Hacking Bricked 3DS XL - hardmodded but can't boot

[VashTS]

Running out of ideas here but its bricked (don't ask how its a long story) - but I have 3 valid NAND backups. I flashed one back with sighax and I know sighax is working. If i boot without the SD card in, the blue light turns on and right back off because there is no boot.firm, so I know its there and working.

Booting luma (8.0 with sighax 1.2) results in a black screen but then i thought what if i boot something else? Well putting godmode9 at the root as boot.firm gives me a backlight! no text, nothing else, just a light.

At this point im thinking it truly is a borked 3ds and maybe sleephax will save me (at least I'll try) but I'm not sure what else i can do with just sighax.

what about an autoboot emunand version of luma? would that possibly work if i dumped it to SD card?

any ideas?

 

[pbanj]

does lumas menu load?

 

[VashTS]

does lumas menu load?

No Luma loads to a black screen, decrypt9 and godmode9 at least turn on the backlight

 

[pbanj]

i mean when holding select to bring up lumas config menu

 

[VashTS]

i mean when holding select to bring up lumas config menu

no luma only boots to a black screen. no matter what buttons are held or files are in place, luma is a black screen.

the only thing that is different is using godmode9 as the boot.firm results in backlight coming in but no text.

 

[SonicMC]

you could always try upgrading with the safeb9installer, rename it as the boot.firm.
Copy boot9strap.firm and boot9strap.firm.sha from the boot9strap .zip to the /boot9strap/ folder.
and see if anything shows up.

of course if it works and after running it once, you would have to put your luma 8 firm back on the sd as the boot.firm

 

[VashTS]

you could always try upgrading with the safeb9installer, rename it as the boot.firm.
Copy boot9strap.firm and boot9strap.firm.sha from the boot9strap .zip to the /boot9strap/ folder.
and see if anything shows up.

of course if it works and after running it once, you would have to put your luma 8 firm back on the sd as the boot.firm

true i could see if boot9strap does anything but since i already have sighax, kinda pointless, no?

im flashing the original system nand to emunand and seeing if that does anything from luma

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try placing luma 7.1 boot.firm at root of the sd card and then turn on the 3ds

sighax 1.2 - in OP


and holy shit it booted 1 time (to the luma unsupported firm) after injecting emunand. hasn't booted again since, tried luma 7.1 and 8.0, so close but so far.

i copied my luma 8 config.bin from my new3dsxl that is autoboot to emunand so i think it should work to autoboot emunand.


tried boot9strap for the hell of it and that actually booted! it froze before i could actually use the key combo to flash it but it booted!!! still so far away but little steps.

im trying for a ctrtransfer via godmode9 next.

got in but keeps freezing on the ctrtransfer damn....anyone know if someone can compile safectrtransfer to a firm?

 

[VashTS]

i think it might be the sd card. i can get into godmode9 via luma now but when i do a ctrtransfer it just crashes randomly. i have a couple luma logs if that helps... @Aurora Wright can you check these for me please?

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can you flash 7.1 boot.firm to ctrnand with godmode9?

7.1 wont boot with b9s 1.2 though, only luma 8 will work.

i'm also getting CTRNAND firm is corrupted now

 

[VashTS]

so got some updates here...any advice?


the 3ds randomly (like 1 in 15 tries roughly) will boot to the luma chainloader and it doesn't seem to freeze in that menu at all. when it does randomly boot, sometimes it will say the payload is corrupted (with both godmode9 and decrypt9wip) and then i try 1 more time and then the payload loads just fine, again with both payloads im working with.

when i do get into the payload the system randomly will crash - sometimes with a luma exception screen, other times just power off, and other times just black screen and a solid blue light.

i can make it to a CTRtransfer on both but farthest its got is 20% on decrypt9. godmode9 tends to barely make it past the cleaning up titles and that is on the rarest occasion. i have more luma dumps if that will help, let me know and ill add them.

i don't think the sd card reader is the culprit because it would either work or not work. i also don't think b9s is at fault since it does boot sometimes.

is there some system module that these applications use that might be corrupt? i wish i could just install a full system CIA pack from b9s but i don't think there is a CIA installer just yet.

i need some tips and advice on what to do next....i know this thing can be fixed but its just out of reach.



1 other thing i just noticed...when godmode9 does boot up, the top bar is green. when its about to freeze, it goes yellow and says 0 byte/xxxx mb...maybe its the card reader