Hacking Help with N3dS on custom firmware

[trivium91]

Hey guys new to the 3DS scene. I've had an xbox 360 with a flashed drive in the past to play backup version's of my games. I've also run homebrew on my old PSP which I no longer have and now I bought a N3DS. Im very confused in part because there are so many options. I managed to install menuhax through browser hax since I specifically bought a 3ds with 10.5 firmware on it. After that I was able to downgrade to the 9.2 firmware. Im stuck as this point, can someone put me in the right direction? So far I've been following this tutorial:

http://hackinformer.com/2016/01/12/3ds-rxtools-tutorial/


But im stuck at the "key_0x1B.bin and key_0x16.bin".


at this point I have no direction to go in and no idea what to do, is there a better more up to date tutorial? Is rxtools is the best? My main intention is to install .CIA Files and im not too worried about other features at least for right now.

 

[Deleted member 366698]

Use this to hack your 3ds as this guide is always up to date and rxtools is dead
https://github.com/Plailect/Guide/wiki

 

[Deleted member 381889]

Luma3ds should be the one for you Once you have Red/EmuNAND set up, just install the latest version of luma3ds and copy all the contents to the root of your sd card. If you're feeling adventurous, you can install A9LH, which boot you into Sys/EmuNAND in under 6 seconds and have a 100% bootrate. It will also be able to recover 99% of hard and soft bricks.

 

[Mazamin]

Ninja'd

 

[trivium91]

Is rX tools really dead? A lot of the tutorials I was reading are from Jan or feb of this year. ill try the guide that Davidosky99 posted, thanks Guys for a super quick reply. Is there a specific guide for Luma 3ds? Also is there no need for the "key_0x1B.bin and key_0x16.bin" files?

 

[Deleted member 366698]

Is rX tools really dead? A lot of the tutorials I was reading are from Jan or feb of this year. ill try the guide that Davidosky99 posted, thanks Guys for a super quick reply. Is there a specific guide for Luma 3ds? Also is there no need for the "key_0x1B.bin and key_0x16.bin" files?

Yes rxtools is no longer maintained by an active dev nor has an active community.
Luma3ds is actively maintained and does not need those files.
The guide for luma3ds is the guide I linked you

 

[trivium91]

Excellent thanks a ton guys!! Will report back in a few days when I get this done.

 

[trivium91]

One more quick question, I realize how much risk is involved in this and although I've done these sorts of hacks with my xbox 360 and what not it just seems like this is way more in depth and less structured. Im just curious...what are the benefits of the custom firmware mentioned above as apposed to just buying a SKY3ds? It seems buying a SKy3ds as apposed to bricking a 3ds and having to buy a new one is cheaper in the long run, no? Im not saying I will brick it but its very much in depth is what im saying. I did not realize that one must downgrade from 9.2 to 2.1 as the tutorial has shown.

 

[Deleted member 381889]

One more quick question, I realize how much risk is involved in this and although I've done these sorts of hacks with my xbox 360 and what not it just seems like this is way more in depth and less structured. Im just curious...what are the benefits of the custom firmware mentioned above as apposed to just buying a SKY3ds? It seems buying a SKy3ds as apposed to bricking a 3ds and having to buy a new one is cheaper in the long run, no? Im not saying I will brick it but its very much in depth is what im saying. I did not realize that one must downgrade from 9.2 to 2.1 as the tutorial has shown.

Installing an Emu/RedNAND is completely risk free as long as you don't screw up badly afaik. When you install A9LH there is a level of risk however.

 

[trivium91]

Maybe im just getting confused, im fine with starting the rednand and custom firmware manually through menu hax everytime. So does this mean I stop after "step 3 RedNAND" and NOT proceed to "step 4 downgrading 2.1"? I would think Step 4+ is only for running the Custom firmware directly off the sysNAND...

If that's the case how do I go about installing FBI now?

Just to clarify I have not installed LUMA3ds yet and im asking how to install FBI with it

 

[trivium91]

Hi Guys think I got this sorted, found a way to install FBI directly through the HBL. I flashed everything and running Luma3ds, which I have to boot from the HBL each time via menuhax...im assuming this is fine. Since I only have a 32GB card is there a way to easily transfer everything to a 64 gb card or more down the road and keep all the same custom firmware? Also is it possible to update Luma3ds when a newer version is released?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hi Guys think I got this sorted, found a way to install FBI directly through the HBL. I flashed everything and running Luma3ds, which I have to boot from the HBL each time via menuhax...im assuming this is fine. Since I only have a 32GB card is there a way to easily transfer everything to a 64 gb card or more down the road and keep all the same custom firmware? Also is it possible to update Luma3ds when a newer version is released?

The easiest way to transfer to a 64 GB card is to clone the entire card, and extend the FAT32 partition, you can use Win32DiskImager to clone the card easily.
You can also change the menuhax config to make menuhax autoboot each time, which would be recommended if you are not installing A9LH. Just launch menuhax manager again and pick the option for changing the button combination, select type 2, hold the button(s) you want to use to CANCEL autoboot and tap the touch screen. Then you can make menuhax autoboot Luma by default by using a boot manager such as CtrBootManager: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ctrbootmanager-3ds-boot-manager-loader-homemenuhax.398383/
After this is done it would be best to use emuNAND for everything and pretend sysNAND doesn't exist, just to avoid accidentally updating sysNAND or messing it up somehow.

 

[trivium91]

The easiest way to transfer to a 64 GB card is to clone the entire card, and extend the FAT32 partition, you can use Win32DiskImager to clone the card easily.
You can also change the menuhax config to make menuhax autoboot each time, which would be recommended if you are not installing A9LH. Just launch menuhax manager again and pick the option for changing the button combination, select type 2, hold the button(s) you want to use to CANCEL autoboot and tap the touch screen. Then you can make menuhax autoboot Luma by default by using a boot manager such as CtrBootManager: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ctrbootmanager-3ds-boot-manager-loader-homemenuhax.398383/
After this is done it would be best to use emuNAND for everything and pretend sysNAND doesn't exist, just to avoid accidentally updating sysNAND or messing it up somehow.

Noted that makes sense. I was under the impression I could have numerous SD cards pre-cloned like the PSP original but I guess this is not the case since the games need to be installed on the SD card and the nand. I read somewhere that if you delete a CIA file somewhere that it will brick and that's not the proper way to delete CIA files?. Also the tutorial posted above does not make sense when it directs about updating luma3ds from the system settings, does anyone know how to do this?

BTW if anyone else is looking at this thread I found the easiest way to install FBI was using this:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/minicia-beta.416346/#post-6148759

I did this miniCIA installation right after I downgrading to 9.2 and did my backup.

Furthermore im wondering if I have to do any additional sysnand or rednand backups now that everything is installed?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Noted that makes sense. I was under the impression I could have numerous SD cards pre-cloned like the PSP original but I guess this is not the case since the games need to be installed on the SD card and the nand. I read somewhere that if you delete a CIA file somewhere that it will brick and that's not the proper way to delete CIA files?. Also the tutorial posted above does not make sense when it directs about updating luma3ds from the system settings, does anyone know how to do this?

BTW if anyone else is looking at this thread I found the easiest way to install FBI was using this:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/minicia-beta.416346/#post-6148759

I did this miniCIA installation right after I downgrading to 9.2 and did my backup.

Furthermore im wondering if I have to do any additional sysnand or rednand backups now that everything is installed?

Sure you can have multiple SD cards with different games on them if you like, but the friend list/settings etc will be updated separately because of emuNAND so if you add someone on one card they won't be added on the others, it's kind of a pain in the ass. This isn't an issue with A9LH + updated sysNAND though.

After CIA files are installed you can delete them, they're not tied to the system or anything.
Updating from system settings is for updating your emuNAND, if you want to update Luma3DS itself you can use LumaUpdater or StarUpdater.

 

[9thSage]

I read somewhere that if you delete a CIA file somewhere that it will brick and that's not the proper way to delete CIA files?.

...huh? I'm not sure what you mean here.

Also the tutorial posted above does not make sense when it directs about updating luma3ds from the system settings, does anyone know how to do this?

You get to your emuNAND (RedNAND, whatever you want to call it) and do a 3DS system update from the 3DS' settings. That's what it's talking about there, updating the 3DS system menu. There's no reason not to have Luma running on the latest system menu since it supports it.

Furthermore im wondering if I have to do any additional sysnand or rednand backups now that everything is installed?

Not unless you want to back something up.

 

[trivium91]

Right thanks guys, what I meant is if I have a homebrew program that was installed via CIA using FBI that shows up on the system menu (booted with Luma3ds) can I just delete the .cia files from the sd card directly when im done with the program and it will delete in the system menu? Or is that not the way to remove programs?

Regarding updating while in luma3ds through system settings, this would update the REDNAND to Nintendo's 11.0 firmware...but not the Sysnand? Provided im booted in luma3ds of course...

If I understand this correctly REDnand and Sysnand run independently but on the same ROM chip in the 3ds?