Hacking Kirby Epic Yarn "Bricked" my 3DS

[Ceus]

I was downloading Kirby Epic Yarn from the hShop. I closed the device to let it download and when i open it again, the download had ended, but the screen froze. I turned the 3ds off and tried turning it on, but the screens remain black (the blue power light is on, as is the yellow light for the internet and the green for the 3d activation). I tried doing what this website said (wiki.hacks.guide/wiki/3DS:Black_screen_unbrick) up too section 2. I have a complete copy of the sd card so i could replace it as a last option but i would like to find another way because i have some games i downloaded that are not saved in the backup. My console is an original 3ds and the sd card is a kingston 64gb with FAT32 ( i heard the change of format from EXFAT could possibly get corrupted). thanks for any help in advance

 

[Kwyjor]

So, what happens when you remove the SD card?

 

[Ceus]

So, what happens when you remove the SD card?

Goes to Luma menu

 

[impeeza]

Goes to Luma menu

Do you have a NAND backup?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Goes to Luma menu

Press start, does it boot?

I wouldn't be too worried about the contents of the SD card as you can get the save data from it pretty easily as long as you have the files and the console works.

 

[RAHelllord]

Sounds like SD card died. Try opening it on a PC and see what happens. If windows offers to repair it that might fix it, but you might want to replace it anyway if its an older one by now.
If it doesn't open on your PC at all its definitely dead, just get a new one right away and use your backup. Also you can download the games you're missing on your PC and copy them over there, that'll go much faster than downloading them over your 3DS first.

 

[Kwyjor]

Goes to Luma menu

Then why exactly would you think your unit is "bricked"..?

Standard procedure: copy everything off the SD card using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier, format the card, and test the card with h2testw. If h2testw says the card is okay, then you can try copying everything back again; sometimes that is enough to fix things. If h2testw says the card has errors, then you should stop using the card.

 

[Ceus]

Then why exactly would you think your unit is "bricked"..?

Standard procedure: copy everything off the SD card using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier, format the card, and test the card with h2testw. If h2testw says the card is okay, then you can try copying everything back again; sometimes that is enough to fix things. If h2testw says the card has errors, then you should stop using the card.

Ok, I copied everything out and used h2testw. Surprisingly, the memory is fine. so i copied the previous backup and after some minutes again in a black screen the home menu finally appeared. While the problem is somehow solved, i still would like to know what happened because now i'm scared of downloading games

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Then why exactly would you think your unit is "bricked"..?

Standard procedure: copy everything off the SD card using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier, format the card, and test the card with h2testw. If h2testw says the card is okay, then you can try copying everything back again; sometimes that is enough to fix things. If h2testw says the card has errors, then you should stop using the card.

Alternatively to h2testw do a chkdsk sector scan with chkdsk /F /X /R X: replacing the drive letter with the correct one. This will also try to correct bad sectors but in my experience usually it's not able to correct them. Do this BEFORE formatting, as I'll explain below.

When formatting the card do a full (slow) format, this will remap bad sectors and often is able to get completely rid of them when chkdsk alone failed. With any flash storage that has experienced bad sectors, it probably means it's at the end of its life regardless of whether the bad sectors can be remapped, so if you got errors about bad sectors in chkdsk you should not trust the card with any data you care about anymore, even if the bad sectors went away after a full format.

After the format it's a good idea to do another chkdsk scan to verify that the bad sectors are gone, if there were any. If they went away you can keep using the card but keep backups and try to replace the card in the near future, it probably doesn't have very long left and there will be more bad sectors and corruption. Eventually it might just go full read only as happened to me.

 

[Kwyjor]

Alternatively to h2testw do a chkdsk sector scan with chkdsk /F /X /R X: replacing the drive letter with the correct one. This will also try to correct bad sectors but in my experience usually it's not able to correct them. Do this BEFORE formatting, as I'll explain below.

Why would you do this instead of just using h2testw..?

i still would like to know what happened because now i'm scared of downloading games

Clearly your unit wasn't "bricked" and it is highly unlikely that downloading anything will "brick" your unit. Just make sure to back up your save data regularly with Checkpoint. Everything else on your SD card can be safely restored one way or another.

 

[Exnor]

Alternatively to h2testw do a chkdsk sector scan with chkdsk /F /X /R X: replacing the drive letter with the correct one. This will also try to correct bad sectors but in my experience usually it's not able to correct them. Do this BEFORE formatting, as I'll explain below.

When formatting the card do a full (slow) format, this will remap bad sectors and often is able to get completely rid of them when chkdsk alone failed. With any flash storage that has experienced bad sectors, it probably means it's at the end of its life regardless of whether the bad sectors can be remapped, so if you got errors about bad sectors in chkdsk you should not trust the card with any data you care about anymore, even if the bad sectors went away after a full format.

After the format it's a good idea to do another chkdsk scan to verify that the bad sectors are gone, if there were any. If they went away you can keep using the card but keep backups and try to replace the card in the near future, it probably doesn't have very long left and there will be more bad sectors and corruption. Eventually it might just go full read only as happened to me.

Just out of curiosity, do using full format on flash storage actually touches all the cells with a write command?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Why would you do this instead of just using h2testw..?


Clearly your unit wasn't "bricked" and it is highly unlikely that downloading anything will "brick" your unit. Just make sure to back up your save data regularly with Checkpoint. Everything else on your SD card can be safely restored one way or another.

h2testw is designed to check for fake flash storage, it's not a general purpose error checker. chkdsk is, and it does more than just check for errors.

Post automatically merged: Dec 9, 2025

Just out of curiosity, do using full format on flash storage actually touches all the cells with a write command?

No. It does a complete surface scan. Full format doesn't wipe anything, that's a myth.

 

[isoboy]

"Do you have a NAND backup?" - crickets - it's a real simple question.