3DS Unbricking Possible!

[YoshiInAVoid]

Blue Screen of Death caused by Gateway 3DS card, resulting in a brick​

krisztian1997 and bkifft have written some code available on Github which can be run on a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino (models without a 3.3v output will need either a voltage divider or an SD card shield) to unbrick a 3DS.

It requires a hardware mod, (opening up the 3DS and soldering some pins to the eMMC) but never the less, it is now possible without having to send in your 3DS to the Gateway team!

You must have a NAND backup (created previously from emuNAND) in order to restore the firmware after the eMMC has been unlocked and erased.

eMMC Pinout (dat3 only needed if using Arduino): http://gbatemp.net/attachments/vrije-opmerking_20140126_123816_01-jpg.6106/
Code (Arduino): https://github.com/krisztian1997/3dsunbricker
Code (Raspberry Pi): https://github.com/bkifft/RPU
Source: http://gbatemp.net/threads/3ds-unbricking-progress.361171/

 

[redkeyboard]

Awesome news! It's amazing what those guys have done. Let's just hope Gateway doesn't try another method now that this one is fixable.

 

[krisztian1997]

Awesome news! It's amazing what those guys have done. Let's just hope Gateway doesn't try another method now that this one is fixable.

There is only one more method what can f*ck up the console and is permanent, setting the permanent write protection bit.

 

[misterb98]

Great news! It also looks like these are the same pins used for dumping your nand (except dat3, which you do not need for that function). Someone should make a commercial product for the 3ds XL that allows for easy dump/restore, unbricking, and extends the battery.

This almost warrants not having to be so afraid of GW 2.0b2... hopefully they won't do more damage in 2.0....

Edit: got double ninja'ed!

Edit2: Now the code just needs to be refined/polished and a compresensive tutorial released for the oncoming noob swarm!

 

[krzz]

Awesome news. Now I hope that the Gateway 3DS Team will fix this BSOD problem.

 

[bkifft]

just a short word of caution: my code unbricked a 3DS already, but it's still wonky as hell, spews debug output all over the place, reports failure even though it succeeds etc. Not really meant for end user usage right now. Heck, it's so prealpha it's omega.

I just cobbled it together to help one user and as a proof of concept. I'll receive a MMC card around wednesday and will try to clean up the code then and even build a more enduser friendly package.

But: It's released under the GPL, so if you want a go and tinker with it: go ahead. Just heed the warnings.


edit: my solution works with the 4 wire nand dump SD interface.

 

[krisztian1997]

Great news! It also looks like these are the same pins used for dumping your nand (except dat3, which you do not need for that function). Someone should make a commercial product for the 3ds XL that allows for easy dump/restore, unbricking, and extends the battery.

This almost warrants not having to be so afraid of GW 2.0b2... hopefully they won't do more damage in 2.0....

Edit: got double ninja'ed!

You only need the extra DAT3 for arduino (my code ardu code is still untested because I couldnt find a test subject), raspberry pi works with the standard nand dumping wires.

 

[Veho]

This is great news. Congratulations to the developers, great work, guys

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

You only need DAT3 for arduino, raspberry pi works with the standard nand dumping wires.

Updated first post. It seems that an Arduino is much harder to use than a Raspberry Pi since it requires an extra solder point, as well as a way to regulate the voltage to be 3.3v.

 

[krisztian1997]

Updated first post. It seems that an Arduino is much harder to use than a Raspberry Pi since it requires an extra solder point, as well as a way to regulate the voltage to be 3.3v.

Yes, because arduino is only a small microcontroller, so working with SD card is a bit harder using SPI, while raspberry pi is an entire computer on a board.

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

I know, I own both an Arduino Uno and a Raspberry Pi

 

[Luigi2012SM64DS]

Awesome news. Now I hope that the Gateway 3DS Team will fix this BSOD problem.

Keep hoping.
btw good job!

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Great job, figured this would happen.

Too bad this isn't user friendly at all though. Suppose this enables a couple people to set up de-bricking services for those non-Gateway users, but other than that...

 

[Foxi4]

Great job, figured this would happen.

Too bad this isn't user friendly at all though. Suppose this enables a couple people to set up de-bricking services for those non-Gateway users, but other than that...

NAND Flashing isn't user-friendly at all as a general rule - it's something done by people with the know-how. If we had a correctly sized NAND clip, things would look differently.

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

Might be able to offer an unbricking service in the UK; I'm setting up my Raspberry Pi now. If the tools seem to be working OK on an SD card, I'll try and brick my 3DS and test this for myself.

 

[gamesquest1]

Might be able to offer an unbricking service in the UK; I'm setting up my Raspberry Pi now. If the tools seem to be working OK on an SD card, I'll try and brick my 3DS and test this for myself.

Make sure you have a nand dump XD

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

Make sure you have a nand dump XD

Already got one; going to make another just to check it isn't corrupted. Gotta be super careful

 

[krisztian1997]

Already got one; going to make another just to check it isn't corrupted. Gotta be super careful

If you got an arduino and the sd shield you could test if SPI still work on 3ds...

 

[YoshiInAVoid]

Unfortunately I do not have the SD Shield so I cannot test the Arduino code, sorry.

 

[gamesquest1]

I was thinking of offering a uk service, but seems it's already covered
Good luck yoshi, and you ways well make a hardware dump while you have the wires connected........just to make 10000% sure