Hacking Question Dump hidden sx emuNAND partition

[chest0r]

Hi there,
i use the hidden patition emunand by sx os and want to transfer it to a brand new 400gb sd card. In sx menu there is no option to dump the emunand back to file/s or general dump it anyway. In any partition tool the sd card shows the hidden partition as "unallocated space" with 29.2GB. Can anyone help with a little tutorial how to transfer the hidden partition to a new sd card? that would be great!

thank you!

 

[stewacide]

It's easy to use DD to clone everything to your new SD. The problem will be taking advantage of the extra space without overwriting the hidden partition.

I'd say just crease a new emunand, and copy/restore your saves with checkpoint.

 

[fadx]

What I did was use Win32DiskImager to read the entire microSD to a .img file and then write it back the the new microSD. After that you need to use a partition tool like MiniTool Partition Wizard or EaseUS Partition Master to extend the partition with the files on to use up all the of 400GB (this takes multiple hours).

 

[chest0r]

It's easy to use DD to clone everything to your new SD. The problem will be taking advantage of the extra space without overwriting the hidden partition.

I'd say just crease a new emunand, and copy/restore your saves with checkpoint.

But then i have to create all users and settings new. I want to copy the entire emunand with all users, saves etc in it.

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

What I did was use Win32DiskImager to read the entire microSD to a .img file and then write it back the the new microSD. After that you need to use a partition tool like MiniTool Partition Wizard or EaseUS Partition Master to extend the partition with the files on to use up all the of 400GB (this takes multiple hours).

i dont get the last step with the "extend" part. Why i have to do this? i use a 200gb sd card now and the new one is 400gb. If dump the old one with Win32DiskImager and write this back on the 400gb card is the new card only 200gb large? Hope you can explain this step to me.

 

[xs4all]

As @stewacide said, you can use DD to copy the hidden partition and put it back, have a read of this thread HERE for more info on how to do this, info you seek is near the end of the thread with links and info.

I was in the same boat, originally had 128GB card, then wanted to upgrade to 400GB card, backing up the BOOT0 and BOOT1 files using the DD app was quick as the file are small, but for some reason when backing up the rawnand.bin file from the hidden partition, transfer speed was around 2mb/s, I gave up as it was going to take ages to copy the 30GB rawnand.bin file. I think the coping speed issue has something to do with the SD CARD reader being able to read RAW files at full speed, tried various card readers and couldn't get faster than about 2mb/s.

Bit the bullet and created a new EmuNAND and started over, it was a pain, but it got me to re organised the xci/nsp installs I didn't use.

 

[fadx]

i dont get the last step with the "extend" part. Why i have to do this? i use a 200gb sd card now and the new one is 400gb. If dump the old one with Win32DiskImager and write this back on the 400gb card is the new card only 200gb large? Hope you can explain this step to me.

Win32DiskImager makes a 1 to 1 clone of the microSD so it contains all partitioning data etc. so your new microSD would only be taking advantage of 200GB of data since your smaller microSD has that amount of data allocated to it's partitions. That's why you need to use another tool to extend the partition to use your entire 400GB.

 

[chest0r]

Win32DiskImager makes a 1 to 1 clone of the microSD so it contains all partitioning data etc. so your new microSD would only be taking advantage of 200GB of data since your smaller microSD has that amount of data allocated to it's partitions. That's why you need to use another tool to extend the partition to use your entire 400GB.

Ahhh thx i get it now!

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dd bs=1024 if=/dev/rdisk* of=/Users/YOURUSER/Desktop/firstTxStuff.bin count=1
dd bs=1024 if=/dev/rdisk* of=/Users/YOURUSER/Desktop/boot0.bin skip=1 count=4096
dd bs=1024 if=/dev/rdisk* of=/Users/YOURUSER/Desktop/boot1.bin skip=4097 count=4096
dd bs=1024 if=/dev/rdisk* of=/Users/YOURUSER/Desktop/rawnand.bin skip=8193 count=30535680

Here is a possibility to dump the firstTXPartitionStuff, boot0, boot1 and rawnand to .bin files from your sd-card with "dd" on the command line. Its required to find the right "rdisk" of your sd card to get this working. Otherwise it can damage your hdd partitions.

Thx @xs4all for your hint with the other topic!

 

[iriez]

Thinking about this more, i think it would be a lot easier to just dump the contents of the emunand to your pc, then create the 400gb emunand in sx menu, then once thats done re-copy the contents from your pc to your card.

I dont think there would be any complications doing that as all the contents are visable on your pc, and the only thing special about the partition can be re-created via sx emunand process. Then just copy pasta.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Oh interesting, that's not how I thought that worked. Is there a way to limit the amount of space the emuNAND partition takes, and format the remaining space to FAT32?

 

[DocKlokMan]

Oh interesting, that's not how I thought that worked. Is there a way to limit the amount of space the emuNAND partition takes, and format the remaining space to FAT32?

I think you misunderstood. The space emuNAND takes up is limited to the first 32GiB of the SD card. You can't change it.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

I think you misunderstood. The space emuNAND takes up is limited to the first 32GiB of the SD card. You can't change it.

Ok good, that's what I thought. The way the conversation was going I thought I misunderstood and the emuNAND takes up as much space as it's given

 

[xs4all]

Oh interesting, that's not how I thought that worked. Is there a way to limit the amount of space the emuNAND partition takes, and format the remaining space to FAT32?

EmuNAND is a CLONE of your System NAND, it's not wasted space because you STILL have 28GB or so of free space to use to install NSP, Game Updates, DLC, etc... It's exactly what it is, it's emulating your NAND, when installing games to your EmuNAND memory, it's installeed on EmuNAND not your Official NAND, if that makes sense?

 

[TotalInsanity4]

EmuNAND is a CLONE of your System NAND, it's not wasted space because you STILL have 28GB or so of free space to use to install NSP, Game Updates, DLC, etc... It's exactly what it is, it's emulating your NAND, when installing games to your EmuNAND memory, it's installeed on EmuNAND not your Official NAND, if that makes sense?

Oh no, I get it. With the talk of expanding the partition for the 400GB card, though, I thought everyone was referring to the emuNAND partition, not the data partition

 

[xs4all]

Oh no, I get it. With the talk of expanding the partition for the 400GB card, though, I thought everyone was referring to the emuNAND partition, not the data partition

Yes all this EmuNAND talk can get confusing at times. It's exactly as you stated, EmuNAND will always be 30GB or so as a hidden partition. Windows wont see it, so what you see is the available space on your 400GB SD CARD, you can format the left over space on the SD CARD as you wish and the hidden EmuNAND partition will be untouched.
So for those wanting to make a clone of your existing SD CARD, when you dump that clone backup to a bigger card, because it's a clone, the new SD CARD will see the same size as your previous card, an exact clone. That is when you need to extend the partition on the new card to fill up the total space of the card, I have not done this on a SD CARD before, as someone mentioned it could take some time to complete the extend partition, when completed, ImIm assumi the Hidden EmuNAND will remain the same, but the DATA partition, either it's FAT32 or exFat will see the true remaining free space of the card.