Emunand bricked please help??

[viper3344]

Hello! have a perfectly functioning switch using emunand on FW20.

updated to 21.2 via daybreak. Booted the emunand and verified. Everything working great.

Went to launch Dbi and the MTU responder (super old version of DBI but it still worked great for installing games) and it crashed with an atmo error. Rebooted and power cycled. But now whenever I try to boot atmo, it just stays at the switch boot screen and I need to hold the power button down for 30 seconds to reboot.

Did dbi kill my emunand?? What causes this boot issue? it does show the atmo logo for a few seconds before seemingly rebooting into the locked switch logo.

 

[viper3344]

----UPDATE

Ok so I just redid the SD card completely and updated to the latest version of english DBI. All seems to be ok...

So warning. Anyone with an old version of DBI - beware... update all your apps to latest!

 

[YoureALoser]

----UPDATE

Ok so I just redid the SD card completely and updated to the latest version of english DBI. All seems to be ok...

So warning. Anyone with an old version of DBI - beware... update all your apps to latest!

Not a DBI problem. Also, it's not recommended to use unofficial English versions of DBI.

 

[viper3344]

Not a DBI problem. Also, it's not recommended to use unofficial English versions of DBI.

DBI was the only thing that I ran that broke it.

Also why is it an issue to use the tested English translations? I know there was a threat of kill code but have heard literally zero cases of anything.

 

[SonyUSA]

DBI was the only thing that I ran that broke it.

Also why is it an issue to use the tested English translations? I know there was a threat of kill code but have heard literally zero cases of anything.

What probably broke it is you not using FAT32. Your SD card WILL corrupt with anything that uses file handles, like DBI, if you are not FAT32.

 

[viper3344]

What probably broke it is you not using FAT32. Your SD card WILL corrupt with anything that uses file handles, like DBI, if you are not FAT32.

I have over 14TB of microsd cards for my switch and that has literally never been an issue at all. Also when I partition with Hekate it takes care of all the proper formatting. This was something directly related to running an out of date DBI responder with the a much never switch firmware. Everything else that crashes atmo just allows you to reboot and its fine. This issue bricked the emunand for some reason...

 

[SonyUSA]

I have over 14TB of microsd cards for my switch and that has literally never been an issue at all. Also when I partition with Hekate it takes care of all the proper formatting. This was something directly related to running an out of date DBI responder with the a much never switch firmware. Everything else that crashes atmo just allows you to reboot and its fine. This issue bricked the emunand for some reason...

That's called survivorship bias. I had a launch day switch with exFAT and it didn't corrupt until it did... 4 years in. Lost all my saves. Every developer says it's not "if" but "when" it corrupts using exFAT because of Nintendo's poor implementation of the driver mixed with homebrew not doing safe operations every time or crashing. I'm pretty sure you just experienced this corruption first-hand and just don't realize it.

 

[SonyUSA]

https://github.com/switchbrew/libnx/issues/161

Here: TuxSH and fincs both weighing in, but all others have too at some point.

 

[viper3344]

-snip-

And yes. This card was formatted to fat32 as done when creating the proper emunand. Next theory please

Post automatically merged: Mar 24, 2026

That's called survivorship bias. I had a launch day switch with exFAT and it didn't corrupt until it did... 4 years in. Lost all my saves. Every developer says it's not "if" but "when" it corrupts using exFAT because of Nintendo's poor implementation of the driver mixed with homebrew not doing safe operations every time or crashing. I'm pretty sure you just experienced this corruption first-hand and just don't realize it.

No its called its was fat32 so next theory please.

 

[SonyUSA]

-snip-

And yes. This card was formatted to fat32 as done when creating the proper emunand. Next theory please

Post automatically merged: Mar 24, 2026

No its called its was fat32 so next theory please.

Then why didn't you just say it was FAT32 to start with? If you want help, you need to tell us what your setup is and be honest about it. We can't help you otherwise.

 

[Hayato213]

I have over 14TB of microsd cards for my switch and that has literally never been an issue at all. Also when I partition with Hekate it takes care of all the proper formatting. This was something directly related to running an out of date DBI responder with the a much never switch firmware. Everything else that crashes atmo just allows you to reboot and its fine. This issue bricked the emunand for some reason...

14TB? That is a lot of cards.

 

[SonyUSA]

Seems like you were lying:

You are an exFAT defender and I bet you're still using exFAT. The tools will format it however you want, they don't force you into FAT32.

You know better apparently. When the brilliant people that have created the software and custom firmware that you use say NOT to use it, I think I will trust them over someone with survivorship bias.

There is no "for regular switch games" in CFW. You will always need to open a piece of homebrew software to install the games, and by virtue, expose the SD card to corruption.

 

[viper3344]

Seems like you were lying:

View attachment 564199

You are an exFAT defender and I bet you're still using exFAT. The tools will format it however you want, they don't force you into FAT32.

You know better apparently. When the brilliant people that have created the software and custom firmware that you use say NOT to use it, I think I will trust them over someone with survivorship bias.

There is no "for regular switch games" in CFW. You will always need to open a piece of homebrew software to install the games, and by virtue, expose the SD card to corruption.

So I was able to repo it 100%


Did a fresh emunand install. Used the older FW as stated above. Older version of DBI. Updated the FW to 21. Ran DBI responder. Boom. Atmos error. Will not boot into atmos again.

Then I redid everything and UPDATED dbi. Error was gone.

Not fat32 related. Related to running an outdated DBI responder version. Again, just never saw an emunand brick after an atmos "blue screen"

 

[Hayato213]

So I was able to repo it 100%


Did a fresh emunand install. Used the older FW as stated above. Older version of DBI. Updated the FW to 21. Ran DBI responder. Boom. Atmos error. Will not boot into atmos again.

Then I redid everything and UPDATED dbi. Error was gone.

Not fat32 related. Related to running an outdated DBI responder version. Again, just never saw an emunand brick after an atmos "blue screen"

You are more likely to get data corruption if you are using an exfat card.

 

[viper3344]

You are more likely to get data corruption if you are using an exfat card.

Cool. And ants can carry 8 times the amount of weight on their back. Irreverent.

I did it completely with fat32 this time. Exact same result. I can repo this bug. Case closed.