Hacking Question I think I might've bricked my switch?? Help?

[OverlordSeth]

Alrighty fellas, I'm in a bit of a pickle...or rather, I'm in a jar of pickles. I think I've gone and screwed the pooch, as it were but I'm not entirely sure. Now I've gotten myself a secondary switch for softmodding purposes, as well, you can imagine. The original sys version on that was 4.0.0. and no, I did not use SX OS, I used Atmosphere primarily with Hekate to boot into it. Only near the end of my experiences leading up to the problem in question did I discover the Auto-boot option in Hekate- but that's besides the point.


I followed a text guide into hacking this thing- and it did of course mention to backup BOOT1 and BOOT2 before you did anything else...but it mentioned nothing about rawnand.bin that I'm reading all about everywhere...so I'm kinda miffy but whatever. Fast forward to the beginning of my issues. All I'm trying to do is install what few gamecards I have so I don't have to download as many from the net...I mean, to be honest- I'm not even interested in the whole piracy scene in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I do own these games legitimately on my other switch, I’m doing this primarily for modding content.


I learned through my misadventures that I needed to update my system firmware in order to get certain games to even install correctly...I think. This whole thing is confusing tbh. So...I made a noob err I think and I updated my sysnand and emunand both to 12.0.1 through Daybreak because I read through some post somewhere that ChoiDujourNX was scuffed in some capacity? Idk. Annnyyyyhooooo- this is where the problems set in.


I started booting up into blue screens, PKG2 not being found, and if I'm LUCKY, I could get to the switch home screen, only for the switch to say the sd card is foreign and must be reformatted. Well...I decided to say FTS, I need to start from the very beginning. So...I got a 4.0.0 firmware and used Daybreak once more to downgrade. Now...according to Hekate, no fuses have been burned whatsoever...but no matter if I select emunand, sysnand, Stock, or fusee gleee, I get the same result: a black screen that doesn't load anything.


I like to think that I've really gone and done it now...but I have honestly no clue WHAT I've done. Thing is...I've done Wii and PS2 softmodding, so I'm no stranger to the softmodding scene...but this scene is on a whole new ball game. Any hints as to what I could do would be greatly appreciated. And before it's asked, yes I am using the most up to date versions of both Hekate and Atmosphere, to my knowledge. I'm not sure if it will help any, but I've also attached photos of both the root folder and the inside of the Atmosphere folder. I have seemed to notice a rather frequent pattern with Switch homebrew...and that is when something goes wrong...it probably has something to do with the Atmosphere folder, lol.

The root of the folder is a bit sparse, but that is due to the fact I've redownloaded it a few times, with this being the last one before I've given up and done a plea for help.

Here is the Atmosphere folder. Again, I cannot tell if there is anything missing or not, so if you can, please let me know.

Also this is formatted in FAT32 as a 256 gb SDXC Sandisk, so yeah. The company sometimes lets me down sure- but they aren't all that bad...sometimes. Anyboo- Much appreciation in any tips or advice to go forward in trying to get this damn device to boot again so I can at least get it to initialize console now that it's back on it's proper firmware- wait. Second question as well. If you install a firmware update to emunand, would that also effect sysnand and stock? I would imagine not. Apologies if I sound like a mess because honestly I am.

 

[djcraze]

Don't worry about Atmosphere. Back up yours SD card. Wipe it. Push hekate and boot into OFW, update to the firmware using the official software updater. You should be able to boot into OFW without RCM now, or if you continue to use RCM, then without any blown fuses. Now install Atmosphere onto your SD card and boot hekate, create your emunand, and you should be good.

 

[OverlordSeth]

Don't worry about Atmosphere. Back up yours SD card. Wipe it. Push hekate and boot into OFW, update to the firmware using the official software updater. You should be able to boot into OFW without RCM now, or if you continue to use RCM, then without any blown fuses. Now install Atmosphere onto your SD card and boot hekate, create your emunand, and you should be good.

I have tried your solution. While it was a good attempt and I appreciate it, it stops at being effective at booting into OFW. Even with a blank SD card, nothing loads whatsoever; just an infinite abyss of black screen awaits me. If I can get into the Home screen, then I could reinitialize the console or somethin...but as it stands, I can only use this 5 lb or so paperweight to access Hekate and pretty much not much more. None of the fuses are burnt and I wanna keep it that way in case I really mess up down the line- but if I have to burn one to be able to bring the console back to basics, so be it. I forgot to mention I do have the original prod.keys as well as BOOT0 and BOOT1 files from before I started these update shenanigans. Dunno if they will help but figure I'd mention I have those as well.

 

[Hayato213]

If the unit is unpatched you can try to rebuild your NAND with Choidujour (PC version)/EmmcHaccGen. Problem is you update your firmware to 12.0.1 then you used a firmware flashing too to write 4.0.0 to it, it refuses to boot because the user partition is off, so you end up with a black screen. Should have made rawNAND backup with boot0/boot1.

 

[pcwizard7]

how many fuses are burnt? fw 4.0.0 = 5 burnt fuse count

are you sure your sd card is fat32? if exfat you may not have the driver installed for it

 

[OverlordSeth]

If the unit is unpatched you can try to rebuild your NAND with Choidujour (PC version)/EmmcHaccGen. Problem is you update your firmware to 12.0.1 then you used a firmware flashing too to write 4.0.0 to it, it refuses to boot because the user partition is off, so you end up with a black screen. Should have made rawNAND backup with boot0/boot1.

Whelp, if I had come back to this site to find my guide instead of that red white and bs, I would've. But alas, it's crying over spilt apple juice at this point. Choidujour doesn't like my keys.txt, so I went with EmmcHaccGen...and even then, it still had a crash at the very end, so I'm skeptical if it really got the entirety of the firmware files.

I'm just...done lol. I just wanna go back to fresh so I can start anew- because ever since I've started I've had problem after problem.

An attempt to rebuild the NAND with Tegraexplorer and some sort of script that came with it did not go as planned, so I tried to nuke it with another script thing that came with it...I mean it sorta worked? I can access the Nintendo screen now when booting into Hekate>Launch>Stock, so uhh...progress? It still goes into a black screen, sadly. Do appreciate y'alls input on this tho cauz I have no clue wtf to do.

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how many fuses are burnt? fw 4.0.0 = 5 burnt fuse count

are you sure your sd card is fat32? if exfat you may not have the driver installed for it

I can confirm that there are 5 fuses, same as when I started. I was extremely careful on everything when I started. I have also provided below the fuses page direct from Hekate in the events that there might be some additional information that might be able to be gleaned from it, either from you or another user, that might help the situation.

Edit: Yes, I can confirm the sd card is fat32. I formatted it specifically through an external partition manager program that I used back in the good ol' Wii days 6 years ago and it still does the job well for a freeware program. Apologies for not clarifying that earlier.

 

[pcwizard7]

Is there anything in the "atmosphere/config" folder as you may misconfig something there

I would let it sit on black screen as may trying to rebuild the Nintendo folder

 

[OverlordSeth]

Is there anything in the "atmosphere/config" folder as you may misconfig something there

I would let it sit on black screen as may trying to rebuild the Nintendo folder

As of right now, I can say with certainty that the config folder is empty. I will run a test in about an hour or so and let the console just run on the black screen; as of right now, the console is out of charge so I set it aside for the time being. Will come back and edit this post when I run the test.


Edit: I've run the test in question. Running the system past the Nintendo logo to the black screen, it has sat there for an hour and thirty minutes with no visible signs of activity. Therefore, at least to me, it would be logical to assume that it is not doing what you are implying it is. Would deleting the Nintendo Folder have any effect on the black screen? If it's trying to rebuild what's already there, then it wouldn't be too much to venture a guess to delete what there and let it actually recreate it....but at this point I'm ad-hocing a solution rather than really learning.

Edit 2: I have managed to be big dumb. Apparently, it had not crossed my mind once to try replacing the Atmosphere folder with an earlier version, one that I know worked. Perhaps it was a buggy thing in that folder. So...I did exactly that: I took the atmosphere folder from my first backup and replaced the stupid one on the sd card. Annndd.....Well- we sorta have more success?

Before I explain that however, I should also tell you all of something else that my little brian came up with. I made a new emuMMC SD Partition (Main Menu>emuMMC>Create emuMMC>SD Partition) under RAW 2 and changed my partition from RAW1 to RAW2. Once I did that, I figured my next test was well under way. so I launched Stock...and no change to the boot process. I launched CFW (emu or sys MMC, if didn't matter same results) or Fusee and they would do their special animations, then they would show a new logo, the Atmosphere logo, before fading to black...and no longer loading. I have a feeling that I'm getting very VERY close to the end...but I just cannot see the end in sight oof.

 

[Draxzelex]

Whelp, if I had come back to this site to find my guide instead of that red white and bs, I would've. But alas, it's crying over spilt apple juice at this point. Choidujour doesn't like my keys.txt, so I went with EmmcHaccGen...and even then, it still had a crash at the very end, so I'm skeptical if it really got the entirety of the firmware files.

I'm just...done lol. I just wanna go back to fresh so I can start anew- because ever since I've started I've had problem after problem.

An attempt to rebuild the NAND with Tegraexplorer and some sort of script that came with it did not go as planned, so I tried to nuke it with another script thing that came with it...I mean it sorta worked? I can access the Nintendo screen now when booting into Hekate>Launch>Stock, so uhh...progress? It still goes into a black screen, sadly. Do appreciate y'alls input on this tho cauz I have no clue wtf to do.

I think you gave up too early with the keys portion. You can always dump them with Lockpick_RCM and in the absolute worst case scenario, you can just Google the keys you need.