Hacking Some Questions about emuNAND (Atmosphere)

starburst · Nov 9, 2019

This Switch came originally with firmware version 4.0.1. I made a backup of it before using custom firmware, Atmosphere has been used since day one, and the system has been updated through ChoiDujour and AutoRCM (the original firmware remains at 4.0.1 and has not been booted into after Atmosphere was first used.)
The custom firmware currently installed is 7.0.1, and I would like to setup emuNAND. I do not care about the installed games and saves, and would rather start from scratch.

From what I have read, I think that I can
1. restore my original backup using Hekate,
2. then create an emuNAND from this original firmware version,
3. update emuNAND to the latest firmware version using ChoiDujour to be able to play the latest games,
4. reinstall my games and applications.

Does this make sense?

My questions:

- Any precautions about AutoRCM?
Does restoring my original backup disables AutoRCM? Should I disable it before the backup restoration?

- How do I enable exFAT on emuNAND?
My original backup does not support exFAT. This means (I think) that my original emuNAND will not support exFAT either. I guess that I can enable exFAT when upgrading it through ChoiDujour. Will I have to reformat the emuNAND SC card and copy everything back? Is exFAT enabled only on the data partition of the emuNAND? This is, does the system partition of the emuNAND remain in as FAT32 while the data partition uses a different file system?

Thanks in advance.

Kubas_inko · Nov 10, 2019

Yes. Those steps make sense. Just don't forget to uninstall autoRCM before creating your EmuMMC or you'll gonna install autorcm to it (and you don't want that).
And yes. It will disable autoRCM, unless you had it enabled on the old backup. You don't have to disable it.
You will need to download your current (old) FW files and via choidujourn update to exfat. Then you should create EmuMMC which will support exFAT. Technically you don't have to reformat the EmuMMC partition, you can just reformat the one you use for data. So yea, exactly.

Pro tip: Do another backup now, just to stay safe. Who knows what can go wrong (obviously only if you have space and time).

starburst · Nov 10, 2019

Thanks on your feedback, mate.

So, because AutoRCM is not present on the original NAND backup (I think), it will be disabled upon restoring it. Moreover, it should be disabled before creating an emuNAND. Is this right?
Well, I will have to use tinfoil once again to enter RCM and launch a payload (I never bought a jig.)

I do not fully understand your comments about exFAT. Unless it is a permanent change on any firmware (say, it remains installed even after restoring a previous NAND backup), I would not be able to install the appropriate files, for I do not want to use custom firmware on my original NAND. Thus, my restored NAND would have no exFAT support and neither will the emuNAND created from it.

About creating a new backup of the current state, I would have to delete various games first, for over 50 % of the 200 GB SD card is already in use and I do not have an extra SD card of a similar size.
I do have another NAND backup created after Atmosphere was in place and I upgraded the firmware using ChoiDujour to the then-latest version. It should be firmware 6+ (the exact version is written on the backup, but it is on an external HD that I do not have access to right now.)

Hacking Some Questions about emuNAND (Atmosphere)

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