3ds nand issue, hardware problem, and NAND Backup

By HudU_, May 19, 2020 1,191 19 0

  1. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Hi!, I have a question about a friends 3ds that needs fixing. This 3ds was a preproduction unit with a rare 3d tech demo and we are looking to dump the game. This game was only accessible through the 3ds dev menu. He did a hard mod to dump the nand to his computer but afterwards, accidentally damaged a trace that connects to the nand (as seen in the photo). We have the nand backup but no key to decrypt the backup. We were thinking we could get the key by somehow making the 3ds boot to GM9, but the 3ds hasnt been hacked yet. We were also thinking that we could do the hardmod to connect the 3ds to the computer again, but I dont know too much about that mod or if you can decrypt the nand through read/write on a computer. What are your suggestions? Heres the image: https://ibb.co/h8d1cN3

    Is the nand required for the 3ds to boot? or can it be emulated via the sd card?

    Also is there any method of decrypting the nand without a key or GM9? Or can GM9 be accessed without the 3ds's nand chip in tact?

    Heres the hardmod in question:


    and I was also wondering about emunand, can the 3ds work with emunand and have the regular nand damaged?

    One last thought: Where are the nand keys stored? and if we could desolder the nand on the board and possibly the other chip with the keys (the cpu itself I assume) could we get this to boot on a different 3ds motherboard?
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited by HudU_, May 19, 2020
  2. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    I think ninfs would be able to navigate and extract contents from your friend's NAND backup, unless there's some incompatibility with it being a pre-production unit.
    https://github.com/ihaveamac/ninfs

    There's a setup section in its readme that explains what you'll need.
    (Definitely boot9.bin, potentially SeedDB)
     
    E1ite007 and HudU_ like this.
  3. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Whats SeedDB? And will it require a key to decrypt it? Also tysm for your input!
     
  4. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    SeedDB afaik is just a collection of 'seeds' for titles.
    Afaik something about how crypto changed around firmware 9.6(?) made it necessary for extracting title contents.

    It looks like ihaveamac has a downloadable version of it here if you can't dump it from your or your friend's system.
    https://github.com/ihaveamac/3DS-rom-tools/wiki/SeedDB-list

    Boot9.bin should contain all the necessary keys to decrypt and extract content from a NAND dump.
     
    Last edited by 8BitWonder, May 19, 2020
    HudU_ and E1ite007 like this.
  5. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Thats only for retail games right? This is an unreleased game only available through the 3ds dev menu, Heres a video for reference:
     
    yuyuyup and E1ite007 like this.
  6. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    I don't know if dev apps have any interaction with SeedDB, I assume they wouldn't.
    I figured to mention it in case boot9.bin alone wasn't proving successful.
     
  7. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Is there any better way I can contact you in case of the situation? also would I try to dump titles like normal with a seeddb file and the dev apps should pop up anyway?
     
  8. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    If you'd like to PM me feel free.
    I think all the titles on the NAND dump should be viewable in the GUI. It's just that those requiring SeedDB won't mount correctly if it's absent.
     
    HudU_ likes this.
  9. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    How do I use ninfs? I have a Mac and I downloaded the latest version and all required according to the readme file.
     
  10. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    I haven't used macOS in a long time, I'll set up a VM real quick and get back to you once I have it running.
     
    HudU_ likes this.
  11. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Sounds good, thx. I looked into the commands and everything for terminal but I don't know where to put the nand.bin so everything will work. Keep in mind, I only have the nand.bin and nothing else
     
  12. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Also, how do you get the GUI to work? Id prefer that over using terminal
     
  13. lone_wolf323

    lone_wolf323 GBAtemp Psycho!
    Member
    Level 12

    Joined:
    May 27, 2011
    Messages:
    3,831
    Country:
    Canada
    Uhm....is this the same console that you have posted about months ago aswell?
     
    HudU_ likes this.
  14. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    @HudU_
    Setting up a MacOS VM is proving to be a PITA to put it nicely.
    Instead of just downloading the binary in releases try doing the following from the Readme:
    Then run the following command in terminal to complete the installation (with GUI support):
    Code:
    python3 -m pip install --upgrade https://github.com/ihaveamac/ninfs/releases/download/v1.7b2/ninfs-1.7b2-src.zip#egg=ninfs[gui]
    After the installation has completed try just typing ninfs into terminal. That should hopefully just pull up ninfs for you to use.

    Keep in mind you'll still need to supply boot9.bin in the expected directory as outlined in the README.
    From there you should be able to mount your nand, and then open up your CTRNand and search for the title you're trying to dump.
    I'll be busy the rest of the day, let me know how this goes for you.
     
  15. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    I always get the error "no module named _gui"
     
  16. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Yes. We mostly got out of touch, but recently started to work on the project again.
     
  17. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    Try using one of the stable builds instead, install v1.6.1 in terminal with:
    Code:
    python3 -m pip install --upgrade ninfs[gui]==1.6.1
     
  18. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    Ok: I just got it to work, But I think I need the OTP file, or if not, its telling me I need essential.exefs if I don't have the OTP file. Also what do I do from here? (look at image), Im not sure what to click or where to go to proceed.
     

    Attached Files:

  19. 8BitWonder

    8BitWonder Small Homebrew Dev
    Member
    Level 13

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2016
    Messages:
    2,283
    Country:
    United States
    Hmm, if we don't have the otp or if it was never embedded we may need to see if GM9 can be made to run from ntrboot without boot9strap installed.
    I've never done that before and tbh I'm not sure if it's do-able.
    I can test it later with my own unit.

    In the mean-time, what you would need to do is create some directory you want the nand to be loaded into.
    Ex: Create a directory named 'tmp' on your Desktop, and then select it when browsing for a mount-point.
    Then you'd mount it, and open that folder to see the contents of your nand backup.
     
  20. HudU_

    OP HudU_ Member
    Newcomer
    Level 3

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Messages:
    49
    Country:
    United States
    LMK if you can find a way to get GM9 running without Boot9strap, ill also look into the situation. Ill PM you the nand if you want to see if you can get that working, but I think it requires the keys sadly
     
    Last edited by HudU_, May 19, 2020
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)
Check for new posts
Draft saved Draft deleted
Loading...

Hide similar threads Similar threads with keywords - hardware, problem, Backup

  1. Ryccardo

    Photo guide to installing DSiWare backups on real hardware and emulator

    Ryccardo, Jul 8, 2017, in forum: NDS - Tutorials
    Replies:
    285
    Views:
    50,164
    acrash
    Jan 8, 2021
  2. Prime321

    Problem with Wii Backups

    Prime321, Oct 6, 2020, in forum: Wii U - Hacking & Backup Loaders
    Replies:
    7
    Views:
    549
    Prime321
    Oct 7, 2020
  3. Idrolitina

    Question Installed game backups boot into Homebrew menu (Sigpatches problem?)

    Idrolitina, Sep 2, 2020, in forum: Switch - Exploits, Custom Firmwares & Soft Mods
    Replies:
    4
    Views:
    762
    TheCasualties
    Sep 2, 2020
  4. pickinanameainteasy

    Is it possible to play backups without any kind of hardware mod?

    pickinanameainteasy, Jul 25, 2020, in forum: Xbox 360 - Hacking & Homebrew
    Replies:
    30
    Views:
    2,166
    DinohScene
    Jul 25, 2020
  5. Searcher17

    Problem hacking 3DS - was never prompted to create essential files backup

    Searcher17, Jul 21, 2020, in forum: 3DS - Homebrew Development and Emulators
    Replies:
    9
    Views:
    1,142
    Searcher17
    Jul 21, 2020