Important note

This only works if your Switch hasn't ever been online. If it was, you might already be banned for whatever reason OR Nintendo has some kind of a "log snapshot" that will be different from the one that will be created once you go online again with your Switch at the end of this tutorial (leading to a ban).
The only use case for this is, if you have a Switch, that never went online (!) and you started using CFW/NSPs/Homebrew WITHOUT creating a clean NAND dump BEFORE.

I had a friend that never went online but also never created a NAND dump and started using all the custom firmware niceness as it came out. Now that it's easy to create an emuNAND for that, he wanted to go online with his sysNAND. @shchmue helped me out on Discord cleaning up his NAND to remove all logs and afterwards he indeed was able to play online (and still is).

Obviously I'm not responsible for any bricks or other bad and explosives things happening to you following this.
Also I can't guarantee it will work as intended and/or you won't be banned. There's a thousand reasons the latter could happen (or already happened for whatever reason). However this guide is the only way for this specific use case and should work.

Steps

Since this involves using memloader and HacDiskMount to mount your NAND (aka eMMC) in Windows, I'll save myself a lot of time by pointing you to Raj's fantastic guide (because why writing everything down another time?) so let's get started:

1. Use hekate (faster and probably better than SX OS) to create a NAND backup (aka eMMC dump). Dump both, Boot0/1 and the full raw NAND.
   Seriously this is like the most important step ever! If anything goes wrong or you accidentally delete one more thing than you should, restoring your NAND backup only takes around 15 - 20 minutes in hekate and lets you start over.
   1. Optional: Create an emuNAND/emuMMC out of your current "hacky" sysNAND to continue using CFW there after your sysNAND is clean.
2. If you haven't ever used your Switch in combination with your computer you need to install the USB drivers first. You can follow the first step of this guide to do so.
3. Follow this guide by Rajkosto to the point where you are able to mount your NAND in Windows.
4. Mount the USER partition and delete everything on it. Unmount it afterwards.
5. Mount the SYSTEM partition and delete everything on it except these two things:
   
   • content (folder)
   • 8000000000000120 (file that is inside the save folder)
   
   Unmount if afterwards.

That's it! You should end up with only two folders and nothing else on your SYSTEM partition: content and save.
And inside that save folder you deleted everything except that single file I mentioned above (8000000000000120).

Credits

@shchmue for telling me exactly what to do
@rajkosto for his HacDiskMount guide and all his fantastic tools
@CTCaer for his work on hekate (dumping/restoring NAND is so fast and easy nowadays)
@m4xw for making my life complete with his libnx RetroArch port (actually not related to this guide but had to mention it)

 

[aladrin]

thanks for the info

 

[lordelan]

If you used cfw, nothing gona save you; only changing your console.

False. It depends on whether you've been online with the CFW or not. If not, this guide most likely saves you.

 

[GregH]

Hi everyone, sorry for the noob questions.
I used my switch as a normal user, didn't play online because the only games i played didn't need online ( botw, odissey, diabloIII) but i donwloaded some legit software from eshop: games, app ecc.

I recently modded my switch with fusee gelee atmosphere/kosmos, leaving the console connected to internet, i just made a backup NAND and BIS key and blocked telemetry as suggested in the switch homebrew guide.
There's a way i can check if the console is flagged for the ban? and when usually the ban wave will occurr generally?
What will happen if the console will be banned? I can still use another console with my account? i've a lot of legit games bought on the eshop.
But most of all,there's something that i can do now to prevent a flag or a ban, if i'm still not flagged as a pirate ?

 

[lordelan]

Hi everyone, sorry for the noob questions.
I used my switch as a normal user, didn't play online because the only games i played didn't need online ( botw, odissey, diabloIII) but i donwloaded some legit software from eshop: games, app ecc.

I recently modded my switch with fusee gelee atmosphere/kosmos, leaving the console connected to internet, i just made a backup NAND and BIS key and blocked telemetry as suggested in the switch homebrew guide.
There's a way i can check if the console is flagged for the ban? and when usually the ban wave will occurr generally?
What will happen if the console will be banned? I can still use another console with my account? i've a lot of legit games bought on the eshop.
But most of all,there's something that i can do now to prevent a flag or a ban, if i'm still not flagged as a pirate ?

If you really followed any telemetry blocking advices from the point on where you used any homebrew related stuff you should be fine.
However there's no way to check if you're banned other than going online and trying it out.
If you go online now without telemetry blocking on your homebrewesque console you most likely will get banned.
You should however be fine if you follow my guide in the first post to clean up your nand.
Make a NAND backup before you do so you can go back to your current state in case you're banned anyway.
Also you can put your current state in an emuNAND.

You should be able to use your account on another console, even if you're banned but no guarantee for that.

If you clean up your nand and go back online you can redownload your eShop games (if you're not banned).

 

[bellydrum]

If you used cfw, nothing gona save you; only changing your console.

I booted cfw onto sysnand without hitting nintendo's servers (set up 90nd). Never download any NSPs, only homebrews for themes, ftp, and GBA / DS emulator.

However, after that I booted into OFW and went online, w/o 90ns blocking nintendo servers. Again, I went online, but only via official firmware. It was using the same nand as the cfw tho. AFAIK with Atmosphere 9 all logs are stored on the SD and therefore not sent to nintendo.... am I good or no?

 

[alexj9626]

Kinda late but... Would this still work?

 

[lordelan]

Kinda late but... Would this still work?

Sure
But again: Only if your console wasn't online before.

 

[nev1907]

Hey guys. I'm fairly new to the scene so there are things that i don't quite get. I bought a used Switch with CFW already on it. I think it's never been used to play online and no emunand was created for the CFW (btw it came with SX OS not Atmosphere). Even if it is banned I want to give it a try to get games on discount and try to play online until the console gets banned. NAND backup was never done (even if it was i don't have the files). My question is, in the first part we create a NAND backup by using Hekate. This NAND backup is not clean, it is there to be safe if things go wrong, so the process can be started over, right? Second question is, after finishing everything that has been told in the guide and the sysnand is clean, should I do a NAND backup again to have a clean backup and delete the first NAND backup that was created for the first part of the guide? I don't know if my questions even make sense, it's my second day with the Switch lol. Thanks in advance.

 

[lordelan]

Hey guys. I'm fairly new to the scene so there are things that i don't quite get. I bought a used Switch with CFW already on it. I think it's never been used to play online and no emunand was created for the CFW (btw it came with SX OS not Atmosphere). Even if it is banned I want to give it a try to get games on discount and try to play online until the console gets banned. NAND backup was never done (even if it was i don't have the files). My question is, in the first part we create a NAND backup by using Hekate. This NAND backup is not clean, it is there to be safe if things go wrong, so the process can be started over, right? Second question is, after finishing everything that has been told in the guide and the sysnand is clean, should I do a NAND backup again to have a clean backup and delete the first NAND backup that was created for the first part of the guide? I don't know if my questions even make sense, it's my second day with the Switch lol. Thanks in advance.

Okay, you've got a hacky but offline Switch. If that's the case, follow these steps:

1. Create NAND backup no matter what to be on the safe side of things
2. Create an emuNAND out of your current hacky sysNAND, for example with SX OS bootmenu - this doesn't require an SX OS licence and it will erase everything from your SD card so make a backup if needed
3. Follow this guide to clean your sysNAND
4. Use hekate or SX OS to boot either in your stock sysNAND and (try to) play online or boot into emuNAND and keep doing hacky stuff.

Keep the emuNAND offline obviously or safe it with 90DNS and/or incognito

 

[mesmeriize]

Would this be helpful to a console that went online before any modding then stayed offline permanently after modding? If I delete everything, wouldn't there be a mismatch in logs which may lead to a ban?

 

[lordelan]

wouldn't there be a mismatch in logs which may lead to a ban?

Correct, this might be the case.
Unfortunately we don't know when Nintendo was logging, what was logged and in which structure.

But a little about myself ... I was online on 4.1.0, then went offline when the custom firmwares showed up and did hacky stuff. Then I created a backup of 4.1.0 and updated the firmware.
Later I restored this update, "cleaned" it and updated to 5.x with a cartridge. Then I went back online with it and didn't get banned.
So I can assure you anything but you could push your luck.

 

[Wamboniga]

With nxmtp i can also mount a User and System partition, are these the same as the ones mounted with hacdiskmount?
would be easier like this

EDIT:
And is it safe to leave AutoRCM on?

 

[Lacius]

With nxmtp i can also mount a User and System partition, are these the same as the ones mounted with hacdiskmount?
would be easier like this

EDIT:
And is it safe to leave AutoRCM on?

It's safe to leave AutoRCM on.

 

[lordelan]

With nxmtp i can also mount a User and System partition, are these the same as the ones mounted with hacdiskmount?
would be easier like this

Theoretically but you should never do things to the system partition with nxmtp.
I love it to push over homebrews or small files but it's not stable enough to risk to mess with things on system. Also since nxmtp is a homebrew running in Horizon you're obviously having your Switch turned on while doing stuff on system which is never a good idea!

 

[Wamboniga]

Also since nxmtp is a homebrew running in Horizon you're obviously having your Switch turned on while doing stuff on system which is never a good idea!

I thought so, thanks for the answer

 

[Wamboniga]

Sry for double post but, when I try to boot into stock FW, it shows the Nintendo and then shuts down.
I downgraded to 3.0.0 to match the fuse counts when going online and it was running fine.
After that I deleted what's to be deleted in the SYSTEM and USER partition and since then it won't boot.
RCM and emuMMC work fine.

 

[lordelan]

Sry for double post but, when I try to boot into stock FW, it shows the Nintendo and then shuts down.
I downgraded to 3.0.0 to match the fuse counts when going online and it was running fine.
After that I deleted what's to be deleted in the SYSTEM and USER partition and since then it won't boot.
RCM and emuMMC work fine.

Sounds strange and it's hard to tell at which point something went wrong. I'd redo the sysNAND part.

 

[MistWisp]

I did this and now i can't boot in to CFW Sysnand
Gives me black screen after the atmosphere logo :x
SDCard is Fat32

 

[lordelan]

I did this and now i can't boot in to CFW Sysnand
Gives me black screen after the atmosphere logo :x
SDCard is Fat32

Really hard to tell what went wrong.
Sounds like you deleted more or less than written in the first post.
Can you boot without Atmosphère?
Try to use hekate (newest version!) and choose the "stock/sysnand" option from Launch.

 

[MistWisp]

i remade my nand with choidujour and downgraded then used latest atmosphère and updated it to 10.2.0 with choidujournx now it works