As the title says, here's the video; I'll do a write up later since it's a long process.



This is not possible in windows 10 due to the GPT Hybrid MBR trickery used, the android image already does this when it writes the partition tables and etc.

Don't do this in windows nor attempt it, it's not going to happen unless there's something you can use to mess with partitions like I did, L4T-Ubuntu also won't work due to the partition stuff and etc, I'm currently making something to allow this without any complications, please be patient!

Watch the entire video and you'll understand more about this, if you make simple errors from not watching the video I will simply tell you to properly watch again and listen!
TOOL ETA: Don't ask, it's a complicated tool that needs a lot of maths, safety features and etc
TOOL SO FAR:

Tool functions: Android, Custom Android user data, 8GB Android install, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Swap, EmuMMC and Lakka dynamic setup.
Planned functions: Multi EmuMMC setup, EmuMMC Backup & restore(including Nintendo folder) + More unique management stuff!

UPDATE: I'm currently setting aside the tool until I finish making & releasing my new modchip

 

[Cyan]

If you post it on a new thread, I can give edit rights to your post to other users.
other idea is to post it on a place with multi-user access, like they do on wii.guide, switch-guide, etc. only registered users have access.
these type of website "visual" is common now on console hacking guides.
or a wiki (wikitemp requires private registration, no bot or unlogged user), but it has less visual, and anyone could break it on purpose, but anyone could help too.

the easiest is still a forum's post guide.

 

[tabzer]

This guide needs some updating but the basis still applies, I'm very very busy with work and I've got other things that prevent me from doing too much in the Nintendo scene, I'll try and update this guide as best as I can as I know text based guides are much easier to follow and track, the video is quick and dirty and needs you to watch it all which I know no one wants to sit there for near one hour.

I still rewatch parts of this video to remind myself about details that I forget.

 

[Ian Tanner]

Ah neato... I didn't dd my emummc partitions, the video demonstrated that you could just let hekate nyx do the work for you as long as you use gdisk to set the partition table correctly. Aside from manually creating bigger android partitions to ensure you have room for when pie comes around, emummc is the only other part of the multiboot that's trickier than the rest, because it's the only partition that sets up invisibly and it's hard to make sure of what you're doing if it's rather hard to confirm it, I mean you can delete the partition and it'll still be there and honestly when it comes to updating your multiboot setup in general I'm sure nobody wants to start from scratch every time.

Don't get me wrong I totally like the idea of the tool but when trying to put together a definitive guide I want to provide all the options for now and the future. Definitely want to encourage the more noobish (no offense) to try this stuff out.

im not a noob to modding ive been doing ti for the past 12 years or so and started with the wii when i was in middle school, i just forgot and had to remember how to repartition everything its been a while since if used gparted and it was to slow got me to fallow his video and dd every single annoying partition image i did not have the pations for, im just new to the gbatemp seance, i created one long ago but never used it

 

[Cyan]

nothing wrong using a script to dd things for you, and shouldn't be a problem for other users either if he does.
we are all friends and wanting the same thing, no fight or competition or "first to do it!" spirit.
if one find a guide he likes better, no problem. if someone want to post another guide while there are already a few, fine too ! as long as it works and it's not a plagiarism, no problem having different method, or different way to explain the same things. sometime, some user might prefer or find one guide more easier to follow than another identical one. just word choice, pictures, video, etc.

I still regret one thing : tools don't seem to exist on Windows. nobody created anything to write images to specific sector number (maybe HxD?). so linux is currently the only way.
even "dd for windows" only work with Windows detected partition letters, no mount device option.
you also have to learn how linux work to use a live image.

 

[tabzer]

Unfortunately, it seems that windows cannot handle the hybrid-gpt/mbr partitioning. There is feature coming to windows which will allow for linux to run. I wonder if that will open the door for a windows approach.

 

[Cyan]

it's not a problem that Windows can't handle it, it's not up to Windows to do it.
it's up to the tool we should use to partition and write image to SD which should handle it.
unfortunately, all the apps I found so far are relying on windows's lettered partition (so not even Ext4 can be used, even if not a hybrid partition table!)

windows could at least see the MBR partition (it's hybrid for a reason!). hybrid is for OS and devices which can't work with GPT, but still have MBR fallback to still list some of the existing partition.
it shouldn't even care that it's "hybrid", for non compatible devices or OS, it's not seen as hybrid but as MBR.
I don't mean windows knows how to create hybrid, just that it can list/mount partition from an exiting hybrid table.

for device/OS compatible with GPT, it could be a problem (I guess Windows is one of them?).
but the real problem here is not the hybrid (I didn't have any issue with that! as it found the GPT and list all the 9 partitions on the SD, except they are not recognized because either raw or ext, are all listed as raw, unlettered.
I guess I didn't try to set a letter to ext4 partitions, I forgot, I did that last summer and didn't try again since then.
PS: I tried with windows 10

what we would need is a way to mount physical drives instead of logical drives (partitions detected by windows), to write image to sector.
some hexeditor are fully capable of this (HxD, hex workshop), and list sector by sector, why other tools couldn't do it too? we need an image tool capable of working with physical drives. dd for windows doesn't.
I didn't try to write an image to sector using hexeditor yet.
we just need windows to not try to fix or access partition while the image is being written.

when using a live linux, I don't know how to mount exiting devices. never used linux except the live gparted, but it didn't had to mount existing hdds to access files.
it's probably very easy, I always fear to do something wrong when I don't know enough or never did it.

 

[lulle2007200]

windows could at least see the MBR partition

it shouldn't even care that it's "hybrid"

That's where you are wrong. In *theory* it shouldn't matter, in practice it does. The way Windows handles removable media is janky to say the least. It detects the GPT table but still uses the MBR table. It tries to automount all partitions in MBR, even the hidden ones and GPT protection partition. It doesnt care about partition types. What's way worse than that is that Windows has "pseudo" (MBR doesnt have real partition attributes) attributes for MBR partitions. The flags for those are written to memory where the GPT table lives. among those flags is a hidden flag, that, if set, prevents the MBR partitions to be mounted. Wether those flags are set or not depends entirely on what is in GPT. You cant even change those flags because Windows is smart enough to detect that there is a GPT and that it would overwrite it when trying to toggle those flags.

While it is kind of somewhat possible to set up the partitions in Windows and copy the images, due to the lack of an ext4 filesystem driver, you cant access the ext4 partitions of Android and L4T Ubuntu to extend the filesystem over the entire partition.

 

[Cyan]

Oh, okay. I guess I didn't know all that.
thank you for the detail and information.

I really thought it would look either at MBR or GPT, not mix both.
I still hope for a tool to manage the partition without having windows recognizing it or trying to mount one, or antivirus trying to protect partition edition or wanting to start an analyze.
maybe something like Ustealth for WiiU, where we corrupt the partition table signature to prevent windows to see the drive, and therefore not try to mount the partitions or put them in memory. only the tool would know about the partition located on the SD. once all is setup, then put back the proper signature to be seen by the switch. the only problem will be if we can't mount the FAT32 partition to put homebrew files.

 

[TariqSoftDev]

Oh, okay. I guess I didn't know all that.
thank you for the detail and information.

I really thought it would look either at MBR or GPT, not mix both.
I still hope for a tool to manage the partition without having windows recognizing it or trying to mount one, or antivirus trying to protect partition edition or wanting to start an analyze.
maybe something like Ustealth for WiiU, where we corrupt the partition table signature to prevent windows to see the drive, and therefore not try to mount the partitions or put them in memory. only the tool would know about the partition located on the SD. once all is setup, then put back the proper signature to be seen by the switch. the only problem will be if we can't mount the FAT32 partition to put homebrew files.

The tool I use in the video can properly interact with HybridMBR filesystems, MiniTool Partition Wizard.

 

[lulle2007200]

Oh, okay. I guess I didn't know all that.
thank you for the detail and information.

I really thought it would look either at MBR or GPT, not mix both.
I still hope for a tool to manage the partition without having windows recognizing it or trying to mount one, or antivirus trying to protect partition edition or wanting to start an analyze.
maybe something like Ustealth for WiiU, where we corrupt the partition table signature to prevent windows to see the drive, and therefore not try to mount the partitions or put them in memory. only the tool would know about the partition located on the SD. once all is setup, then put back the proper signature to be seen by the switch. the only problem will be if we can't mount the FAT32 partition to put homebrew files.

If you just want proper access to the fat32 partition with the homebrew files, check out my script linked earlier. Run script, install filter driver as described in readme. Windows will only see the fat32 partition and automounts it.

Still needs linux or linux vm for initial setup tho.

 

[tabzer]

If you just want proper access to the fat32 partition with the homebrew files, check out my script linked earlier. Run script, install filter driver as described in readme. Windows will only see the fat32 partition and automounts it.

Still needs linux or linux vm for initial setup tho.

Where can I get the cfadisk.inf? Is it generated by the script?

 

[lulle2007200]

Where can I get the cfadisk.inf? Is it generated by the script?

Download the FilterDriver_signed.zip from releases page.

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

I think i uploaded it with previous release.

 

[lemonmaster]

can this be used on a vm on win 10? sorry if this a stupid question

 

[pcwizard7]

can this be used on a vm on win 10? sorry if this a stupid question

haven't done this way but this allows you to run a minimal Linux environment in Windows 10
Windows Subsystem for Linux Installation Guide for Windows 10: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
GPART LiveCD: https://gparted.org/livecd.php

 

[lemonmaster]

haven't done this way but this allows you to run a minimal Linux environment in Windows 10
Windows Subsystem for Linux Installation Guide for Windows 10: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
GPART LiveCD: https://gparted.org/livecd.php

thank you! is this possible if you already installed emunand and backed up the files?

 

[pcwizard7]

thank you! is this possible if you already installed emunand and backed up the files?

when partitioning, backup your sd files and then shrink the partition to what u want the fat32 partition to be for the switch then continue with the guide except the userdata partition size will be what spaced is left on the card

userdata is for your apps and personal data in android

 

[Geridious4]

is it possible to use the same SD card i'm using for atmosphere to set this up? the card is 256gb, or do I need a seperate SD card?

 

[tabzer]

is it possible to use the same SD card i'm using for atmosphere to set this up? the card is 256gb, or do I need a seperate SD card?

The emummc part (title) is for atmosphere.

 

[Geridious4]

The emummc part (title) is for atmosphere.

Thanks for the reply, so essentially I need to partition my SD card to make room for Linux set up, if I have a 256gb then make a partition for example 150gb and keep the remainder for my atmosphere stuff that I already have on the switch.

 

[konamicode89]

Thanks for the reply, so essentially I need to partition my SD card to make room for Linux set up, if I have a 256gb then make a partition for example 150gb and keep the remainder for my atmosphere stuff that I already have on the switch.

Just make sure you back up your stuff, I'd recommend no more than 30gb for Linux and android userdata partitions just in case you want to experiment with the DC, Saturn and dolphin emulators or anything else that comes to mind