Hacking Question Multiple emuMMC Setup

Mythrandir

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I'm trying to create two emuMMC partitions on my SD card in Hekate. I tried figuring this out a few months ago and gave up without success. With the release of Pokémon Sword/Shield, I decided to try again. I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have two available partitions and Hekate will only write to one of them. What do I need to do to achieve the desired setup?
 

Mythrandir

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After deleting the two partitions and remaking them, I noted that Hekate uses the same base folder, RAW1, with two different partition offsets. What are these offset values? I'm assuming that I am again unsuccessful (Hekate is still in the process of writing to the partition) because the RAW1 folder was used in both sessions.

My next step is to go through the process again. This time, I will rename the RAW1 folder to RAW2 before going through the emuMMC creation procedure a second time. I'm pretty sure I would need to edit the ini file. How should the ini file look with two emuMMC partitions?
 

Mythrandir

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Have a look at this guide!

https://pubdev.switch.homebrew.guide/hacking/emummc

You'll need a nand backup that you flash to the partitions (its done on pc)
Thank you. Unfortunately I still cannot get Hekate to recognise a second partition. I did try adding a RAW2 folder, copying the raw_based file from RAW1, and editing the ini file only to figure out I don't know what the id value would be for the second emuMMC nor do I know if any other values are necessary to enable a two emuMMC configuration.
 
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onibaku

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Thank you. Unfortunately I still cannot get Hekate to recognise a second partition. I did try adding a RAW2 folder, copying the raw_based file from RAW1, and editing the ini file only to figure out I don't know what the id value would be for the second emuMMC nor do I know if any other values are necessary to enable a two emuMMC configuration.

Hmm im not too sure how to do it that way (this is all pretty new to me) but if u follow all the steps on that guide you should be able to get two partitions setup, takes a bit of time and you may have to redo the partitions. I made two partitions as guided and then flashed my sysnand backup to the partitions as guided. Sorry i could not be of more help..
 
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The Real Jdbye

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Thank you. Unfortunately I still cannot get Hekate to recognise a second partition. I did try adding a RAW2 folder, copying the raw_based file from RAW1, and editing the ini file only to figure out I don't know what the id value would be for the second emuMMC nor do I know if any other values are necessary to enable a two emuMMC configuration.
The offset is where the actual emuNAND partition is on the card so as long as that is correct after changing the active emuNAND in Hekate you can manually change RAW1 to something else to have it use a different folder for game data.
 
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Mythrandir

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Hmm im not too sure how to do it that way (this is all pretty new to me) but if u follow all the steps on that guide you should be able to get two partitions setup, takes a bit of time and you may have to redo the partitions. I made two partitions as guided and then flashed my sysnand backup to the partitions as guided. Sorry i could not be of more help..
It's fine. I'm just frustrated because RAW2 does not show up as an option in Hekate when I try to test switching emuMMCs. Really, thank you for showing me that guide. I just could not find anything via Google. I'll probably do it over again this weekend. If I'm still unsuccessful, I'll just have to suck it up and go with a single emuMMC configuration.

The offset is where the actual emuNAND partition is on the card so as long as that is correct after changing the active emuNAND in Hekate you can manually change RAW1 to something else to have it use a different folder for game data.
Thank you. My issue is that RAW2 does not show up as an option. I thought that editing the ini file could force it as an option in Hekate. It doesn't seem to work that way. I may just have to delete all of the SD card's partitions and start over.
 
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onibaku

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It's fine. I'm just frustrated because RAW2 does not show up as an option in Hekate when I try to test switching emuMMCs. Really, thank you for showing me that guide. I just could not find anything via Google. I'll probably do it over again this weekend. If I'm still unsuccessful, I'll just have to suck it up and go with a single emuMMC configuration.

Thank you. My issue is that RAW2 does not show up as an option. I thought that editing the ini file could force it as an option in Hekate. It doesn't seem to work that way. I may just have to delete all of the SD card's partitions and start over.

Yeah that guide is kind of hidden on their site for some reason, i luckily stumbled upon it one day.

Hope you manage to get it to work!
 

The Real Jdbye

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It's fine. I'm just frustrated because RAW2 does not show up as an option in Hekate when I try to test switching emuMMCs. Really, thank you for showing me that guide. I just could not find anything via Google. I'll probably do it over again this weekend. If I'm still unsuccessful, I'll just have to suck it up and go with a single emuMMC configuration.

Thank you. My issue is that RAW2 does not show up as an option. I thought that editing the ini file could force it as an option in Hekate. It doesn't seem to work that way. I may just have to delete all of the SD card's partitions and start over.
It does. You can change the INI option to anything you want. Lots of people have it manually set to "Emutendo" to work with SX OS emuNAND, for example. Did you actually try it?
 
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Sperry

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Tagging onto this thread because I'm having the same issue. Followed EmummcInstructor and set up 2 emuMMC partitions exactly the same way and written with the same backup NAND.

When I run Hekate and migrate emuMMC, it gives me the repair dialog, just like in the instructions. That set up 1 of the 2 partitions. I can select RAW1, but RAW2 is greyed out.

When I look at it in linux, 1 of the partitions is FAT32 and the other is unknown. I'm not really sure which is which, but in any case, only one partition is getting repaired.
 

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As a follow-up to my last post, see the partitions here. Part 1 is recognized by Hekate and working as an emuMMC. Part 2 is the same size, with the same data, but doesn't get recognized.

emummc.jpg
 

Mythrandir

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Yeah that guide is kind of hidden on their site for some reason, i luckily stumbled upon it one day.

Hope you manage to get it to work!
I finally managed to get it to work. I think part of my issue is that I did not successfully flash the emuMMC to the second emuMMC partition in Windows. Redoing the emuMMC partitions and flashing the bin through Linux was successful. Thanks again for linking the guide. It did lead me to a solution.

It does. You can change the INI option to anything you want. Lots of people have it manually set to "Emutendo" to work with SX OS emuNAND, for example. Did you actually try it?
I'm sure you're right, though my issue wasn't the ini file. I'm pretty sure part of the issue was an unsuccessful emuMMC flash, which wasn't apparent until using Gparted in Linux. I've got it working now!

Tagging onto this thread because I'm having the same issue. Followed EmummcInstructor and set up 2 emuMMC partitions exactly the same way and written with the same backup NAND.

When I run Hekate and migrate emuMMC, it gives me the repair dialog, just like in the instructions. That set up 1 of the 2 partitions. I can select RAW1, but RAW2 is greyed out.

When I look at it in linux, 1 of the partitions is FAT32 and the other is unknown. I'm not really sure which is which, but in any case, only one partition is getting repaired.

As a follow-up to my last post, see the partitions here. Part 1 is recognized by Hekate and working as an emuMMC. Part 2 is the same size, with the same data, but doesn't get recognized.
I noticed the same thing when I looked at mine in Gparted. The partition in the unknown format should have successfully flashed while the partition in the FAT32 format was unsuccessful. You could try flashing to the FAT32 partition using the dd Terminal command in Linux as @kassio69 advised in his guide to see if that is enough. If it is not, then you could do as I did and delete and reallocate the emuMMC partitions. I was finally successful. If you need any help, reply to this thread. Between those of us already here, we should be able to help you.

I know how frustrating this is because it took me several days to finally get Hekate to properly recognize RAW1 and RAW2.
This "emuMMC instructor" is useful, but it was impossible for me to make it work through Windows applications.
I suggest you try it on Linux, which handles better resizing/formatting partitions (using Gparted Live) and flashing the NAND backups into specific partitions of the SD card (using the dd command-line tool).
The following guide is very good:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/ni...evelopment/guide-resizing-partitions-t3955615

Please note I'm a Linux noob and now I have a working partitioned SD card wich boots:
- emuMMC1 = clean 1.0.0 updated to the latest firmware using ChoiDujourNX, for homebrew/general NSPs
- emuMMC2 = clean 1.0.0 updated to the latest firmware through Nintendo servers, for gamecards/ONLINE
- Android (as a bonus)

I will summarize my steps (using Windows):

1. install a virtual machine (eg Oracle VM VirtualBox) and a Linux distro (eg Linux Mint)
2. download Gparted Live iso (it must be Gparted LIVE) and load it
3. if you receive a notification/warning when starting Gparted Live click on "Fix"
4. if you're not interested in booting Android, delete all partitions from SD card and start it from scratch
5. create New Partition #1 ("unallocated" > "new") with exactly 29856 MB
6. create New Partition #2 with exactly 29856 MB
*** I don't know if the File System of the partitions matter, but I selected FAT32 as that's what I'll end up using

7. close Gparted and, in that same environment, start Gdisk through terminal (sudo gdisk /dev/sdX)
*** replace the X with your drive identifier, wich you can check in Gparted (mine was sdb)
*** I don't know if it is really necessary to use Gdisk if you're not following the long Android resizing partition guide, but if I were you I would run it

8. check the link I posted above and follow the Gdisk steps
*** remember you'll only have partitions 1 and 2 (unless your SD card is used for something else)
*** MBR hex code for the emuMMC partitions is 0b (not EE)

9. join BOOT0, BOOT1 and RAWNAND.bin, as specified in the emuMMC instructor
10. now comes the key step: you have to flash that big file (emummc.bin) to the SECOND partition of your SD card
*** I started Linux Mint and run the following dd command:
sudo dd if=media/sf_Shared_Folder/emummc.bin of=dev/sdb8 bs=512M status=progress

*** "if" is MY shared folder path, you need to change it accordingly to yours
*** "of" is MY second SD card partition (I had several others because of Android), I believe it should be sdX2 in general)

11. grab your SD card, insert it on the Switch, start Hekate, tap emuMMC and then "Migrate emuMMC"
13. voilà, now you have RAW2!
14. for the RAW1 I selected "Create emuMMC" > "SD partition" and then (iirc) you have to "Migrate emuMMC" again.

That's it!
If anything doesn't work please let me know, I managed to make it work some weeks ago and regret not writing a tutorial or something before.
Thank you so much for this! I finally have it working. I booted into Fedora on my desktop (I already had it installed on a dedicated NVMe SSD, but didn't even think to use it for this since I primarily use Windows), installed Gparted, and went on my way following your guide. In my case, Gdisk was unnecessary. I didn't resize any partitions to modify the MBR requiring its repair. In Gparted, it appeared I did not successfully flash the bin to the second emuMMC partition, RAW2. This was not apparent in the Windows applications. I don't know why that is. I went ahead and deleted both partitions, remade them, and flashed the bin to them, starting with the the second emuMMC partition as you advised. It was a very smooth process and I learned a little bit more about partitioning and a couple Terminal commands. Really, my only issue was that I repeatedly neglected part of the dd command. The directory path to my emuMMC.bin is long. It wasn't much fun typing that out several times too many. Again, thank you very much!
 

konamicode89

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I'm glad to have found this thread! I too have been struggling on windows 10 and was convinced that it could work but I'll definitely grab my tiny linux machine to get this done! I can only hope that after I have at least android and emummc working that I may continue and install linux as well to complete my setup
 

Peter9214

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Hey, the link is down. How do you merge the boot and rawnand backups?

I'm glad to have found this thread! I too have been struggling on windows 10 and was convinced that it could work but I'll definitely grab my tiny linux machine to get this done! I can only hope that after I have at least android and emummc working that I may continue and install linux as well to complete my setup
Did you get it working? hekate really should have support for creating two emummc partitions baked in.
 

konamicode89

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Hey, the link is down. How do you merge the boot and rawnand backups?


Did you get it working? hekate really should have support for creating two emummc partitions baked in.

Hekate does not manage partitions at all, hekate with configuration can recognize multiple emummc partitions and others like Linux and android, but you need to use Linux and the guide on the post above with the pictures to get it done.

Right now I am working on a more complex setup that involves more than just what you need to get done but if you still need help I will explain once I'm finished
 

Peter9214

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I'm just having trouble with this step, as the link that I think it refers to is not working for me.
> 9. join BOOT0, BOOT1 and RAWNAND.bin, as specified in the emuMMC instructor

As I understand it, you just combine those and use dd to flash them to the partitions (dd if=file.bin of=/dev/sdcard1

Hekate does not manage partitions at all, hekate with configuration can recognize multiple emummc partitions and others like Linux and android, but you need to use Linux and the guide on the post above with the pictures to get it done.

Right now I am working on a more complex setup that involves more than just what you need to get done but if you still need help I will explain once I'm finished
 
Last edited by Peter9214,

konamicode89

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To answer your question @Peter9214 that is correct, there is a tutorial labeled quadboot Linux/win10 that explains how to merge the parts of your nand backup and install them to your sd. But it's @kassio69 's post that will answer your questions and I'm sure the link provided is not down.
 

kassio69

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I'm just having trouble with this step, as the link that I think it refers to is not working for me.
> 9. join BOOT0, BOOT1 and RAWNAND.bin, as specified in the emuMMC instructor

As I understand it, you just combine those and use dd to flash them to the partitions (dd if=file.bin of=/dev/sdcard1

Just check the following thread, it's explained in the first section (Pre-setup Win/Linux).

https://gbatemp.net/threads/emummc-setup-win-linux-quadboot.541152/

I would also like to say that, although my initial setup included Android, it didn't boot. So you should only use my guide to multiple emummc configuration. If, in addition, you want Android and Ubuntu, the link I copied above should help (I intend to test soon).
 
Last edited by kassio69,

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