Hacking Bricked N3DS A9LH

[Lush]

I've spent the day reading and researching the new A9LH. I've successfully set it up on a O3DS and 2DS to boot into Cakes with a recovery menu on updated 10.6 sysnand. Seems pretty great. Doing the same process on my N3DS and I got a brick. I follow the same guides and noted the small differences for files and one extra step and everything was going smooth. Got to step 22 in this guide and i only get a black screen. I thought nothing of it, because the last 2 i needed to remove the SD like it mentions, but the N3DS will only give me a blue light/black screen with or without SD.

https://github.com/Plailect/Guide/wiki/Part-4-(Getting-the-OTP)

Any tips?

 

[Supster131]

Did you make sure to do step 17 in Section 2?

 

[Lush]

Did you make sure to do step 17 in Section 2?

Yup. And the process completed fine.

 

[Gcentrex]

I hope you were watching the emuNAND downgrade to ensure it completed fully, then completed the steps to unbrick it before installing to sysNAND

 

[Supster131]

Yup. And the process completed fine.

Try booting your 3DS while holding A+R+L+Up.
Does anything happen?

 

[Genestarwind]

Same thing happened to me. My N3DS is also bricked at that same step. I went to IRC channel and there are many people who got their 3DS bricked using Plailect guide.

I'm having hundshamer to rescue my N3DS with hard mod since it's better than having $200 paper weight....

 

[Lush]

Try booting your 3DS while holding A+R+L+Up.
Does anything happen?

Tried recovery... nothing

I hope you were watching the emuNAND downgrade to ensure it completed fully, then completed the steps to unbrick it before installing to sysNAND

I watched all cias install successfully before it auto reboots at the end...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

To be clear in that tutorial, do the unbrick step, then backup emunand, then restore systnand with emunand?

 

[Gcentrex]

Yes, unbrick emuNAND then restore to sysNAND

I did this before the new tools changes out but reports I read from testers all said it worked fine

 

[Lush]

Can anyone link me to a good guide to hardmod the n3ds? I've done it before to recover my o3ds on a botched update from 4.5->9.2.

 

[Supster131]

Can anyone link me to a good guide to hardmod the n3ds? I've done it before to recover my o3ds on a botched update from 4.5->9.2.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/tutorial-noob-friendly-nand-dumping-2ds-3ds-3ds-xl-n3ds-n3ds-xl.414498/

 

[VinsCool]

did you try to boot without the SD card?

 

[Just Passing By]

did you try to boot without the SD card?

I thought nothing of it, because the last 2 i needed to remove the SD like it mentions, but the N3DS will only give me a blue light/black screen without or without SD.

 

[VinsCool]

Woops I can't read properly tonight, my bad

 

[Lush]

Yeah... no difference. The hardmod looks just as easy as the o3ds, but i'm worried my card readers won't be compatible...

Thanks for the guide Supster131

 

[Gcentrex]

Yeah... no difference. The hardmod looks just as easy as the o3ds, but i'm worried my card readers won't be compatible...

Thanks for the guide Supster131

A new card reader is cheaper then replacing the N3DS

 

[Lush]

Damn... Those card readers linked in the guide don't ship to Canada....

I'll try tomorrow with what i have around the house... this day is over...

 

[Plailect]

We received a couple of brick reports recently (maybe 3 or 4). Most likely they were caused by unintended user error, but just to make sure, we are looking into it.

 

[Kamiyama]

So you NEED to flash sysNAND with firmware 2.1 emuNAND.bin.

I've done everything without any problems with my N3DS. I'm currently in Part 4, Section II, step 19 and doing my 2.1 emuNAND.bin backup before flashing it. Don't worry, I used "Unbrick FW 2.1 EmuNAND" and it did go as smooth as butter. I'm just not so sure about flashing it to my sysNAND. Is this OTP and arm9loaderhax things even truly worth it if I don't mind use the Homebrew launcher to launch CFW? Does it matter if FW 2.1 boots in emuNAND, like can I test that before flashing it to sysNAND? Or is there still change to brick the N3DS even if it does boot in emuNAND? I've multiple sysNAND and emuNAND backups, so if I'm screwing this up now, is hardmod flashing the only way to safe my N3DS?

At least I already have a compatible card reader.

 

[Lush]

That's the stage I got to, and everything was going well. I did the unbrick, then I did the 2.1 emunand backup, then I restored that emunand to sysnand. Did everything according to the guide, with no signs of any problems. I did 2 other (2ds/o3ds) without issue, so I don't think it was user error. I was fully familiar with the process.

 

[Plailect]

That's the stage I got to, and everything was going well. I did the unbrick, then I did the 2.1 emunand backup, then I restored that emunand to sysnand. Did everything according to the guide, with no signs of any problems. I did 2 other (2ds/o3ds) without issue, so I don't think it was user error. I was fully familiar with the process.

Being familiar with the process does not prevent doing something wrong. I *wrote* the process and I've still bricked a 3DS doing it (during some testing).