Homebrew Is setting the EmuNAND correctly supposed to do this?

MigueelDnd

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I just followed this tutorial to set up the emuNAND (after downgrading from 10.3 on an N3DSXL succesfully), and I have some questions:
1) I'm not really sure what I just did. I mean, I followed the tutorial correctly, had no errors on any part and everything went smoothly. But now my apps, games, and saves are gone because my memory split into two or something like that? Can someone explain that to me, and how do I get my stuff back?
2) Something odd though, the tutorial said that I should have 2 folders inside the /Nintendo 3DS one, but I have 3 and one of those has 2 more folders inside it (one of which is my main folder in which I've been putting all the files and stuff). Is it fine and should I leave it like that, or should I do something about it?

I just want to move on and install RxTools, and here I thought downgrading was the problematic part...
Thanks for any help guys.
 
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I just followed this tutorial to set up the emuNAND (after downgrading from 10.3 on an N3DSXL succesfully), and I have some questions:
1) I'm not really sure what I just did. I mean, I followed the tutorial correctly, had no errors on any part and everything went smoothly. But now my apps, games, and saves are gone because my memory split into two or something like that? Can someone explain that to me, and how do I get my stuff back?
2) Something odd though, the tutorial said that I should have 2 folders inside the /Nintendo 3DS one, but I have 3 and one of those has 2 more folders inside it (one of which is my main folder in which I've been putting all the files and stuff). Is it fine and should I leave it like that, or should I do something about it?

I just want to move on and install RxTools, and here I thought downgrading was the problematic part...
Thanks for any help guys.

What happened was because you had to format your SD card during the process of making an emuNAND, the exdata got deleted and the 3DS needed to create it again. Though, because of that, the folder name is different. Since you mentioned three folders, I'll assume you formatted one of your NANDs to unlink them.

What you need to do is find the folder that contains the newly created exdata and merge your data into it.

Look for it in the Nintendo 3DS folder [Nintendo 3DS/{lengthy string}/]. It should contain only the exdata that was just created.
Then take the data you had before that's also in [Nintendo 3DS/{lengthy string}/] and put it where the newly created folder (so the folders labeled 'backup', 'dbs', 'title' and any other folders) along with the newly created exdata. I'd backup that newly created exdata too - I don't remember if I overwrote it with the old one or not.

After that your games and software should show up. This should only apply to the NAND you didn't format, but I could be wrong as I haven't unlinked my NANDs yet.
 

MigueelDnd

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What happened was because you had to format your SD card during the process of making an emuNAND, the exdata got deleted and the 3DS needed to create it again. Though, because of that, the folder name is different. Since you mentioned three folders, I'll assume you formatted one of your NANDs to unlink them.

What you need to do is find the folder that contains the newly created exdata and merge your data into it.

Look for it in the Nintendo 3DS folder [Nintendo 3DS/{lengthy string}/]. It should contain only the exdata that was just created.
Then take the data you had before that's also in [Nintendo 3DS/{lengthy string}/] and put it where the newly created folder (so the folders labeled 'backup', 'dbs', 'title' and any other folders) along with the newly created exdata. I'd backup that newly created exdata too - I don't remember if I overwrote it with the old one or not.

After that your games and software should show up. This should only apply to the NAND you didn't format, but I could be wrong as I haven't unlinked my NANDs yet.
Here are some more pictures for clarity's sake:
-----That's the Nintendo 3DS folder----- said:
SoTK4Vx.png

-----Inside the first folder are these two additional ones said:

So what you mean is that I should grab the newly created folder, grab the exdata folder, and parse it into the folder with my info? Or do I copy my stuff and just paste it over the newly created directory?

To be honest, I just "unlinked my NANDs" (which I still don't really know what it means) because it was in the tutorial as an obligatory step.
Thanks for your help, by the way!
 
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Here are some more pictures for clarity's sake:
So what you mean is that I should grab the newly created folder, grab the exdata folder, and parse it into the folder with my info? Or do I copy my stuff and just paste it over the newly created directory?

To be honest, I just "unlinked my NANDs" (which I still don't really know what it means) because it was in the tutorial as an obligatory step.
Thanks for your help, by the way!

So I assumed right; you did unlink 'em. Basically you've just got two systems on one system now. One of 'em is clean and the other like you had it before you created your emuNAND.

Take your existing stuff and put it in with the new stuff.

Make sure to back up your new 'exdata' folder though in case replacing it with the old one mucks things up; I don't remember if I replaced my new one with my old one.

Again, since you unlinked your NANDs, this should only work with the one that wasn't formatted.
 

MigueelDnd

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Again, since you unlinked your NANDs, this should only work with the one that wasn't formatted.
Could you please explain what you mean? I'm not sure I understand what the purpose of everything I did is, and formatting made it more confusing.

What I mean is what's the point of doing all of the emuNAND stuff?
Why shouldn't I just downgrade and install RxTools directly?
 
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Could you please explain what you mean? I'm not sure I understand what the purpose of everything I did is, and formatting made it more confusing.

What I mean is what's the point of doing all of the emuNAND stuff?
Why shouldn't I just downgrade and install RxTools directly?

tl;dr basically it just makes playing games easier and keeps your sysNAND safer so it doesn't get bricked and you still have a working system

Since I can only relay what I've read about it, bear with me, since I'm still kinda new to this stuff as well.

emuNAND = emulated NAND. You know how you can use savestates in emulators for games and, if something doesn't go the way it should or you die and you want to keep all that progress you made without restarting, you just load the savestate? It's a sort of safety net that keeps it so you can continue using homebrew. Accidentally updated in emuNAND? No problem, so long as the NANDs are unlinked. Bricked your emuNAND somehow? No worries, just install a backup. Want to play games on the latest firmware without hassle, but still want to keep your system hacked? Just update emuNAND and keep your sysNAND where it is. Think of emuNAND as a safe playground for homebrew. If something goes wrong with your sysNAND, you're in trouble. But with emuNAND, it's no trouble. Your console still works and you can just redo everything.

So what happens when emuNAND is created and the NANDs are linked?

When you create an emuNAND the SD card gets formatted, and a separate partition is created specifically for the emuNAND. Where does the information for that newly created emuNAND come from? sysNAND! Your emuNAND, right after creation, is an exact copy of your what your sysNAND was. From that point on, certain things that you do in sysNAND are mirrored to your emuNAND. At this point, I'm not sure if certain things you do in emuNAND are mirrored to sysNAND, so for all intents and purposes, let's assume it works both ways. Biggest thing is this: if your NANDs are linked, and you update one of them, the other one gets updated as well. For the New 3DS, emuNAND is only going to work up to 9.5. For the Old 3DS, it's 10.3 (the latest as of typing). Thing is, you want your sysNAND to stay on an exploitable version with kernel access (9.2 works well for this as it also gives us the possibility to 'cold boot' into emuNAND). So if you update one by accident, while linked, the other one is also updated and you have either an unusable or unreachable emuNAND.

Ok, great, but how do I keep them separate and unlink them?

In order to unlink the NANDs, you format one of them. Think of it as just doing a system format and starting fresh from there - new friendcode, new NNID, the works. Once formatted, they are no longer linked in the ways mentioned in the previous paragraph. Once unlinked, you can safely update emuNAND without having anything happen to the sysNAND. Thus, exploits and kernel access remains in sysNAND, and your emuNAND is updated so you can play games that require you to be either on 10.3 or have eShop access to update the games themselves. For us New 3DS users there are ways to do these things unofficially, but I'm not going to explain that here.

Lastly: "Why shouldn't I just downgrade and install RxTools directly?"

rxTools allows you to do some neat stuff, namely installation of any .cia without having to worry about signature checks. Yes, rxTools can be run alongside sysNAND to function as it does in emuNAND, but because of what it allows you to do, you have the possibility of bricking your sysNAND. And you can't recover from that unless you have a backup and it's hardmodded to allow NAND injection. Besides this, games that require a firmware higher than 9.2 to run won't unless you do some 'magic' to them if you plan to stay on 9.2 in sysNAND. It's less of a hassle to play games, really, if you're using an updated system, no?

Apologies for the text wall, but I wanted to go sort of in-depth about it.
 
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MigueelDnd

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tl;dr basically it just makes playing games easier and keeps your sysNAND safer so it doesn't get bricked and you still have a working system

Since I can only relay what I've read about it, bear with me, since I'm still kinda new to this stuff as well.

emuNAND = emulated NAND. You know how you can use savestates in emulators for games and, if something doesn't go the way it should or you die and you want to keep all that progress you made without restarting, you just load the savestate? It's a sort of safety net that keeps it so you can continue using homebrew. Accidentally updated in emuNAND? No problem, so long as the NANDs are unlinked. Bricked your emuNAND somehow? No worries, just install a backup. Want to play games on the latest firmware without hassle, but still want to keep your system hacked? Just update emuNAND and keep your sysNAND where it is. Think of emuNAND as a safe playground for homebrew. If something goes wrong with your sysNAND, you're in trouble. But with emuNAND, it's no trouble. Your console still works and you can just redo everything.

So what happens when emuNAND is created and the NANDs are linked?

When you create an emuNAND the SD card gets formatted, and a separate partition is created specifically for the emuNAND. Where does the information for that newly created emuNAND come from? sysNAND! Your emuNAND, right after creation, is an exact copy of your what your sysNAND was. From that point on, certain things that you do in sysNAND are mirrored to your emuNAND. At this point, I'm not sure if certain things you do in emuNAND are mirrored to sysNAND, so for all intents and purposes, let's assume it works both ways. Biggest thing is this: if your NANDs are linked, and you update one of them, the other one gets updated as well. For the New 3DS, emuNAND is only going to work up to 9.5. For the Old 3DS, it's 10.3 (the latest as of typing). Thing is, you want your sysNAND to stay on an exploitable version with kernel access (9.2 works well for this as it also gives us the possibility to 'cold boot' into emuNAND). So if you update one by accident, while linked, the other one is also updated and you have either an unusable or unreachable emuNAND.

Ok, great, but how do I keep them separate and unlink them?

In order to unlink the NANDs, you format one of them. Think of it as just doing a system format and starting fresh from there - new friendcode, new NNID, the works. Once formatted, they are no longer linked in the ways mentioned in the previous paragraph. Once unlinked, you can safely update emuNAND without having anything happen to the sysNAND. Thus, exploits and kernel access remains in sysNAND, and your emuNAND is updated so you can play games that require you to be either on 10.3 or have eShop access to update the games themselves. For us New 3DS users there are ways to do these things unofficially, but I'm not going to explain that here.

Lastly: "Why shouldn't I just downgrade and install RxTools directly?"

rxTools allows you to do some neat stuff, namely installation of any .cia without having to worry about signature checks. Yes, rxTools can be run alongside sysNAND to function as it does in emuNAND, but because of what it allows you to do, you have the possibility of bricking your sysNAND. And you can't recover from that unless you have a backup and it's hardmodded to allow NAND injection. Besides this, games that require a firmware higher than 9.2 to run won't unless you do some 'magic' to them if you plan to stay on 9.2 in sysNAND. It's less of a hassle to play games, really, if you're using an updated system, no?

Apologies for the text wall, but I wanted to go sort of in-depth about it.
Thank you, that was really helpful! I understand everything a lot better now!

Just one thing, I would guess we're not allowed to discuss this "magic" required to run anything that asks for a fw over 9.2? I understand you can't just spoof your console to 10.3?
 
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Thank you, that was really helpful! I understand everything a lot better now!

Just one thing, I would guess we're not allowed to discuss this "magic" required to run anything that asks for a fw over 9.2? I understand you can't just spoof your console to 10.3?

Ah, glad you found it helpful. Nah, we're completely allowed to; I just said it as such because it's not magic but I'm not familiar with it. With emuNAND for the New 3DS capping at 9.5, games that run with that are fine, but obviously some (like Smash) require a higher firmware to run. A lot of it is just fluff - it doesn't really need a firmware higher than 9.5, but that's just what's in its header data. I should note that sometimes it's not fluff and games may crash mid-game. No experience with that as I have just barely unlinked my NANDs today.

There's a couple of options, from what I understand. One, you could 'cryptofix' the game, which either removes that data or changes it to match your current firmware. Thing with that is if you have cartridge games, you'll most likely have to dump 'em and convert 'em to a .cia somehow. For that DIY stuff, I'd recommend checking out this thread. It goes over how to convert a .3DS ROM to .cia and talks about some cryptofixing stuff. Won't tell you how to dump your cart and get it to a .3DS file, but there are applications like braindump, uncart, and Decrypt9 available. Since you'll have kernel I don't recommend braindump but I suggest you still check it out. Of course if you really don't want to bother with it or it gets too confusing you can just search on that iso site for cryptofixed versions.

Two, you could just firmware spoof (like you mentioned) via whatever method that's available (HANS can do it but doesn't read update data, and I think there's this thing called FreeMultiPatcher that's worth looking into). Pretty sure some CFWs do this at start up as well, but don't quote me on that either.

So that's the basics, really.
 
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Ah, glad you found it helpful. Nah, we're completely allowed to; I just said it as such because it's not magic but I'm not familiar with it. With emuNAND for the New 3DS capping at 9.5, games that run with that are fine, but obviously some (like Smash) require a higher firmware to run. A lot of it is just fluff - it doesn't really need a firmware higher than 9.5, but that's just what's in its header data. I should note that sometimes it's not fluff and games may crash mid-game. No experience with that as I have just barely unlinked my NANDs today.

There's a couple of options, from what I understand. One, you could 'cryptofix' the game, which either removes that data or changes it to match your current firmware. Thing with that is if you have cartridge games, you'll most likely have to dump 'em and convert 'em to a .cia somehow. For that DIY stuff, I'd recommend checking out this thread. It goes over how to convert a .3DS ROM to .cia and talks about some cryptofixing stuff. Won't tell you how to dump your cart and get it to a .3DS file, but there are applications like braindump, uncart, and Decrypt9 available. Since you'll have kernel I don't recommend braindump but I suggest you still check it out. Of course if you really don't want to bother with it or it gets too confusing you can just search on that iso site for cryptofixed versions.

Two, you could just firmware spoof (like you mentioned) via whatever method that's available (HANS can do it but doesn't read update data, and I think there's this thing called FreeMultiPatcher that's worth looking into). Pretty sure some CFWs do this at start up as well, but don't quote me on that either.

So that's the basics, really.
I see, thanks again!
I already managed to dump some .3ds files, now I just need to figure out how the hell to generate xorpads on myN3DS and, if everything works alright, I'll be good.
 
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The first thread I linked to mentioned something about it, but you'll be needing rxTools. Decrypt9 might be able to do it to; I think it's just preference. Happy hacking~
 

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