Hacking How can I zero the NAND space?

isoisoiso · Dec 10, 2018

I installled a few games and updates to the nand a few months ago, now the NAND backup size is huge after compressing it to .zip even after uninstalling those games and updates
Is it possible to zero the NAND and get rid of all that ghost data?

chippy · Dec 10, 2018

The nand is encrypted so even 0's are not 0's when encryption is done
You might find putting in days like a game can make it compress better due on the resulting encryption.
Zipping/compressing usually takes the same recurring patterns and changes them to something smaller and adds it to a key to uncompress

Freezerbomb · Dec 10, 2018

You can do that by using Nintendo's official recovery mode. It will delete everything though.

isoisoiso · Dec 10, 2018

Freezerbomb said:
You can do that by using Nintendo's official recovery mode. It will delete everything though.

You sure?

Freezerbomb · Dec 11, 2018

I haven't tried it myself yet, but I've heard from others that it does work. I'm going to do it when SXOS 3.0 comes out and I'll report the results here.

isoisoiso · Dec 11, 2018

One more bump

MHDestination · Dec 11, 2018

Freezerbomb said:
You can do that by using Nintendo's official recovery mode. It will delete everything though.

I'm quite sure that the recovery menu won't ever zero the sectors.
It removes just the entries from MFT.

There would be no reason for recovery to zero out those sectors, since that would only degrade the lifespan of the emmc

PatrickD85 · Dec 11, 2018

Ah I first thought you wanted to fill the Nand. Devmenu can actually do it both ways; fill the remaining space up with dummy data, and remove said dummy data. Not sure if it would work in your case though.

bundat · Dec 11, 2018

PatrickD85 said:
Ah I first thought you wanted to fill the Nand. Devmenu can actually do it both ways; fill the remaining space up with dummy data, and remove said dummy data. Not sure if it would work in your case though.

If the dummy data isn't random, and is instead something like all FF's, that also works too for good compression.

I wonder... maybe someone would be willing to test it out. I can't, I don't even have the free space right now to make another nand backup. And I'm lazy

cleeezzz · Dec 11, 2018

We have essentially the same issue. I think we reached a solution. I cannot post links but you can find the thread on this forum or in my post history.

The difference is that you want to do it on your switch itself and I wanted to do it on an existing backup. I think the process is the same except it is riskier to do it directly to the switch nand.

isoisoiso · Dec 11, 2018

cleeezzz said:
We have essentially the same issue. I think we reached a solution. I cannot post links but you can find the thread on this forum or in my post history.

The difference is that you want to do it on your switch itself and I wanted to do it on an existing backup. I think the process is the same except it is riskier to do it directly to the switch nand.

If I restore that modified backup, will it whipe the ghost data or what happens with it?
Also can you dm some link?

cleeezzz · Dec 11, 2018

Yeah the restore will write to your nand bit for bit, it would wipe out the ghost data.

I dont think I can DM, my account is too new, you can find my thread in my profile.

EDIT: I restored my backup and confirmed that it works, remember that the firmware must be launched via a specially configured hekate_ipl.ini (EVEN IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A hekate_ipl.ini SET UP, YOU MUST OVERWRITE IT WITH THIS ONE). It is found in raj's guide about booting official firmware without burning fuses. DM me if you need the link, I cannot give you the link through this post and I cannot DM you.

Hacking How can I zero the NAND space?

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