CFW n3DS fine with 64GB card, not reading software from 128GB

TempOutlook · Aug 13, 2022

**SOLVED**
For any future person with this problem; format the 128GB card with AOEMI Partition (not guiformatter because you need to be able to pick a 64KB cluster size in addition to FAT32, guiformatter doesn't have the cluster option), then put it into the n3DS, ignore that warning you'll get, and format the whole n3DS in Settings with the new card still in. Doing this will do what is necessary to the card to get it working. THEN move your existing files that you should have saved on your desktop from your other card, to the new card that has been correctly formatted by AOMEI and the n3DS. Good to go from there.

I'm a pretty neglectful n3DS owner, but was looking to remedy that. I decided on a full format just to have updated everything, luma etc. That part worked ok. Also went about upgrading storage amount, had a 64GB card in already, want to go to 128GB. Used the GUIformat recommended on the official guide. Chose the right allocation size for 128GB, 65536. Now the card is FAT32, but still not reading (apparently) when I start it up. I tried changing the chunks to 32KB and then 64KB in AOEMI Partition Assistant too but that didn't work. Any advice would be very appreciated.

TempOutlook · Aug 13, 2022

So I tried formatting it to something the 3ds would be happy with with GodMode, and apparently it seems to be happy with it now, but trying to install the CFW .cia's through the Download Play app by getting the Homebrew App to launch in its stead, I get a hard crash, and now the 128GB card won't even register properly when plugged into my laptop, it displays as a volume that exists in disk management and in AOMEI Partition Assistant, but I can't even format it, I get a warning 'The System cannot find the file specified'. Has the card locked itself up or something? It's weird that the disk managers can see it but I can't format it or see it in my list of drives...

EDIT: Sticking the 128GB into a Fire 7 solved it... a cheap ass Amazon tablet was able to format what W11 was not?? Whaaaaa??

So the 128GB is back working as a drive/folder that can open... but still no luck getting the 3DS to play nice with it. I had no idea the n3DS had this strange issue with 128GB or bigger I guess. It's a Samsung EVO if that's relevant in any way...

Doux91 · Aug 14, 2022

Maybe your memory is fake, that could explain all the issues or microsd is not compatible

lone_wolf323 · Aug 14, 2022

Windows has always been a pain about formatting any cards over 64gb as FAT32. unfortunately you do need to grab some format program to get it done properly.

CoolMe · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
I had no idea the n3DS had this strange issue with 128GB or bigger

Nope, 128GB sd cards and larger work fine with the 3DS.. About the h2testw you should test it with the write and read setting. And it should be formatted as fat32 64kb cluster size before and after the test.

TempOutlook · Aug 14, 2022

Doux91 said:
Maybe your memory is fake, that could explain all the issues or microsd is not compatible

It works on everything else not sure Nintendo would have better checks than other platforms. I always buy from the official brand store on Amazon.

lone_wolf323 said:
Windows has always been a pain about formatting any cards over 64gb as FAT32. unfortunately you do need to grab some format program to get it done properly.

Mentioned in my posts already. Should I be using something other than AOEMI Partitition Assistant or guiformat?

CoolMe said:
Nope, 128GB sd cards and larger work fine with the 3DS.. About the h2testw you should test it with the write and read setting. And it should be formatted as fat32 64kb cluster size before and after the test.

That test takes aaaaaages though... could there be some kind of software lock on, like full size sd cards used to have a physical switch on the card?

TempOutlook · Aug 14, 2022

OK so figured it out, formatting the unit with the 128GB card already in formatted the card in the necessary way too... but now, I went to update B9s using this page https://3ds.hacks.guide/updating-b9s and got to the force power off bit, but powering back on is giving me the blue power on light but nothing else, it's not booting into the main menu? Just black screens... unless I take out the sd card, it boots fine without it. Have I created some conflict with boot.firm files of incompatible versions or something?

CoolMe · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
It works on everything else not sure Nintendo would have better checks than other platforms. I always buy from the official brand store on Amazon.

Mentioned in my posts already. Should I be using something other than AOEMI Partitition Assistant or guiformat?

That test takes aaaaaages though... could there be some kind of software lock on, like full size sd cards used to have a physical switch on the card?

TempOutlook said:
OK so figured it out, formatting the unit with the 128GB card already in formatted the card in the necessary way too... but now, I went to update B9s using this page https://3ds.hacks.guide/updating-b9s and got to the force power off bit, but powering back on is giving me the blue power on light but nothing else, it's not booting into the main menu? Just black screens... unless I take out the sd card, it boots fine without it. Have I created some conflict with boot.firm files of incompatible versions or something?

At this point you should just try with another sd card. And not sure how you did h2testw test, with what settings and what result..
Just format it as FAT32 32kb clusters, place the latest Luma3DS on the root of the sdcard, and boot up the system. Update the system if it is on a lower firmware.
I would suggest using Universal-Updater to setup Luma3DS ctrnand, so both Lumas could be the same.

jeffyTheHomebrewer · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
It works on everything else not sure Nintendo would have better checks than other platforms. I always buy from the official brand store on Amazon.

Mentioned in my posts already. Should I be using something other than AOEMI Partitition Assistant or guiformat?

That test takes aaaaaages though... could there be some kind of software lock on, like full size sd cards used to have a physical switch on the card?

No, just use guiformat, that's good.
Also, while SD cards DO have a software read-only lock, that only kicks in after a good few years when the card finally starts dying, and it'll essentially only become useful to move all your stuff to a new card, and after that, useless. (it is possible to make a partition read only, but I'm not going to get into that since guiformat doesn't do that anyway)

Anyway, h2testw CAN take a long time, but you should still do it. Even cards from Big Megacorpo Brand™® aren't always perfect, and sometimes they can have a "bad batch".

jeffyTheHomebrewer · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
OK so figured it out, formatting the unit with the 128GB card already in formatted the card in the necessary way too... but now, I went to update B9s using this page https://3ds.hacks.guide/updating-b9s and got to the force power off bit, but powering back on is giving me the blue power on light but nothing else, it's not booting into the main menu? Just black screens... unless I take out the sd card, it boots fine without it. Have I created some conflict with boot.firm files of incompatible versions or something?

Just do what CoolMe said, get the latest Luma3DS release and put it on your SD card.
Personally I think Universal-Updater is a piece'a shit for CFW updates and I'd rather just copy the firm to NAND by hand in GM9, but that's just me honestly. It's up to you, and I think my install of universal updater just might be broken slightly.

TempOutlook · Aug 14, 2022

Cheers Jeffy.

OK, moving the last boot.firm and boot.3dsx seems to have worked. I guess my biggest problem here is not understanding Luma3DS, GodMode9, and Boot9Strap. Has one replaced the other/made one redundant? What is dependent on what? I'm on Luma 11 now. Should I update the other two or are they likely already updated?

Last time I was using my 3DS there were some interesting things happening with DS games, like widescreen and upscaling, but they were super awkward to get working... any chance things have improved there and it can be done with a tool on the 3DS?

Sypherone · Aug 14, 2022

Boot9strap is the jailbreak on the system wich allows to exute own code.
Luma is the CFW wich needs b9s installed to be able to be executed.
Godemode9 is a all around tool like a "swiss knife" for the 3DS wich needs b9s installed.

TempOutlook · Aug 14, 2022

Sypherone said:
Boot9strap is the jailbreak on the system wich allows to exute own code.
Luma is the CFW wich needs b9s installed to be able to be executed.
Godemode9 is a all around tool like a "swiss knife" for the 3DS wich needs b9s installed.

If I'm running Luma v11/recently re-did the CFW from a format, are they likely to be the latest versions?

CoolMe · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
If I'm running Luma v11/recently re-did the CFW from a format, are they likely to be the latest versions?

Luma's the one that's needed to be on the latest version. You can update GodMode9 if you want but it's not necessary, unless it's a really old you're using (not likely)..

Sypherone · Aug 14, 2022

Luma is the main application wich needs to be latest version. B9s and gm9 are unfrequently new versions, wich are not so important to be up to date.

jeffyTheHomebrewer · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
Cheers Jeffy.

OK, moving the last boot.firm and boot.3dsx seems to have worked. I guess my biggest problem here is not understanding Luma3DS, GodMode9, and Boot9Strap. Has one replaced the other/made one redundant? What is dependent on what? I'm on Luma 11 now. Should I update the other two or are they likely already updated?

Last time I was using my 3DS there were some interesting things happening with DS games, like widescreen and upscaling, but they were super awkward to get working... any chance things have improved there and it can be done with a tool on the 3DS?

Boot9Strap is the first thing that loads on your 3DS. It checks the SD card for boot.firm, and if found, loads it. (usually, boot.firm is Luma3DS) If it finds nothing on the SD, it'll try to load boot.firm from NAND.

When Luma3DS loads, you can hold SELECT to configure it, or START to boot a payload. If only one payload (usually GODMODE9) is in luma/payloads/, Luma will load that one when you hold start.

GODMODE9 is a multi-purpose tool, but is mostly an all-access file manager that's both nearly noob-proof, and user-friendly.

As for updating them all, you don't really need to worry about updating Boot9Strap. (it's kind of a pain in the ass too, since I'm doing it myself right now and BOY OH BOY do they need to fix hacks.3ds.guide's page on installing b9s with safeb9sinstaller)

To update Luma3DS: Go to the github, and download the latest release. Copy Luma's firm to the root of your SD card, with the name of "boot.firm".

To update GODMODE9: Go to the github, download the latest release, and copy GM9's firm to the luma/payloads/ folder on your SD card.

TempOutlook · Aug 14, 2022

Cheers guys.

For any future person with this problem; format the 128GB card with AOEMI Partition (not guiformatter because you need to be able to pick a 64KB cluster size in addition to FAT32, guiformatter doesn't have the cluster option), then put it into the n3DS, ignore that warning you'll get, and format the whole n3DS in Settings with the new card still in. Doing this will do what is necessary to the card to get it working. THEN move your existing files that you should have saved on your desktop from your other card, to the new card that has been correctly formatted by AOMEI and the n3DS. Good to go from there.

CoolMe · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
not guiformatter because you need to be able to pick a 64KB cluster size in addition to FAT32, guiformatter doesn't have the cluster option

Not sure what version of Guiformat you used, but it does have 64kb cluster size option. And regardless of that, the sd card would still work in the 3DS if it was formatted with 32kb too.

TempOutlook said:
ignore that warning you'll get, and format the whole n3DS in Settings with the new card still in.

You don't have to format it once you did so on the PC..

TempOutlook · Aug 14, 2022

CoolMe said:
Not sure what version of Guiformat you used, but it does have 64kb cluster size option. And regardless of that, the sd card would still work in the 3DS if it was formatted with 32kb too.

You don't have to format it once you did so on the PC..

I used the latest, and there was no cluster option whatsoever.

And incorrect. I needed to format the n3DS unit with the card in it. After that it stopped flashing that warning. Guess it wanted to create that 'Nintendo 3DS' folder itself for whatever reason.

CoolMe · Aug 14, 2022

TempOutlook said:
I needed to format the n3DS unit with the card in it. After that it stopped flashing that warning. Guess it wanted to create that 'Nintendo 3DS' folder itself for whatever reason.

"It needed creating the Nintendo 3DS folder" is not the same as the sd card needed to be formatted on the 3DS in order to be used..

CFW n3DS fine with 64GB card, not reading software from 128GB

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