Hacking Installing b9s on a potentially already hacked device...

[krepandus]

Hi y'all!

so, a friend from work has a 3DS that he bought used, and as far as he knows, wasn't hacked or anything. I offered to install b9s on it, being a good colleague and all. Come today, I started doing the prep work, only to find that there already is a boot.firm file on the root of the devices SD, as well as a gm9 and a luma folder. There, however is no FBI or Luma app when u turn on the device or, well, anything that could show what has been done to the device. I've also tried to boot into godmode holding start when turning it on and stuff, nothing. He's got the 3DS for 2 years now.

My question now is, can I safely proceed to, well, potentially 'reinstalling' b9s on it or should I just leave it? And what pathway should I follow with Plailects guide then? Or there is maybe a different way to do things. I just dont wanna brick the poor guy, his kids would end me, lol.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Shadow#1]

Hi y'all!

so, a friend from work has a 3DS that he bought used, and as far as he knows, wasn't hacked or anything. I offered to install b9s on it, being a good colleague and all. Come today, I started doing the prep work, only to find that there already is a boot.firm file on the root of the devices SD, as well as a gm9 and a luma folder. There, however is no FBI or Luma app when u turn on the device or, well, anything that could show what has been done to the device. I've also tried to boot into godmode holding start when turning it on and stuff, nothing. He's got the 3DS for 2 years now.

My question now is, can I safely proceed to, well, potentially 'reinstalling' b9s on it or should I just leave it? And what pathway should I follow with Plailects guide then? Or there is maybe a different way to do things. I just dont wanna brick the poor guy, his kids would end me, lol.

Thanks in advance!

Hold Select on power on what version of Luma3DS?

 

[flzmx]

On B9S, holding Start + Select + X on boot should dump some files to the SD card. If those files exist, then you can probably assume that the 3DS has B9S installed on it.

 

[krepandus]

Hold Select on power on what version of Luma3DS?

Good thinking. I took a photo, here’s what I got. It most certainly has b9s.
My question now is where do I go from now? Should I just install the luma app, and fbi so he could use cias or what? The person who sold it to him obviously removed all of the Homebrew apps.

Btw I hope posting photos is allowed with the forum rules and all.

 

[Shadow#1]

Good thinking. I took a photo, here’s what I got. It most certainly has b9s.
My question now is where do I go from now? Should I just install the luma app, and fbi so he could use cias or what? The person who sold it to him obviously removed all of the Homebrew apps.

Btw I hope posting photos is allowed with the forum rules and all.

Then your good to do a system update

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Then your good to do a system update

Are you serious?

@krepandus Updating the firmware with Luma v9.0 will result with the well-known error message

An error has occured:

Failed to apply 1 FIRM patch(es)

Press any button to shutdown

This is not a big deal. Even if you update the official firmware first, you can still replace boot.firm with a newer version. Download the latest Luma verion v10.0.1 and replace boot.firm and boot.3dsx from: https://github.com/AuroraWright/Luma3DS/releases
After that repeat the finalizing setup to get FBI, GodMode9, etc.

 

[krepandus]

I appreciate the feedback, guys. Will get back to you if something goes wrong, but I’m sure it’ll all go smooth.

Thanks!

 

[Shadow#1]

Are you serious?
View attachment 181521



@krepandus Updating the firmware with Luma v9.0 will result with the well-known error message

An error has occured:

Failed to apply 1 FIRM patch(es)

Press any button to shutdown

This is not a big deal. Even if you update the official firmware first, you can still replace boot.firm with a newer version. Download the latest Luma verion v10.0.1 and replace boot.firm and boot.3dsx from: https://github.com/AuroraWright/Luma3DS/releases
After that repeat the finalizing setup to get FBI, GodMode9, etc.

Does not matter as it's not permanent

 

[SCOTT0852]

Does not matter

It absolutely does matter, you basically told them to soft-brick their console. You could have at least told them they needed to update their Luma too.

 

[Shadow#1]

It absolutely does matter, you basically told them to soft-brick their console. You could have at least told them they needed to update their Luma too.

Nope does not matter if he does it before updating or after

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Nope does not matter if he does it before updating or after

From a technical point of view it does not matter, right.

When it comes to feelings this is different. Just looking at the amount of threads about that “Failed to apply 1 FIRM patch(es)”-message tells me that is does matter. A lot of people were shocked and screamed for help desperately. My first impulse is telling them to use search before screaming for help (in fact, I did this indirectly once).
On the other hand I can understand the panic. Somebody who is not familiar with 3DS softmods – or in general not tech-savvy – can’t know how easy to solve that specific problem is. To a novice the situation may look devastating: Turning on the 3DS and NOTHING WORKS!!

Telling someone with an incompatible Luma3DS version to simply update the official firmware without mentioning the known problem is – in my opinion – a really bad advise.

 

[Ryccardo]

By the way, since nobody answered the original question:

My question now is, can I safely proceed to, well, potentially 'reinstalling' b9s on it or should I just leave it?

You have to understand that B9S (and .firm programs in general) are just Nintendo-signed* custom kernels, so there's no technical reason for which they can't be replaced;

* to the extent needed for the bootrom to believe so, compare to Wii's Trucha bug even though it's a little bit more complicated

however you also need to understand how you're replacing it, because kernels as installed in the kernel partitions are encrypted for your console only: while 3DS-mode kernel installers (GM9 and crippled derivatives like SafeB9SInstaller, OpenFirmInstaller, etc) will work fine (since they ask the console to use the already loaded keys to do the job, even though the program can't read them back out of hardware), DSi-mode ones (firmtool? was it called?) don't have that luxury and have to do it the xorpad way, by comparing the encrypted kernel which is installed with a decrypted one they assume to be installed): that's why it clearly says to "not use it over already installed B9S or a system version it wasn't designed for" - it will generate a completely wrong key by comparing two things that shouldn't be compared!

the known problem

Great exercise for using the google... or making a fool out of themselves for not being able to use it

 

[fyredragon]

That joyconhax April fools was funny

 

[BaamAlex]

On B9S, holding Start + Select + X on boot should dump some files to the SD card. If those files exist, then you can probably assume that the 3DS has B9S installed on it.

Or you hold simply the SELECT button to trigger the luma config menu. If it's pop up, b9s is installed.