Yes this is exactly what i mean. My computer has a built in sd card reader.I think he just means using a internal sd reader....which yeah will work fine in most cases as long as the reader is compatible with the 3DS nand, up until I did my first 2ds which wasn't compatible with my laptop reader that is all I was using
the compatible reader lists are there for people to be able to go buy one that works if theirs doesnt, I wouldn't go suggest someone go buy the same laptop as me to read/write their nand XD
I was able to hardmod two O3DS plugging the soldered microSD to SD adapter directly into my laptop's SD card reader. It worked fine.
boot up the computer or can the computer be on for insert into cvomputer than boot 3ds xl?You plug in the SD card and then boot up. Windows will complain that it needs to format the drive (brick the 3DS) so decline that and start Win32DiskImager to dump the NAND. I always would eject the card and put it back in before I dumped the second and third times for more "error proofing" since the image is encrypted and you can't tell that it is good beyond the right size. Then use a file comparing tool to verify the dumps against each other. If there are any mismatches then go back and check your solder job. Otherwise, you can be pretty sure it was dumped successfully and mess with your system.