Hacking Question Bricked Switch. Any ideas?

[cl8298]

Hi all. I hope you've all been enjoying the Easter Weekend. We've had a much needed heatwave in North West Scotland.

Anyway, I'm here to seek advice from the many experts here. I have an opportunity to purchase a faulty Nintendo Switch but would like to know if it's at all salvageable before I give him £80+ for a fancy paperweight.

"
Hey buddy

I was trying to get an NNID to work- the console was banned but I did not have an NNID on it so couldn’t play games such as NES online that required an NNID. There was a way to get around this by downgrading 6.2 to 6.1 using ChoiDuJour, then to copy some save data over from a console that had an NNID already in use. Plenty of people online had managed to get it working, but whenever I copied the files over, it black screened. Tried to restore my nand backup but it didn’t work. I spent a couple of days working around it but don’t really have the time or patience so gave up in the end."

"Have tried various payloads and can occasionally get it to boot to Nintendo logo but then it black screens."

That's all the information I can get from him.

Is there any way to save this? He can't be bothered to do it himself but I have to see a lovely console go to waste.

Thank you very much.

Kind Regards.

Thomas.

 

[cl8298]

If it helps this was the tutorial he followed when it was bricked. https://gbatemp.net/threads/any-way-to-edit-profile-and-fake-link-account.526255/

When trying to boot up with Reinx / Atmosphere it gets stuck in a bootloop

 

[Ian095]

I'm also from Scotland! East Side tho. On topic tho, if the console is corrupt in a way that it won't boot up good chance that it would need the nand recovered and well if a back up hasn't been made then you're kinda screwed.

There is a small chance there is a collision with files on the SD card so deleting all the files except the Nintendo folder and adding in new cfw files may solve the problem as my boot was getting stuck to a crash screen instantly and it was due to old files conflicting with new ones.

If neither then I think it's probably done for because I highly doubt Nintendo would repair it

 

[cl8298]

Thank you for your reply. I think I'll pass on this one as he's said he tried to restore his NAND backup and it didn't work.

 

[blahblah]

Try this

Boot Fusse-Primary, not Hekate.

As soon as you see the Nintendo logo, PRESS AND HOLD volume up and volume down. You do this when you see the simple Nintendo logo, not the full Nintendo Switch logo.

If you get the button timing right, Maintenance Mode will boot. Release the volume buttons. Select 'Initialize Console'.

 

[cl8298]

Thank you. I'll make him an offer. If he accepts it I'll report back to let you know how it goes.

 

[cl8298]

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

Try this

Boot Fusse-Primary, not Hekate.

As soon as you see the Nintendo logo, PRESS AND HOLD volume up and volume down. You do this when you see the simple Nintendo logo, not the full Nintendo Switch logo.

If you get the button timing right, Maintenance Mode will boot. Release the volume buttons. Select 'Initialize Console'.

I can't seem to get this to work. I inject fusse-primary, it installs atmosphere, then I get atmosphere logo, black screen with charging logo followed by a black screen.

 

[tabzer]

You could always just use it for lakka.

What happens when you try booting without an sd card?

 

[cl8298]

You could always just use it for lakka.

What happens when you try booting without an sd card?

It can only boot in RCM Mode by injecting a payload

 

[tabzer]

It can only boot in RCM Mode by injecting a payload

Do you mean that autorcm is enabled?

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

Disable it.

 

[cl8298]

Do you mean that autorcm is enabled?

Correct. I am currently copying the 6.1 NAND backup back to my SD Card to attempt a restore with Hekate. Hoping that solves it.

If not I will follow the steps described in this thread https://gbatemp.net/threads/switch-possible-bricked-doesnt-work-after-nand-restore.525347/

 

[tabzer]

If that NAND backup is from another switch, don't bother. It'll make it worse. See if the guy you got the switch from has the files for the NAND backup.

 

[cl8298]

The NAND backup is from him. I asked him to send them on an SD card for me. Would I be better off restoring NAND or should I disable AutoRCM and attempt to boot? I am not 100% confident I'll be able to get back into RCM if I do.

Thanks for your help btw it is much appreciated

 

[tabzer]

I would disable autorcm and see if OFW would boot without the SD card. That way you can be sure that it needs a NAND restore, and not just a quirk with the SD card/reader.

 

[cl8298]

I would disable autorcm and see if OFW would boot without the SD card. That way you can be sure that it needs a NAND restore, and not just a quirk with the SD card/reader.

Ok so I disabled autorcm and tried to boot without an SD. It does nothing. Going to try get back into rcm now but my jig isn't playing ball

 

[tabzer]

Oh boy. Sorry about that. Another problem added to the pile... I hope it works out for you.

 

[cl8298]

Oh boy. Sorry about that. Another problem added to the pile... I hope it works out for you.

Not your fault at all . I'll try a paperclip. Maybe this jig is just a poor quality one

 

[cl8298]

Ok I managed to get back into RCM mode. NAND restoring as we speak. It didn't work at first but I moved the files around on the SD Card and this time Hekate found them. I wonder if that was what he meant when he said it didn't work.

 

[tabzer]

Did you end up restoring it?

 

[cl8298]

So I restored the NAND and managed to get Atmosphere running on it. It's on 6.2 currently. It is banned from online services unfortunately but hey ho, The other faulty Switch I bought has a damaged USB port which seems to be a fairly cheap and easy fix. (God bless kids shoving the wrong charger in )

Waiting for my PS4 with a faulty HDMI port to arrive too.