This thread is outdated
A lot of information in this thread is heavilly out of date.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• Supported Firmware information is out of date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.

 

[YoshiCrystal]

Donor Title: Sonic Mania
Game: Splatoon 2
Loads perfectly , i didnt tested saving.

Donor Title: Rocket League
Game: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Works perfectly and saves.

Both in 5.1.0

 

[szczuru]

d title ID for: Kirby Star Allies Demo

I have added it to Switchbrew title id list page.

 

[skflich]

Doesn't work on 4.1. Check the OP.

Donor: Mario Od.
Game: Arms
Boots and plays fine.
Saves fine
Switch Version: 4.1.0

if it doesn't work can you explain how this is possible?

 

[szczuru]

Game: Kirby
Donor: Happy Birtday DEMO
Boots: Yes
Saves: Yes!!!
Firmware: 5.1

Did you checked save after restart of the game?

 

[d4nielr]

Doesn't work on 4.1. Check the OP.

actually 4.1 is possible now https://gbatemp.net/threads/atmosphere-layeredfs.507653/page-5#post-8061007

 

[Red1Reaper]

if it doesn't work can you explain how this is possible?

prrof:https://streamable.com/ayhq5

 

[Zumoly]

Game: Kirby
Donor: Happy Birtday DEMO
Boots: Yes
Saves: Yes!!!
Firmware: 5.1

Thanks for this info
Could you tell me the title ID of Happy Birtday DEMO?

 

[delsolo]

Did you checked save after restart of the game?

Yes,
my wife has tested 5 diffrent free donor games and Happy Birtday Demo was the first, which has worked for Kirby include Saving!

 

[bluedart]

All right, so I'm trying more QR scanners now; tried 4 so far. Could anyone save me some time and tell me which one actually works for this?

 

[delsolo]

Thanks for this info
Could you tell me the title ID of Happy Birtday DEMO?

010069700AF9C000 is the title ID of Happy Birtday DEMO

 

[d4nielr]

anyone know why i keep getting section 0 is corrupted?

 

[renes2]

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.

And here i am, stuck at a Black screen instead of the Home Menu.
Did anyone have the same error?

 

[d4nielr]

IIRC it's because you're missing some keys from your keys.ini file.

I believe it was

master_key_01
master_key_02
master_key_03

add those and it should work, also use wordpad or notepad++
Notepad is very awkward to use.

how do i find the key?

 

[Zumoly]

010069700AF9C000 is the title ID of Happy Birtday DEMO

You know what's actually funny?
I was sending Kirby onto Pinball FX3 when asking this.
Now it boots and plays fine on Pinball FX3.
I will check if saving works.

 

[gamemasteru03]

NVM. I crapped up the spacing in notepad but fixed it with notepad ++

 

[PRAGMA]

This is getting extremely tedious to update. People are posting too fast. Im only on start of page 19. Getting honestly sick of having to copy paste entry tables, add entry info, colorize, bold, save, edit again.

 

[Crownfox]

Err...How did you delete donor save?

This is getting extremely tedious to update. People are posting too fast. Im only on start of page 19. Getting honestly sick of having to copy paste entry tables, add entry info, colorize, bold, save, edit again.

That's why I made the spreadsheet and the google form. Makes it easy. Even has a nifty viewer now.

The following are links to the individual thingies
Viewer
Spreadsheet
Google Form to Submit Game Reports

 

[renes2]

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.

And here i am, stuck at a Black screen instead of the Home Menu.
Did anyone have the same error?

So, for the exact steps:
Launched Hekate IPL
I did Enter Launch Firmware, and selected RomFS

After that, a New Window will come up with Patching kernel initial process.... and well, here my switch stucks for 4-5 seconds, and then a black screen occurs.

Any suggestions?

 

[domol2]

Game: poi exploder
Donor: Fortnite
Boots: no crash after title screen
Saves: no

Game: overcooked
Donor: pinball arcade
Boots: Yes
Saves: Yes

Game: sabaria 2
Donor: pinball FX
Boots: no after nintendo switch logo black screen
Saves: no

Game: skyrim
Donor: octopath traveler demo
Boots: Yes
Saves: Yes

Game: mario+rabbids kindom battle
Donor: fallout
Boots: Yes first time blackscreen and after second start working
Saves: Yes

Game: arms
Donor: paccman vs demo
Boots: Yes
Saves: Yes

Game: island flight simulator
Donor: stern pinball arcade
Boots: no error
Saves: no

Game: donkey kong country tropical freeze
Donor: snake pass
Boots: no error
Saves: no

firmware 5.1

 

[bluedart]

Okay, for anyone having problems with QR codes here's what I did: I got "QR Code Reader-Barcode Scanner & QR Code Scanner" by QR Code Master and that was the first one that actually was able to scan the code. Then it copied a bunch of stuff to the clipboard, and I saved it to a text file to copied it to my computer. Thanks for telling me to try a bunch of QR readers, hopefully this one will work for others as well.