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A lot of information in this thread is heavilly out of date.
If you have time, and have Staff permission, feel free to edit this thread and remove this statement once necessary.

Some information that needs to be addressed:

• SX OS and Atmosphere now supports proper LayeredFS, instructions for using it has changed since this tutorial was made
• Supported Firmware information is out of date
• LFSKit needs to be updated to properly support non 5.x.x firmware
• Compatability chart needs to be re-made

-PRAGMA

WARNING

• DO NOT GO ONLINE WHEN DOING THIS (YOU WILL BE BANNED)

How to use LayeredFS for Backup Loading

Firmware Supported: ONLY 5.x.x
Use the PRAGMA LFS Kit below.

PRAGMA's LFS Kit

DOWNLOAD
SOURCE

• Go from NOTHING in your SD Card to playing a game backup in a few clicks!
• Decrypt .XCI -> romfs/exefs folder with main.nmpd auto edited aswell as folder's name auto renamed to donor titleid
• Download NOTHING except LFSKit!

ENJOY!

Picking a Donor Title and getting Donor TitleIDRunning Game Backups!

1. 
   
   1. A donor title is the application we will run to open the backup.
      Pick a game you don't care about (Download a Demo or a free game from eShop, for example Octopath Demo)
      saves are something no one knows much about, we don't fully know where or how they are stored.
      They might overwrite the donor titles save, so seriously pick a game you DONT care about, not a game you rarely play.
      
      
   2. I also recommend picking a donor title/game combo that has been tested and reported working just so you know if YOU did something wrong or not.
   3. Find the TitleID of the donor title you chose from http://nswdb.com or http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Title_list/Games
      Region must be the same, choose the TitleID for the base-game NOT for the update title, even if your updated.
2. 
   
   1. Once again, boot into Hekate-IPL (Step 1).
   2. Enter "Launch firmware" and select "RomFS".
   3. Your now in your system's home menu.
   4. Open the Donor Title you set the TitleID of on that folder and .npmd file earlier.
   5. The game will load up flawlessly.
      If you opened the Title lets say, Fortnite, and Fortnite booted, the titleid of the folder in sd:/atmosphere/titles/{fortnitetitleid} doesnt exist, or doesnt start with 0100.
      If it gives you an error screen, either you didnt edit the main.npmd properly, or its an incompatible title/donor combo.
   To see which games work and which dont using which donor titles, look below.
   If you notice that you used a combination of Game and Donor title that isnt in the list below, post in the thread and I will add it. (look under to see what I need to add to chart).
   

Troubleshooting

• Black Screen/Infinitely Loading
  Leave it for around 5 minutes then press the home button and go back into the game without closing it. Often this can do the job.
• Freeze when Loading
  Close the game and try again, its a common occurence, you may have to try up to 4-5 times before getting it to work, sometimes you may even have to reboot between retries.

 

[RazzerX7]

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
donor : 010078D000F88000 DRAGON BALL Xenoverse 2 for Nintendo Switch (CART)
save: yes

 

[Ty_]

At some point I'll stop...but not today!

Monopoly has exactly the same result with using Fortnite, Pokemon Quest or Octopath Traveller Prologue donors. Game runs fine and saves, however if you close the game and try to re-open it the console crashes.

 

[Diechewood4]

Any luck on BOTW anyone?

 

[Deleted member 451920]

Part 5- step 3. Not working, my keys worked to get the kernel and I added a few master keys but I get an empty folder when trying to decrypt xci!

 

[SonicRegret]

I researched a bit more into how saves are handled by the LayeredFS method of injection using the confirmed combination of Fire Emblem Warriors (Game) and Fortnite (Donor) [much thanks for whoever tested this combination] and I dumped my Fortnite save back on June 13th before injection and then after I injected FEW into Fortnite I re dumped the save after saving in game to see if the saves would be overwritten when I dumped them using Checkpoint. Then I found out that if you have an injected game that shares the same TitleID of the donor game, which is how checkpoint recognizes your games. It will dump both saves! So make sure to still backup all your saves and remember what games you injected in what title so you can move them onto a better format when backup loading becomes more seamless and become their own separate titles.

Proof :

 

[Skater4599]

I've been watching this thread but have not seen it yet, is it possible to play the Yooka Laylee dump by bbb with this method?

 

[Xyphoseos]

I'm on 3.0.0
When I select RomFS some line appear and it tell me "booting" but nothing else...
Why ?
It's only compatilble with 5.1.0 ?

 

[Soluble]

I'm on 3.0.0
When I select RomFS some line appear and it tell me "booting" but nothing else...
Why ?
It's only compatilble with 5.1.0 ?

Only 5.1

 

[SonicRegret]

I think that Yooka Laylee dump was from an eshop game, nsp i think. I don't think anyone has tested it but if you could extract and decrypt that nsp into nca then it is theoretically possible to use LayeredFS to inject and launch.

 

[Skater4599]

Yep it is a .nsp format. I had not seen any tool to decrypt it either. Thanks for the reply

 

[alkar]

I tried Yooka Laylee BBB dump, it works, just extract the NSP as PFS0.

I also managed to play another eShop game with its update (Stardew Valley). You can actually play updated games, just extract the games with the updates with hactool, and it will automatically create a romfs folder with the updated game (original files + new files merged).

I didn't dump the updates myself, I've found some laying around.

PS : tried both games with Fortnite, they save

EDIT : spoke to fast, only Yooka Laylee saves it seems. Didn't play much of Stardew Valley to be sure

 

[serenewarfare]

Anyone found a working combo for Xenoblade yet?

 

[AtomicallyRetro]

You can actually play updated games, just extract the games with the updates with hactool, and it will automatically create a romfs with the updated game (original files + new files merged).

What? Can you go into more detail on this because I'm pretty sure I've been doing this and I haven't got updated games.

 

[GoldenBullet]

Bayonetta with oceanhorn demo saves btw.

 

[Sprengsatz]

Kirby.Star.Allies > Donor Octopath Demo
Boot: black screen (kirby in right conor), crashed switch after deleted save data and start again

Kirby.Star.Allies > Kitten Squad
Boot: yes
Saves: no

 

[alkar]

What? Can you go into more detail on this because I'm pretty sure I've been doing this and I haven't got updated games.

For eShop games it's a bit harder because they need titleID key so you need to decrypt the base NCA before merging the update, for that use the --plaintext= function in hactool.

To merge an update NCA with a base NCA, use
hactool.exe -k keys.dat --basenca=yourdecryptedbaseNCA.nca --titlekey=yourpdatetitlekey (for eshop games it has one) --romfsdir="xciDecrypted/romfs" --section0dir="xciDecrypted\exefs" yourupdateNCA.nca

then you will have the updated game in romfs and exefs, merged (i checked by extracting only the updated files, they match)

 

[aslk]

When Im in HxD the number im replacing doesnt seem right. Starts with 7 and has a bunch of numbers. Is it because the xci was trimmed? Ive tried two different main.npdm files

.
you have to check those off exactly like that in hxd or it'll give you something that starts with a 7 and can't be edited

 

[PRAGMA]

Also, PuyoPuyo Tetris works for me with Rocket League, it just keeps the blackscreen overlay unless you click home to get out of it then come back in.

Which is Donor

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Lost Sphear (Jap version) work with Fortnite (dont know for save)

Which is donor

 

[Darth Meteos]

Which is Donor

Rocket League is the donor.

 

[dgr1592]

Game: Pokken DX
Donor: Has Been Heroes (cart)
Loads: Yes
Saves: No
FW: 5.0.0

The most important is that this works on 5.0.0 too