Hwfly install - now emmc read only?

[Danster75]

Hello all,

-Installed Hwfly V5 on Switch OLED, flashed it with Hwfly-nx firmware. Installed it using DAT0 adaptor, no reflow,
-Would boot to Hekate, although boot times around 30 seconds. Did not boot into OFW or CFW.
-read on a topic here that some hwfly's are clones and only worked correctly with the supplied firmware. I read somewhere on Gbatemp (can't find the topic anymore) that The Hwfly-nx firmware would cause slow boots and boot0/boot1 corruption?
-Flashed the original firmware back to the hwfly, boots a lot faster into Hekate now (5-10 seconds), still no OFW or CFW.
-Removed Hwfly, also no OFW. Made a nandbackup, dumped keys.
-Tried system restore using Emmchaccgen with the systemrestore script. It hangs with a fatal error "BIS write failed".
-Tried a system wipe, hangs at "Deleting system saves".

It looks like I got read-only access to the emmc but that's just my hunch. Does anyone here have any suggestions?


Update: when restoring boot0 and 1 from Hekate I get a warning that the emmc is initialized in slower mode, "might mean hardware issues".
When entering emmc info it mentions:
Bus speed 200 MB/s
Init fails: 0
Read/write fails: 2
Read/write errors: 0

 

[randy_w]

Hwfly V5

First of all, what is your emmc manufacturer? Those V5 chips with BGA FPGA is always finicky about emmc, would work on samsung, but sk hynix is a hit or miss and toshiba is nightmare. According to my supplier, V5 is manufactured by a different group trying to clone V4. V4 is rock solid and works great with stock or hwfly-nx firmware, while V5 isn't. To make things worse, many V5 chips on aliexpress are fake, so I'd never recommend people using them.. Go with instinct nx or rp2040.

Anyway, since you already bought and installed it, I'd say stay on stock firmware. Some clones are known to corrupt your emmc. Is your partition info still intact on emmc info page? As for bus speed, it should be 400MB/s, so something's not right. Try to reset your dat0 adapter, if that didn't help you might need to reball the emmc and solder directly to dat0 pad. Also send some pictures of your installation if you can.

 

[Danster75]

First of all, what is your emmc manufacturer? Those V5 chips with BGA FPGA is always finicky about emmc, would work on samsung, but sk hynix is a hit or miss and toshiba is nightmare. According to my supplier, V5 is manufactured by a different group trying to clone V4. V4 is rock solid and works great with stock or hwfly-nx firmware, while V5 isn't. To make things worse, many V5 chips on aliexpress are fake, so I'd never recommend people using them.. Go with instinct nx or rp2040.

Anyway, since you already bought and installed it, I'd say stay on stock firmware. Some clones are known to corrupt your emmc. Is your partition info still intact on emmc info page? As for bus speed, it should be 400MB/s, so something's not right. Try to reset your dat0 adapter, if that didn't help you might need to reball the emmc and solder directly to dat0 pad. Also send some pictures of your installation if you can.

Hi Randy, thanks for your reply.

It's an SK Hynix, here's the information, the partition information looks intact I think

I did try different DAT0 adapters without result. The diodereading is fine. I encountered another topic https://gbatemp.net/threads/emmc-slower-mode-200-mb-s-hwfly-v5.628352/
in which the cmd capacitor was bridged to the component next to it, see below. This might be the case with my Switch also; since all the diode values were fine and the glitching fast and consistent UI assumed my install was fine.
I'll open up my Switch and check this later today and report back on this.

 

[randy_w]

It's an SK Hynix, here's the information, the partition information looks intact I think

Your partition table is empty! There should be partitions like this:

Thant's really bad, try to check your connections first, if nothig wrong then seems like the mod chip corrupted your emmc.

 

[Danster75]

I did a emmc raw restore and now the partitions are showing again. So it seems writing to the emmc is possible.

Still no boot info CFW or OFW. Systemrestore gave me the fatal write failed error again;

After that I restored boot0 and boot1 using Hekate.

Trying to launch CFW (latest HATS pack) does give me a message now:

Pkg2 read failed
Failed to launch HOS

And once again, the partitions have disappeared according to the emmc info! Indeed, perhaps modchip or installation error is causing this corruption.

I'll check my soldering connections later today but if there are any tips or suggestions I'm all ears of course.

 

[Hassal]

Do a restore then disconnect the chip. If you get a purple screen you can bid farewell to your Switch, your eMMC need to be replaced.

 

[Hayato213]

Hello all,

-Installed Hwfly V5 on Switch OLED, flashed it with Hwfly-nx firmware. Installed it using DAT0 adaptor, no reflow,
-Would boot to Hekate, although boot times around 30 seconds. Did not boot into OFW or CFW.
-read on a topic here that some hwfly's are clones and only worked correctly with the supplied firmware. I read somewhere on Gbatemp (can't find the topic anymore) that The Hwfly-nx firmware would cause slow boots and boot0/boot1 corruption?
-Flashed the original firmware back to the hwfly, boots a lot faster into Hekate now (5-10 seconds), still no OFW or CFW.
-Removed Hwfly, also no OFW. Made a nandbackup, dumped keys.
-Tried system restore using Emmchaccgen with the systemrestore script. It hangs with a fatal error "BIS write failed".
-Tried a system wipe, hangs at "Deleting system saves".

It looks like I got read-only access to the emmc but that's just my hunch. Does anyone here have any suggestions?


Update: when restoring boot0 and 1 from Hekate I get a warning that the emmc is initialized in slower mode, "might mean hardware issues".
When entering emmc info it mentions:
Bus speed 200 MB/s
Init fails: 0
Read/write fails: 2
Read/write errors: 0

Maybe this thread can help a bit, I will check if you connected the two capacitors together.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/emmc-slower-mode-200-mb-s-hwfly-v5.628352/

 

[Danster75]

Solved! Here's what I did.

I restored the nanddump again (made one even though the Switch would only boot into Hekate), checked if the partitions were present again which they were.
After that I opened the Switch again for inspection, my soldering was in perfect order as far as I could see and measure. Wanting to exclude all possible causes before I was going to to reflow the nand I removed the flexcable and went for a cabled install instead. Kept using the cpu flex cable which also measured OK.

After this I once again tried the restore function as described by Sthetix in his video

This time I got no errors and after a few minutes the restore was complete. From Hekate I can now finally enter both OFW and CFW.

Perhaps the flexcable was faulty, maybe I damaged it somehow or interference caused the errors.

Thanks for your replies, nice you took the time and effort to help!

 

[randy_w]

I removed the flexcable and went for a cabled install instead

You mean the flex cable for point A, D and 3.3V?

Man this flex cable is pure garbage. It's known to cause interference at rare occasions and prevent console from booting, also it's not very precise, doesn't align properly. Most importantly, when you screw in the heatsink through the hole on flex cable, it puts stress on A and D points, and it could rip them off from motherboard. Anyway, just throw them away and go with direct connection instead..

 

[jkyoho]

Solved! Here's what I did.

I restored the nanddump again (made one even though the Switch would only boot into Hekate), checked if the partitions were present again which they were.
After that I opened the Switch again for inspection, my soldering was in perfect order as far as I could see and measure. Wanting to exclude all possible causes before I was going to to reflow the nand I removed the flexcable and went for a cabled install instead. Kept using the cpu flex cable which also measured OK.

After this I once again tried the restore function as described by Sthetix in his video

This time I got no errors and after a few minutes the restore was complete. From Hekate I can now finally enter both OFW and CFW.

Perhaps the flexcable was faulty, maybe I damaged it somehow or interference caused the errors.

Thanks for your replies, nice you took the time and effort to help!

Do you rebuild HOS firmware using universal prod.key or your own backup key?

 

[Danster75]

You mean the flex cable for point A, D and 3.3V?
View attachment 381882

Man this flex cable is pure garbage. It's known to cause interference at rare occasions and prevent console from booting, also it's not very precise, doesn't align properly. Most importantly, when you screw in the heatsink through the hole on flex cable, it puts stress on A and D points, and it could rip them off from motherboard. Anyway, just throw them away and go with direct connection instead..

I got this one. Alignment was ok but indeed not very smart for the screwhole to be integrated.

Post automatically merged: Jul 5, 2023

Do you rebuild HOS firmware using universal prod.key or your own backup key?

I could still boot into Hekate and dumped the keys using the Lockpick. That was all that was required from my Switch, the process using EmmcHaccGen was pretty straightforward. From the latest firmware and my keys this generated the files needed for restoration.

I did made a backup of my nand which I used to restore the contents to emmc including the corrupted boot0 and/or boot1. With this restored to the Switch (and the wired install) the restore went perfectly.
If I did not had this backup available I think it would have been a lot more complex, requiring a donor nand perhaps.

Post automatically merged: Jul 5, 2023

 

[jkyoho]

I got this one. Alignment was ok but indeed not very smart for the screwhole to be integrated.

View attachment 381933

Post automatically merged: Jul 5, 2023

I could still boot into Hekate and dumped the keys using the Lockpick. That was all that was required from my Switch, the process using EmmcHaccGen was pretty straightforward. From the latest firmware and my keys this generated the files needed for restoration.

I did made a backup of my nand which I used to restore the contents to emmc including the corrupted boot0 and/or boot1. With this restored to the Switch (and the wired install) the restore went perfectly.
If I did not had this backup available I think it would have been a lot more complex, requiring a donor nand perhaps.

Post automatically merged: Jul 5, 2023

EXACTLY, own key dump is way more important than full NAND backup.But if have time, do both at beginning as always.