Hacking Question Questions about NAND Backups/Restores, CFW, and More on Switch

[albert2417]

So I can't use Google efficiently and have many concerns about modding games on my Switch.

I don't have the ability to buy another Switch if this one were to be screwed or banned, so I'm trying to be as careful as possible.

So, I backed up my NAND and have multiple .bin files. I don't know where I'm going with this.

Question 1: Would having a NAND backup even matter if I'm just going to mod a game? Like, I want to create custom skins and add custom music to a game, but I'm not sure if I really need to have a whole Switch backup because I think I just need the backup of the game specifically to mod it.

Question 2: What purpose does restoring a NAND have? I'm really confused about it. All I know is that I need a NAND backup to begin with in order to do it. I heard restores are done to bring the switch back to the exact place it was when you backed it up OR completely resets your switch so you can avoid a ban, but I really don't understand how or if that's even true. Plus, I wanted to just see where it went in hekate, and it warned me that my Switch may be rendered unusable after the restore. I really don't know.

Question 3: I backed up my NAND, but can that and only that constitute a ban if I were to use the internet again without loading up things like hekate? Like, if I get all the modding crap out of the SD card.

Question 4: I backed up a NAND and got rawnand.bins up the butt. My SD card didn't have enough space and it ended up doing partial backups, and now I'm concerned about the 15 different rawnand.bins because the tutorials had only one rawnand.bin file. If I were to restore the NAND, (for whatever purpose it exists for) would the multiple .bin files matter? Would they brick my Switch?

Question 5: I know booting into CFW while online can result in a ban. However, CFW is needed to dump my game. I would not know how to get rid of CFW and all the other Switch modding stuff from the system if I put them on it.

I'm just very worried I will screw up my Switch in my endeavors.

If anything, I should probably turn back at this point, but I don't know if it's too late yet.

Any help is appreciated greatly.

 

[Tomato123]

1 & 2. It's always better to be safe than sorry. Having a NAND backup will mean that if anything goes wrong and the NAND on your switch is corrupt for whatever reason you can restore it, potentially saving it from becoming an expensive paperweight. It's not required at all but might save you from some headaches.

3. Backing up your NAND should not cause bans because it's done before the Switch is even fully booted.

4. Assuming you are using a Fat32 formatted SD card as you should be, the reason for multiple files is that Fat32 only supports up to 4GB files and so it needs to be split into multiple files. Whatever tutorial you saw/read likely used an ExFat formatted SD card which is not recommended.

5. CFW is only installed on your SD Card, it does not (or at least should not) touch anything on the Switch itself. Once you turn the Swich off, you can turn it back on like nothing ever happend.

Just to clarify something as you seem to be confused what the NAND backup is exactly. It's just a copy of the internal stuff that makes your Switch work. Having one doesn't stop bans or anything like that. You probably are getting it a little mixed up with an emuMMC which is similar but it allows the CFW to use that instead of the one on your Switch, which will potentially lower your chance of a ban. Bans are somewhat random though and there's never a guarantee. And bans don't stop your Switch working. You just can't go online or if you are banned from the e-shop then you can't download stuff from there like games or even updates.

 

[Kafluke]

If you mod a game in any way (skins, music etc.) and then take that game online you'll be banned. Dont do it. Only go online with official sysnand not hacked in the slightest. Also, backup boot0 and boot1 if you ever want to restore. Raw nand is not enough.

Create a emunand on your SD card for all your modding and dont go online with it.

 

[MSco]

Also, backup boot0 and boot1 if you ever want to restore. Raw nand is not enough.

Does the firmware matter, if I would like to restore boot0 or boot1? Or can I restore backups of boot0 and boot1, if the boot0 and boo1 backups are from 5.0.0 times and if I am now on 10.0?

 

[Kafluke]

Does the firmware matter, if I would like to restore boot0 or boot1? Or can I restore backups of boot0 and boot1, if the boot0 and boo1 backups are from 5.0.0 times and if I am now on 10.0?

The boot0 and boot1 files must match the installed firmware

 

[annson24]

Any help is appreciated greatly.

1. A NAND backup is essential even if what you're doing seems safe. This backup will save you in the future incase of an unforseen brick.

2. If compared to a vehicle, your NAND is basically your engine. If something bad happens to your NAND you can easily fix it by restoring your backup.

To "avoid a ban" people are restoring their clean nand backup so that all the sketchy stuff they did that was recorded in their system will be wiped away.

3. Using hekate doesn't constitute a ban. Doing sketchy stuff does (installing pirated games, modding online games, cheating on online games, etc.)

4. Your NAND backup is splitted into multiple parts because your sdcard is formatted as fat32 (fat32 is recommended to use that exfat so this is fine). To check if you have the complete nand backup, check if all the backup files equals 32GB.

5. Booting CFW (atmosphere) alone doesn't constitute a ban either, as well as running homebrews. Just don't install NSP, NSZ, XCI, XCZs and your nand will still be considered "clean".

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk

 

[Danook28]

I have nintendo switch cfw emummc. And when do full nand backup only 25.9 gp only from boot0 to raw 12. And nand System only 25.7gp about 3 and some mega not find show size not empty. I do sd partion emummc. And chose 29 when step hekate sd partion. On old switch. Can fix this nand System size?!???