Hey folks!

So I recently got a 128GB SD Card to replace my old 64GB, which was setup with atmosphere and EmuMMC. However I soon found a problem: Since I set up EmuMMC with a partition, I couldn't figure out an easy way to transfer that hidden partition to my new SD Card. It's not that hard but I figured I'll write a quick tutorial on how to do this, for the next one looking to do this.

Please read carefully when doing this, as a wrong turn can end up in you wiping out a hard drive or partition. Always double check the size of what you are about to use and unplug any USB storage devices to minimize the possibility of error. Oh! and always keep track of which SD card you are using! My 128 and 64GB SDs looked bloody the same and I almost wiped the original one with all my savegames.

What you needCloning the old SD Card to a new oneAdjusting the partitions on the new SD Card

1. 
   
   • Computer with Windows capable of reading MicroSD cards.
     
   • The new SD Card you want to use will be wiped during the process, make a copy of everything.
     
   • Free space on your computer, as much as your original SD Card. So if you are going to migrate from a 64GB SD Card, you'll need 64GB free. If you can read two SD cards on your computer at the same time, you don't need this.
     
   • HDD Raw Copy Tool. I used the portable version but you do you, they're both the same thing.
   • Mini Tool Partition Wizard.
   • I will reffer to the sd card currently on your switch as the old one, and the one you want to change to, as the new one.
     
   • A bunch of patience, this is going to take a while.
2. 
   
   1. Turn off your Switch, remove the old SD Card and insert it into your computer. Open HDD Raw Copy Tool. We are goint to make a full image of this card.
      
   2. This tool is very simple to use, you choose a source, you choose a destination, a copy gets made. So our source is the SD Card.
      
   3. HDD Raw Copy Tool is going to show you a list of all your hard drives and removable storage (USBs will show up here too, so be careful!). Pick your SD Card, if the name doesn't help you you can look at the size to guide you, then click Continue>>>
      
   4. And for our destination, it's going to be a file. So we double click where it says "FILE", browse where we want to put the image. Keep in mind you need to put it in a place with as much free space as your SD Card. Once you press Continue>>> again, a summary window will appear, check everything is correct, specially check if you havent chosen another hard drive as destination instead of FILE, as this WILL WIPE OUT said hard drive. Once checked press Start. This is going to take a while, about and hour and a half for my 64GB card with the shitiest card reader in the whole vast world.
   5. Once it's done, close HDD Raw Copy Tool. Extract the SD Card and insert the new one. Open HDD Raw Copy Tool again.
   6. Our source is now a file, so double click on file, browse to where you dumped your SD Card and select it. Our Destination is the new SD Card. A message will pop up telling you that this will wipe out data, double check you are copying to where you want to and hit START again. And wait for two whiles once again.
   
   If you have a way to read both SD Cards at the same time it's possible to make this quicker, although personally I don't recommend it, you could choose as Source the old SD card and the new SD card as Destination and skip the need of saving the old SD card image on your computer.
   
   If all you want to do is swap SD Cards of the same size, then you are donezo! You can put the new SD Card on the switch, turn it on with your evil homebrew method of choice and it should work! If your new SD card is larger, we are going to have to adjust the partition table, so come along to the next fascinating step!
   
   
3. 
   If everything works correctly, your new SD Card boots on the switch, but if you are a smart guy you'll have figured out that the switch recognizes exactly the same size as your previous SD Card. That's because we made a clone and a lot of the free space is not asigned to a partition. That's why we need Mini Tool Partition Wizard.
   
   1. Make sure you insert the new SD Card onto the computer and start Mini Tool Partition Wizard. Choose Disk Partition & Management. Look for your SD Card on the list below (Pay attention to the size)
      
   2. You will see something like this (Please don't mind the actual sizes shown in the picture, as I did this with and old 32GB SD Card just for the pic.):
      
      . Depending on your SD Card, you will probably see the first 16MB as unallocated, you can ignore that, it's normal.
      
   3. If what you see is the opposite, first unformatted, then FAT32, then you can just resize the FAT32 area and be done with it. Skip to step 12
      
   4. The FAT32 area (Or perharps it shows up as exFAT) is where your homebrew, atmosphere, etc... folders are located, the Unformatted is the hiddden partition where you have your EmuMMC, which will be 29.1GB (Or around that). We want to increase the size of the FAT32 area to use the gray area (Unallocated). The problem is, we can't do that because the stupid unformatted thing is in the middle of everything!
      
   5. Right click on the Unformatted partition and choose "Copy".
      
   6. A Window will show up to let you choose where you want to copy the partition. Go to your SD Card and select the unallocated space. Hit Next.
   7. We need to copy this partition to THE END of the SD card. Always keeping the size as 29.1GB, move it around until it's the last thing on the SD Card.
   8. Hit Finish.
   9. Once it's done, apply changes. (Upper left corner)
   10. You will now have two 29.1GB partitions, delete the one that we had from the beginning, that was in the middle of everything: Right click, Delete. Apply changes.
   11. You should have your original FAT32 partition, a bunch of unallocated space and at the end, the last 29.1GB of the SD Card, a partition marked as "Unformatted". We are almost done!
   12. Right click on your FAT32 partition and choose "Move/Resize". Use the arrows to enlarge the partition and make it occupy all the space on the SD Card.
   13. Apply changes. That's it! Done. You SD Card should boot your Switch as normal and you should see all the space of your SD card available. Enjoy! If that's not the case, recheck all the steps and feel free to ask me any question.

 

[clark1234]

**WARNING TO ALL ANYONE THINKING OF TRYING THIS**
This also happened to me and will most likely happen to you. Look for another way to accomplish this. While I appreciate the OP's efforts, this simply does not work. Look elsewhere before you waste your time.

I followed the guide and, at first, it worked perfectly. However, after a while using my switch, It got one of those atmosphere errors and I rebooted. Now the emuMMC doesn't work anymore, it boots back to hekate.
The "migrate emummc" option (often mentioned when it comes to fixing the emummc info) in hekate says "no emummc or foreign emunand found".

 

[bakatrouble]

Do this:
DD the EmuMMC partition to a img.
Create a new partition for EmuMMC(get the size from the img dump) after doing FAT32 on new SD.
Write the DD'd img of the EmuMMC partition to said new partition.
Adjust the EmuMMC config to ensure it matches with new EmuMMC partition sector.

(If using DD for windows, set a letter to the hidden partition in any wacky way you can; if you can't then just use a live usb linux and DD the file to your HDD)

Did almost that on Linux:
1. Dumped an EmuMMC partition using dd
2. Backed up files from FAT32 partition
3. Reformatted a new SD card using Hekate
4. Overwrote new EmuMMC partition with a dump
5. Copied over files to a new FAT32 partition
6. Repaired an EmuMMC config using Hekate

 

[sillz]

**WARNING TO ALL ANYONE THINKING OF TRYING THIS**
This also happened to me and will most likely happen to you. Look for another way to accomplish this. While I appreciate the OP's efforts, this simply does not work. Look elsewhere before you waste your time.

Wouldn't it be easier to use the NHguide and just create a fresh new emunand on the new sd card? then transfer all you homebrew / etc over to the new larger partition once completed?

 

[zeroxia]

Why didn't you mention that at the last, you need to use the "hekate migrate emuMMC" function to correct the setting? Otherwise I don't think it can boot?

What I have done:
For the new SD card, turn off console, insert new SD card, inject "tegraexplorer" and do the partition.
For the old SD card: turn off console, insert old SD card, inject "hekate" and backup NAND FOR THE emuMMC (yes, you can switch to emuMMC when doing nand dump)

On a computer, copy the (emuMMC's) nand dump to new SD card's corresponding "restore" folder.
And copy all the normal partition (be it FAT32 or exFAT) files to new SD card's normal partition.

Now for the new SD card, turn off console, insert new SD card, inject "hekate" and restore the nand dump to the emuMMC hidden partition. (WATCH OUT: don't restore to your system eMMC)
Then still in the hekate bootloader, use "Migrate emuMMC" to correct some setting. (emummc sector value in the emummc.ini file needs to be updated)

Then I can launch emuMMC normally, with exactly the same state as the old SD card.

Anyway, there is a tool "EmuTool - Move partition Emu on another SD, Switch Emu type on SXOS and more",
I think just use that is okay now (search it in this forum).

 

[satel]

**WARNING TO ALL ANYONE THINKING OF TRYING THIS**
This also happened to me and will most likely happen to you. Look for another way to accomplish this. While I appreciate the OP's efforts, this simply does not work. Look elsewhere before you waste your time.

i have no idea why they didn't delete this thread when the tutorial does not work !!! worst tutorial ever

guys just use EmuTool

 

[Axido]

i have no idea why they didn't delete this thread when the tutorial does not work !!! worst tutorial ever

guys just use EmuTool

Even that thing doesn't do the trick for me. The emuMMC that it creates doesn't boot at all.

 

[satel]

Even that thing doesn't do the trick for me. The emuMMC that it creates doesn't boot at all.

the next step is to go the Hekate settings & activate the emummc partition.

 

[Brizzz8]

This worked perfectly for me, thanks!

 

[marlewuk]

Didn't work for me ... Like previous comments, no option to resize after moving partition.

I did managed to get round this by using Easeus Partition software, but it doesn't boot when tested in the console

 

[rubensk8er]

Just signed up to say I had the same issue with your second edit, but I found the solution for it.
I am using Minitool partition wizard, once the copying is done, the partition where the emuMMC is in is labeled to be logical, right click it and switch it to primary and apply, once that's done go back to hekate and use the migrate emuMMC option to repair it, once all that is done it should be working again!

thank you to this i had to do the same thing copy the emmunand to a divided space on the free gb, long wait, then you have to adjust the space that was left, and after that put as primary, it just look like the preview sd card with more space, but when you inject atmosphere say no emmunand found, you have to boot hekate and put migrafe emmc and it will repair it and let you execute the atmosphere primary.bin payload. THANKS

 

[PKnight]

Well for those who are still struggling with this Tutorial like me for some days. As zeroxia mentioned and MISSING in the tutorial is that you need to edit your emummc.ini file in the /emuMMC Folder on your SD card. Because there is still the old EMUNAND address written in it. If you don't edit it, your Emunand might work but only as long you install any nsp and that address is overwritten (this is what happened to me and I didn't know why in the first place). So you need to edit the emummc.ini start sector to the right start sector where your new emunand is getting moved.

I don't know where I can find the start partition Partition Wizard but you can just use the EmuTool_v0.2.9 and select you SD card after moving the emunand to the end and it shows you the start sector like in the attached picture.

or just create a new emunand with hetake and you see the right sector but if you wonna go this way you should backup and rewrite your emunand to that partition which you can also do with EmuTool_v0.2.9. Or use any other Partition Manager which is able to show you the Star-Sector of you hidden partition. But Hetake needs to know the Start Sector of your moved Emunand.

Maybe someone can edit the Tutorial...

 

[NickyRay]

Just signed up to say I had the same issue with your second edit, but I found the solution for it.
I am using Minitool partition wizard, once the copying is done, the partition where the emuMMC is in is labeled to be logical, right click it and switch it to primary and apply, once that's done go back to hekate and use the migrate emuMMC option to repair it, once all that is done it should be working again!

Thanks. After following above guide, your solution saved my ass. Upgraded to 512gb card from 128gb.

 

[totte131]

this was very helpfull. Moved my setup from a 128 to a 256 by following the instructions

*edit - it worked in the beginning, but after installing homebrew the nand got corrupted.
trying other suggestions for now.

 

[lordelan]

I am preparing myself to buy a new bigger SD card. I'm using AMS.
I would like to buy 256 or even 400GB SD card. Could anyone please confirm if it will be working on 400GB? How big partition can be set up as FAT32?

Is such a card okay?
https://allegro.pl/oferta/sandisk-ultra-micro-400gb-100mb-s-sdxc-a1-fv23-7133836107

You can format any Micro SD card to FAT32 with the right tools.
I even have an 8 TB hard drive on my Wii that is formatted to a single big FAT32 partition.

Also @All:
I can't stress this enough (since I'm reading it that often in this thread):
DON'T ever use exFAT on your micro SD card.

 

[julez_122]

my "old" 128gb switch-sd card isnt usable anymore because 2 days ago all the files got corrupted (i seriously have no idea how that happened, fat32 just turned to RAW) but i recovered almost every single file on a folder on my pc which means i dont have any partitions only the files (including the emuMMC/RAW1/Nintendo folders & emummc. ini. i replaced hekate and atmosphere though with the newest versions (kept all my .ini and config files).

i plan to buy a new 256gb sd card, so how should i do this with keeping my emuMMc? simply coping the files doesnt work, no? my old emuMMC was about 30gb partitioned if i remember correctly, also, i dont have a backup because the sd card corruption came so sudden. any help would be appreciated!

 

[Empty02]

Hello I need help buying a Switch v1. Does anyone know any serious sites?

 

[lordelan]

Hello I need help buying a Switch v1. Does anyone know any serious sites?

This is not the correct thread to ask such things.
However, try eBay. Just enter "Switch with Custom Firmware" and you should find plenty.
If you don't, try getting the serial key of any Switch on eBay and compare it with www.ismyswitchpatched.com

 

[PrinceRikei]

Okay, I need some help. I used mini tool wizard to resize my fat32 sd card so that i wouldn't have any unallocated space but for some reason I'm missing like 30 gigs of space. I noticed that the missing gigs is my hidden/primary partition that you were talking about How do I get that space back so that it's not unformatted?

 

[Sperry]

Well, I did this yesterday and was hoping to write out a nice detailed tutorial for everyone. But I ran into an issue and I'm now another person asking for help ;P

I dd'ed my emummc partition off the old card and onto the new. Copied all the files in the FAT32 partition over. Started Hekate and activated the EmuMMC, plus repaired it. I also tried fixing the archive bit.

My system boots up with Atmosphere, etc, but it looks like only the games installed onto system memory actually made it over. Everything installed onto the SD card shows 0 file size and has the little cloud icon saying you need to download the game again.

Any ideas? I did change the SD card name from the old one to the new one. Don't know if maybe that's the issue. Tried changing the name back, didn't help.

 

[pk97]

Amazing guide !