This thread is outdated
A lot of information in this thread is heavilly out of date.
If you have time, and have Staff permission, feel free to edit this thread and remove this statement once necessary.

Some information that needs to be addressed:

• SX OS and Atmosphere now supports proper LayeredFS, instructions for using it has changed since this tutorial was made
• Supported Firmware information is out of date
• LFSKit needs to be updated to properly support non 5.x.x firmware
• Compatability chart needs to be re-made

-PRAGMA

WARNING

• DO NOT GO ONLINE WHEN DOING THIS (YOU WILL BE BANNED)

How to use LayeredFS for Backup Loading

Firmware Supported: ONLY 5.x.x
Use the PRAGMA LFS Kit below.

PRAGMA's LFS Kit

DOWNLOAD
SOURCE

• Go from NOTHING in your SD Card to playing a game backup in a few clicks!
• Decrypt .XCI -> romfs/exefs folder with main.nmpd auto edited aswell as folder's name auto renamed to donor titleid
• Download NOTHING except LFSKit!

ENJOY!

Picking a Donor Title and getting Donor TitleIDRunning Game Backups!

1. 
   
   1. A donor title is the application we will run to open the backup.
      Pick a game you don't care about (Download a Demo or a free game from eShop, for example Octopath Demo)
      saves are something no one knows much about, we don't fully know where or how they are stored.
      They might overwrite the donor titles save, so seriously pick a game you DONT care about, not a game you rarely play.
      
      
   2. I also recommend picking a donor title/game combo that has been tested and reported working just so you know if YOU did something wrong or not.
   3. Find the TitleID of the donor title you chose from http://nswdb.com or http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Title_list/Games
      Region must be the same, choose the TitleID for the base-game NOT for the update title, even if your updated.
2. 
   
   1. Once again, boot into Hekate-IPL (Step 1).
   2. Enter "Launch firmware" and select "RomFS".
   3. Your now in your system's home menu.
   4. Open the Donor Title you set the TitleID of on that folder and .npmd file earlier.
   5. The game will load up flawlessly.
      If you opened the Title lets say, Fortnite, and Fortnite booted, the titleid of the folder in sd:/atmosphere/titles/{fortnitetitleid} doesnt exist, or doesnt start with 0100.
      If it gives you an error screen, either you didnt edit the main.npmd properly, or its an incompatible title/donor combo.
   To see which games work and which dont using which donor titles, look below.
   If you notice that you used a combination of Game and Donor title that isnt in the list below, post in the thread and I will add it. (look under to see what I need to add to chart).
   

Troubleshooting

• Black Screen/Infinitely Loading
  Leave it for around 5 minutes then press the home button and go back into the game without closing it. Often this can do the job.
• Freeze when Loading
  Close the game and try again, its a common occurence, you may have to try up to 4-5 times before getting it to work, sometimes you may even have to reboot between retries.

 

[obtainr]

I am grateful, I'm just equally confused

Is it normal that the output folder is waaay smaller in size than the original XCI? (it also contains an "ORIGINAL_name.xci" file at 0 bytes).

Varies from game to game thats why i also mentioned XCI-Explorer-v1.1.0.0.exe
That software tells you everything about a game like original size and real actual trimmed down size if not already done so, so check out them 3 software and life is so much simpler.
It even includes partition about what files the game has and inside their content.

I had to scrape through so many sources and read up so many pages to find and put that summary together. So it should save most people so much time on dicking around.

At the end of them software once conversion is done you should just end up with a folder like 0100a5400erwjsldkf and most important files are the romfs which equals the full game size plus the npdm patched file done automatically which contains the redirection process etc.
You will get a Messagebox saying "Successful or Completed"

 

[skflich]

What do you mean by "Now i just got to put the files in the folder for "

Do you mean putting romfs . Bin in romfs folder and exefs in Exefs folder ?

So you would need to make a folder and have it named the TITLE ID of fortnite in this case. Then just move the romfs.bin and the EXEFS folder and done. It should look something like this

 

[Deleted member 399513]

So once I select "Romfs" from Hekate-ipl my console doesn't boot, but instead it gives me a white or black screen and it remains like that. Can anyone help me?

 

[CyKoDeLiC]

Change in system (console) to another lanuage


Change console language or change donor

Tried both, didn't work.

 

[TR_mahmutpek]

Maybe this asked before but, zelda botw working?

 

[obtainr]

So once I select "Romfs" from Hekate-ipl my console doesn't boot, but instead it gives me a white or black screen and it remains like that. Can anyone help me?

Try getting the latest SD files and searching for the latest IPL.bin with fuseepatch=1
And play look inside the hekate ipl.ini file and understand what files it needs make sure u have the latest version of each.
Check my tute for how my ini file looks like

 

[skflich]

so I am not sure where to ask this at..... Since I have updated to 5.1.0 and put the layered fs files on my SD card I can not access the homebrew launcher. Everytime I launch the album the switch crashes. I have selected the "CFW" section of Hekate but no joy, does anyone know if I am missing something. I have a feeling its something silly, and yes I have a 0 byte file like sciresm advised a while back

 

[Deleted member 399513]

so I am not sure where to ask this at..... Since I have updated to 5.1.0 and put the layered fs files on my SD card I can not access the homebrew launcher. Everytime I launch the album the switch crashes. I have selected the "CFW" section of Hekate but no joy, does anyone know if I am missing something. I have a feeling its something silly, and yes I have a 0 byte file like sciresm advised a while back

I think that's beacause the Homebrew Launcher works up to 5.0.1, but I'm not sure.

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

Try getting the latest SD files and searching for the latest IPL.bin with fuseepatch=1
And play look inside the hekate ipl.ini file and understand what files it needs make sure u have the latest version of each.
Check my tute for how my ini file looks like

So I have to download the latest version of ipl.bin and then what? I'm sorry but I'm not very smart regarding this kind of stuff.

 

[obtainr]

I think that's beacause the Homebrew Launcher works up to 5.0.1, but I'm not sure.

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


So I have to download the latest version of ipl.bin and then what? I'm sorry but I'm not very smart regarding this kind of stuff.

Drag the ipl to the TegraRcmSmash.exe just like you have done in the past using older loaders or such.

This is assuming you have it in RCM mode and your usb on your computer has all the correct drivers installed to communicate with the switch in RCM mode.

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

so I am not sure where to ask this at..... Since I have updated to 5.1.0 and put the layered fs files on my SD card I can not access the homebrew launcher. Everytime I launch the album the switch crashes. I have selected the "CFW" section of Hekate but no joy, does anyone know if I am missing something. I have a feeling its something silly, and yes I have a 0 byte file like sciresm advised a while back

Sounds like your original atmosphere directory containing information to the album art.
Which is the default of this 010000000000100D_OLD got overwritten to a different version there is like so many versions out there same modified for 4 and some for 5 etc.
But always make a backup you see I have a old folder you should've done that but there is something wrong with that folder play with different or find og version

Thats why when playing around with my folders I make existing backups of what already works and what does not.
Please get into the habit of before modifying any files make a backup of it before you overwrote it.

Going to sleep now good luck fellas. Sure there are plenty of others to help out anyways

 

[Deleted member 399513]

Drag the ipl to the TegraRcmSmash.exe just like you have done in the past using older loaders or such.

This is assuming you have it in RCM mode and your usb on your computer has all the correct drivers installed to communicate with the switch in RCM mode.

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


Sounds like your original atmosphere directory containing information to the album art.
Which is the default of this 010000000000100D_OLD got overwritten to a different version there is like so many versions out there same modified for 4 and some for 5 etc.
But always make a backup you see I have a old folder you should've done that but there is something wrong with that folder play with different or find og version

Thats why when playing around with my folders I make existing backups of what already works and what does not.
Please get into the habit of before modifying any files make a backup of it before you overwrote it.

So I dragged the ipl.bin to TegraRcmSmash, I booted Hekate-ipl, I selected Romfs but it still gives me a grainy white screen. Again, I'm sorry if I sound really dump to you, but I'm just a guy on the internet who wants to play free games.
Edit: Can someone help me please?

 

[Dmafra]

For eShop games it's a bit harder because they need titleID key so you need to decrypt the base NCA before merging the update, for that use the --plaintext= function in hactool.

To merge an update NCA with a base NCA, use
hactool.exe -k keys.dat --basenca=yourdecryptedbaseNCA.nca --titlekey=yourpdatetitlekey (for eshop games it has one) --romfsdir="xciDecrypted/romfs" --section0dir="xciDecrypted\exefs" yourupdateNCA.nca

then you will have the updated game in romfs and exefs, merged (i checked by extracting only the updated files, they match)

when I extract the NSP as PFS0 just get the romfs.bin
how do I get the exef folder?

 

[lolnintendoman]

How do you manage it to copy your backups for the layeredFS backuploading method to your micro SD?
Have 23Gb free space on micro SD the backup is only ~9Gb. Since the switch doesnt accept NTFS I only have the option for exFAT format.
When I try to copy a backup it stops after ~4gb (max file size for exFAT) and tells me that the file is too big

 

[lolnintendoman]

How do you manage it to copy your backups for the layeredFS backuploading method to your micro SD?
Have 23Gb free space on micro SD the backup is only ~9Gb. Since the switch doesnt accept NTFS I only have the option for exFAT format.
When I try to copy a backup it stops after ~4gb (max file size for exFAT) and tells me the i

 

[skflich]

How do you manage it to copy your backups for the layeredFS backuploading method to your micro SD?
Have 23Gb free space on micro SD the backup is only ~9Gb. Since the switch doesnt accept NTFS I only have the option for exFAT format.
When I try to copy a backup it stops after ~4gb (max file size for exFAT) and tells me the i

Fat32 is 4Gb limit make sure its EXFAT. May need to reformat

 

[lolnintendoman]

Fat32 is 4Gb limit make sure its EXFAT. May need to reformat

Sry you may misunderstood what I wanted to say, my micro sd already is in exFAT but only accepts the 4gb FAT32 limit.
I already tried USB Micro SD readers, as well as a Sd card micro sd adapter

 

[Nuzzgok]

Anyone know why my games stopped working? I had a few titles all set up, been playing them the past few days. This morning however, only one of them works, with the rest saying "an error has occurred" and they close, whilst others crash on the switch logo.

 

[Jaimy]

I can't get Sushi Striker to run no matter what. Might have luck with the demo as donor but I can't find its title ID.

 

[Don Jon]

so I am not sure where to ask this at..... Since I have updated to 5.1.0 and put the layered fs files on my SD card I can not access the homebrew launcher. Everytime I launch the album the switch crashes. I have selected the "CFW" section of Hekate but no joy, does anyone know if I am missing something. I have a feeling its something silly, and yes I have a 0 byte file like sciresm advised a while back

Youre not suppose to have a 0 byte file. The sd filess by pragmas program are corrupt and i suggest using the sd files from elsewhere.

So once I select "Romfs" from Hekate-ipl my console doesn't boot, but instead it gives me a white or black screen and it remains like that. Can anyone help me?

This was happening to me when the main dpm file of my game was corrupted due to using pragmas kit. I used xci2titleconverter standalonw program instead. If i recall there is a website that converts your main.pdnm as well

Sry you may misunderstood what I wanted to say, my micro sd already is in exFAT but only accepts the 4gb FAT32 limit.
I already tried USB Micro SD readers, as well as a Sd card micro sd adapter

Sd exfat only works on the latest firmware unless you follow a long turorial here in gbatemp to make it work

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

Anyone know why my games stopped working? I had a few titles all set up, been playing them the past few days. This morning however, only one of them works, with the rest saying "an error has occurred" and they close, whilst others crash on the switch logo.

Try highlighting all your files in the root of your sd card, hit advance and uncheck "folders ready for archiving"

 

[stingray1059]

sx os reminds me of true blue dongle .. bought true blue dongle for my ps4 and after less than a month.. that dongle is good a trash.. and i have to patch again my games one by one.. to get it working again.

 

[lolnintendoman]

Youre not suppose to have a 0 byte file. The sd filess by pragmas program are corrupt and i suggest using the sd files from elsewhere.

This was happening to me when the main dpm file of my game was corrupted due to using pragmas kit. I used xci2titleconverter standalonw program instead. If i recall there is a website that converts your main.pdnm as well

Sd exfat only works on the latest firmware unless you follow a long turorial here in gbatemp to make it work

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


Try highlighting all your files in the root of your sd card, hit advance and uncheck "folders ready for archiving"

I'm running ctaer on latest firmware. I made backup of the sd card and formatted it again into exFAT and now it accepts any filesize.

 

[said31]

what game donor to use for fifa 18 ?!