[LennartL]

Ok that's great but then I don't understand why the guide on first page claim that you must start mini pasta first on sysnand if it's not necessary

 

[lettuce]

Might mean you need to patch AGB_FIRM if you haven't already.

No i havent done that, is it hard to do?

I though GBA roms played fine when you swapped over to the sysnand?

 

[Ecko3351]

Really noob question, but I already have aureinand installed and If I remove it wouldn't it just black screen on me?

I'm asking because the guide says "do not installed yet" next to aureinand....

 

[MRDOCA]

Any one have FMP working on sysnand?

 

[LennartL]

get it to work now i think one quick question when all this is done is sysnand and emunand linked ?
just wondering beacuse i did unlink and it went fine but after the guide was done i did follow that one on the first page. and now my link after the setup seems to be relinked is that normal or is it wrong ?

 

[ketal]

https://github.com/sykhro/Allpart-3DS/releases/tag/0.3 Here it is, someone might find it useful

 

[dark_samus3]

@mashers I feel like this is the really complicated way to do it.... here's the simple way

• boot Decrypt9 however you want, even directly from a9lh if you're using the latest release
• Go to emuNAND options and dump CTRNAND
• Go to sysNAND options and dump CTRNAND (make sure not to overwrite the emuNAND CTRNAND)
• flash the emuNAND CTRNAND into sysNAND
• flash the sysNAND CTRNAND into emuNAND
• ???
• Profit

This has been tested and was one of the first ways it was done by @Shadowtrance

 

[Shadowtrance]

What he said... ^^^^^^

 

[Ryft]

Ok so just to be 100% clear... will doing this allow me to use my pre-A9LH 10.6 emunand I made with Gateway as the one I overwrite to Sysnand after setting it up? That way I don't have to reinstall everything and what I used as my emunand before will just be my sysnand with patched sig checks using aureinand or whatever?

 

[dark_samus3]

Ok so just to be 100% clear... will doing this allow me to use my pre-A9LH 10.6 emunand I made with Gateway as the one I overwrite to Sysnand after setting it up? That way I don't have to reinstall everything and what I used as my emunand before will just be my sysnand with patched sig checks using aureinand or whatever?

yup, also use my condensed guide above for a considerably shorter installation time