Warning!

By following this tutorial you will format your SD card, deleting everything that is saved on it.
Make sure to backup the contents of your SD card beforehand.
Also formatting the wrong drive (PC drive) will mess things up big time.
Make very sure that you know which drive is you SD Card!

This is not a comprehensive emuMMC tutorial, i'm pretty much just covering the partition setup.

* connect your SD card to your PC

* press WIN+R and type in diskmgmt.msc then hit OK

* locate your SD Card and delete all partitions on that disk (should only be 1 partition)

* right click on the SD card and select "New Simple Volume". click next untill you can define the size of the volume.

* Take the suggested numer and subtract 29828. use the resulting number as the size for the volume and create it.
You will end up with one partition at the beginning and unallocated space at the end.

* right click the unallocated space and select "New Simple Volume" click next, leave the suggested size, next, next, select "Do not format this volume", next, finish.

* now we have our 2 partitions, but we still need to format our first partition to FAT32 using guiformat

* right click the guiformat exe and select start as administrator (not sure if necessary)

* under "Drive" select the first partition we just created (use Drive letter for orientation), select 32768 allocation size, quick format checked and hit start.

* DONE

Place all your atmosphere/hekate/NYX files onto the first partition, as this partition will be your regular SD card. The second partition will become your emuMMC.
Boot into Hekate5.0/NYX select emuMMC > Create emuMMC > SD Partition > Continue

 

[kylum]

@cots you might want to look into this issue I had and what I did to fix it. The thread title is misleading cause I initially thought something else was causing my issue. It could help you or others that has used your guide and encounter the same thing. See my post here https://gbatemp.net/threads/hekate-5-0-1-vol-up-for-sx-bricks-emummc-on-atmos.543070/

 

[pegasus123]

my 200GB Sandisk SDCARD for some reason like to have at least 32MB unallocated space in the first section of the sdcard, then followed by the Main Exfat drive, then the emummc.

My switch complained about unusuable SDCARD if you didnt left out 32mb whitespace.

The reason i found this is because i have the switch format my sdcard when in complained. Following this i just leftout that 32mb when i created the main and emummc partition.

Just know if you faced this issue

 

[[Truth]]

Hi,
everything worked fine, but my emuMMC partition is not hidden in Windows.
I always get the "drive x is not formatted, please format" nag.
How do I hide it properly?

 

[Rahkeesh]

Having the same issue here. I even made the partition hidden before allowing hekate to create emummc on it, but its back and irritating since then.

 

[Zantos]

When I create my emummc in hekate in my second partition no matter what it don't write any files on that partition. It finds the partition a and writes half an hour on it and even say finished successfully but when I put the sd card back in my PC it's nothing in it and empty. No matter what format it is fat exfat unformatted. every time the same. Any solutions?

 

[veesonic]

I think I am facing the exact same issue you are. Did you ever resolve this? I got a 400 gb memory card as a birthday gift and I'm going insane trying to get emummc working. My 128 gb card works fine. I don't mind cloning the existing card or starting from scratch, but it seems like every time I create a partition in Hekate on the 400 gb card it never wants to boot into emummc (Hekate keeps reloading).

(Edit: Zantos I was trying to tag you but I am new to GBATemp and wasn't able to)

 

[mh_]

* Take the suggested numer and subtract 29828. use the resulting number as the size for the volume and create it.
You will end up with one partition at the beginning and unallocated space at the end.

29828 MB might be too small!! It did not work for me and I had to reformat the card again. 29856 MB seems to be the minimum.

 

[Elirayo]

When I create my emummc in hekate in my second partition no matter what it don't write any files on that partition. It finds the partition a and writes half an hour on it and even say finished successfully but when I put the sd card back in my PC it's nothing in it and empty. No matter what format it is fat exfat unformatted. every time the same. Any solutions?

It's been a while ,but did you find a solution?
My emuNand created partition doesn't contain anything, and I can't boot CFW..

 

[VFCalado]

It's been a while ,but did you find a solution?
My emuNand created partition doesn't contain anything, and I can't boot CFW..

Me too. I'm trying resize second partition. let's see if work...

 

[VFCalado]

Me too. I'm trying resize second partition. let's see if work...

resize to 29856 and stil not working.
my emuMMC\Raw1 folder still in first partition and not second.

 

[VFCalado]

resize to 29856 and stil not working.
my emuMMC\Raw1 folder still in first partition and not second.

I figure it out.
I resize second partition to 30015 and turn it to logical.

Now work's fine. don't know if is the size or I changed to logical.

 

[VFCalado]

I figure it out.
I resize second partition to 30015 and turn it to logical.

Now work's fine. don't know if is the size or I changed to logical.

OK logical is the key.
I resize back to 29856
change to logical anworks fine.

 

[Elirayo]

OK logical is the key.
I resize back to 29856
change to logical anworks fine.

I tried it again before seeing your comment, I converted the partition to FAT32 (Primary) without formatting it and I was able to run emuMMC. The problem I'm facing now is that I can't launch hbMenu from the emuMMC (while I can do that on the sysMMC)

 

[ELY_M]

I always use 31gb for my emunand partition. I prefer to allow bit more room. I never have issues with hekate seeing my emunand partitions.

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

Did you press and hold R before you hit the album icon?

I tried it again before seeing your comment, I converted the partition to FAT32 (Primary) without formatting it and I was able to run emuMMC. The problem I'm facing now is that I can't launch hbMenu from the emuMMC (while I can do that on the sysMMC)

 

[HoTsHoTz79]

I currently have this setup and thinking of removing partitions and going back to full SD card

Can i backup my SD then format it and copy back all my files back to SD?

Do i need to do anything in Nyx as it has emuMMC setup and what not

 

[bjaxx87]

* Take the suggested numer and subtract 29828. use the resulting number as the size for the volume and create it.
You will end up with one partition at the beginning and unallocated space at the end.

* right click the unallocated space and select "New Simple Volume" click next, leave the suggested size, next, next, select "Do not format this volume", next, finish.

So... This creates one "huge" partition (depending on the size of your SD card) and a small one limited to 29828 MB? And it's the small one that will be used for emuMMC? Wouldn't that heavily limit the free space that is available in emuMMC?

 

[tabzer]

So... This creates one "huge" partition (depending on the size of your SD card) and a small one limited to 29828 MB? And it's the small one that will be used for emuMMC? Wouldn't that heavily limit the free space that is available in emuMMC?

emuMMC is fixed. unless you are trying to do more intensive stuff:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/switch-nand-upgrade.517923/

You can use the FAT portion of your SD card for installs and homebrew too. I prefer that myself. It's more versatile when it comes to storing games and homebrew.

 

[bjaxx87]

emuMMC is fixed. unless you are trying to do more intensive stuff:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/switch-nand-upgrade.517923/

You can use the FAT portion of your SD card for installs and homebrew too. I prefer that myself. It's more versatile when it comes to storing games and homebrew.

Ohh, okay, I think I get it now. It's just a mirror of the system itself and games can still be installed to the msd card/the huge partition.

Thank you!

 

[konamicode89]

I need clarification on my emummc. I have made my two partitions and created my second (32gb) for emummc as FAT32

When I booted hekate I used the create raw partition in the emummc options menu, it made a backup of my nand and created my emunand, then gave it a different theme to tell it apart from my sysnand. I used goldleaf to install my nsp backups into the emunand memory and everything ran fine.

However when I began to set up emunand on my second switch I had forgotten the order of setting up the partitions and noticed that while it installed successfully like the first all the partitions are empty, except for the one where I had left my atmosphere files in that had a emummc folder as well. My first switch also showed up looking the same, and all the installed data on the emunand memory only shows up from my switch.

Did I set up a file based partition? If not where exactly is my emunand internal memory on my SD card? I feel like there is an extra 26gb of emunand internal memory floating around in my switch, but it's not showing up on my SD and I don't know why.

Using a windows 10 laptop if that helps

Thanks in advance

 

[tabzer]

I need clarification on my emummc. I have made my two partitions and created my second (32gb) for emummc as FAT32

When I booted hekate I used the create raw partition in the emummc options menu, it made a backup of my nand and created my emunand, then gave it a different theme to tell it apart from my sysnand. I used goldleaf to install my nsp backups into the emunand memory and everything ran fine.

However when I began to set up emunand on my second switch I had forgotten the order of setting up the partitions and noticed that while it installed successfully like the first all the partitions are empty, except for the one where I had left my atmosphere files in that had a emummc folder as well. My first switch also showed up looking the same, and all the installed data on the emunand memory only shows up from my switch.

Did I set up a file based partition? If not where exactly is my emunand internal memory on my SD card? I feel like there is an extra 26gb of emunand internal memory floating around in my switch, but it's not showing up on my SD and I don't know why.

Using a windows 10 laptop if that helps

Thanks in advance

If you didn't set up a partition, it is unlikely you'd be able to establish a partition based emuMMC with hekate, unless that manages it now--which I don't think is the case. You might want to check your SD card in the emuMMC directory to check for a file based backup of the NAND. The emummc.ini should also give more information.