Hacking Question A few questions about Hekate NAND Backup

[Mirkobien]

Basically, I dumped my Switch NAND to a 32 GB SD Card. It was a partial NAND backup thanks to some files taking about a hundred MBs I had there. Now, the dumping was going smoothly. At the last part, it told me to take the SD card off and free some space, which I did by taking some dumped parts back to my PC. I put the SD back inside my Switch to continue the dump, finishes, and at the last 99% verification, it says that my "SD Card and eMMC data do not match!".

I was told to test the SD card with H2testw, which I did, and it turned out there were no issues with it. So my questions are:

1. Is that NAND Backup safe? Is there some way to verify it?
2. What are the risks of loading a 'broken' NAND backup?
3. In case there is a risk, could I possibly restore a newer, perfectly dumped NAND from the same console?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lacius]

If the data don't match, then the backup is not safe. The risks of loading a broken NAND backup are you softbrick your Switch. If you have a good backup of your NAND, then there's not much of a permanent risk.

I recommend backing up just the following first, since it's quicker, smaller, and all you need to recover from a brick:

1. BOOT0 and BOOT1
2. eMMC SYS

Once you've backed up these things and put them someplace safe, preferably on the cloud, you can optionally backup the following to complete your NAND backup:

1. eMMC USER (user settings, games, saves, etc.)

Edit: To be clear, the full backup (rawnand.bin) is a combination of the eMMC SYS and the eMMC USER backups.

 

[Mirkobien]

Thanks for the quick reply.
That is the only backup from before I installed .NSPs. So just to be sure, in case I 'softbrick' my console restoring a broken NAND, I can just restore my perfect NAND backup to have a probably banned, yet usable console?

 

[Lacius]

Thanks for the quick reply.
That is the only backup from before I installed .NSPs. So just to be sure, in case I 'softbrick' my console restoring a broken NAND, I can just restore my perfect NAND backup to have a probably banned, yet usable console?

You should be able to restore your Switch if you restore a good backup that you made later, yes. You're also right that you will probably be banned if you connect online with a NAND you used to install NSP files.

That all being said, you might be able to follow this guide (picking the DO A SYSTEM INITIALIZE option) to completely wipe your system and not get banned if you connect online afterwards, but I don't know if it will work.

 

[Silver324]

If the data don't match, then the backup is not safe. The risks of loading a broken NAND backup are you softbrick your Switch. If you have a good backup of your NAND, then there's not much of a permanent risk.

I recommend backing up just the following first, since it's quicker, smaller, and all you need to recover from a brick:

1. BOOT0 and BOOT1
2. eMMC SYS

Once you've backed up these things and put them someplace safe, preferably on the cloud, you can optionally backup the following to complete your NAND backup:

1. eMMC USER (user settings, games, saves, etc.)

Edit: To be clear, the full backup (rawnand.bin) is a combination of the eMMC SYS and the eMMC USER backups.

This is the best small advice I've seen recently!
And I wanted to use this restore-method not in case of a brick but instead as an additionally precaution not getting banned!
So I thought I would use it after each time I booted CFW + using homebrew apps etc to go online on OFW again..
BUT HOWEVER I've encountered a really annoying thing concerning this methode with hekate v4.2..
Bc after I restored my "clean" nand by choosing BOOT0/1+eMMC SYS, I noticed that all my game savefiles also have been restored to that old point of time! And that's awful since I can't make any progress..
I thought it would only be restored if I play in that (almost) 30 Gigs eMMC USER-file, BUT THAT ISN'T THE CASE SINCE THE SAVEFILES ARE SEEMINGLY SOMEWHERE STORED IN THAT SYS-FILE-DUMP!

So the burning question is how can I make hekate ignoring to restore my savefiles BUT still do restore the rest that is mandatory to "clean the traces" from homebrew?!
I hope this thread isn't outdated..

EDIT: Ok now I'm confused; I checked my save in Tennis Aces after I restored the nand without USER and it actually DIDN'T reset itself BUT the Dark Souls savefile that I deleted before DID appear again..??
I need some more testing now, maybe you could even ignore this whole matter, I'm not sure atm '^^

EDIT 2: Ok I completely got it now what and why; the Dark Souls savefile has just SEEMINGLY been restored - yes it appears in the data settings again BUT if I try to launch the game and choose the user which I thought I deleted the savefile for, then an error message pops up and the game cannot be started with that user unless I delete that seemingly restored user-save in the data management; thus actually no saves have been restored by using BOOT0/1+eMMC SYS only; it merely looks like that at the first glance and that caused all the confusion btw..

So problem solved I guess :-)

 

[ituligadj]

Hello fellows..

One question that I really needed answered, plz:

I have a fullNAND backup in version 7.0.1 firmware and I upgraded my system to version 8.0.1! (Burning fuses, I did mistakenly!)
Can I still use this NAND backup to restore my system or it's useless now?
I've already done a new backup on 8.0.1 (Sys & Full) system firmware...

Thanks in advance!