Hardware Louvre Custom 3DS XL

megatallica

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I just wanted to post this and get some suggestions going. So I wanted to fix one of my spare 3dsxls so I bought a broken one from that would Frankenstein with my one. The one I bought claimed that it could not read gamecards and that the sd card slot was broken. What I got was very different. After Googling I discovered that the hardware I had was a customized 3ds designed as a tour guide for the Louvre.

It behaves alot different than a normal 3ds, it appears to have a custom boot card that runs the os, the os is dependent on software contained on the sd card. The 3ds does not appear to have a nintendo 3ds os. It cannot boot games.

This was something truly interesting, so what do you guys suggest we do? From all appearances it doesnt seem secure, and could help in the development of a truly independent firmware.

So Where do we start.

Heres a video of the 3ds in action.
 

zoogie

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By any chance would the files on the sd card be plaintext? (lol)

I really don't see how it could be interfaced with because all of the known hacks only work with retail OS and carts. Talk to the efnet/3dsdev irc people, maybe they'll know what to do.
 
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megatallica

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That's one awesome find. I would try to do a hard mod and dump the Nand before starting to try and dump the cartridge. Do you have another 3ds and a gateway that you could try to dump the cartridge with?
It didnt even occur to me to attempt to dump the cart with GW, Ill try it out and see if it works
 
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zoogie

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It didnt even occur to me to attempt to dump the cart with GW, Ill try it out and see if it works
You might want to check the crc32 against what http://3ds.essh.co/ has, because I know CONTRAST has dumped the louvre carts already.
Just put "louvre" in the search box and quite a few versions show up.

| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.KOR.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.JPN.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.ITA.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.GER.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.SPA.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.3DS-CONTRAST |
 

megatallica

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You might want to check the crc32 against what http://3ds.essh.co/ has, because I know CONTRAST has dumped the louvre carts already.
Just put "louvre" in the search box and quite a few versions show up.

| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.KOR.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.JPN.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.ITA.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.GER.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.SPA.3DS-CONTRAST |
| 25/12/2013 | NFO | Nintendo.3DS.Guide.Louvre.3DS-CONTRAST |

No Luck, The Cart has the serial LNA-CTR-AAAP-EUR, and appears to be a boot card and not the actual guide, I think the guide is contained on the SD card
 

Ryccardo

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There was a nice discussion about it on GBARL but it's gone...

No Luck, The Cart has the serial LNA-CTR-AAAP-EUR, and appears to be a boot card and not the actual guide, I think the guide is contained on the SD card
Yep, the retail Louvre card (region free but ironically sold at only one retailer worldwide -- guess where and who is it) is unrelated to the purple-labeled boot card; the actual software loads from SD

If you have a [hardmod] 3DS you can afford to reformat, try to do that, completely power it off at the language selection, insert the boot card, press A+B+X+Y+R+Power (forces autoboot if system isn't configured) and see if it does something!
 

megatallica

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There was a nice discussion about it on GBARL but it's gone...


Yep, the retail Louvre card (region free but ironically sold at only one retailer worldwide -- guess where and who is it) is unrelated to the purple-labeled boot card; the actual software loads from SD

If you have a [hardmod] 3DS you can afford to reformat, try to do that, completely power it off at the language selection, insert the boot card, press A+B+X+Y+R+Power (forces autoboot if system isn't configured) and see if it does something!
The system seems to hang...
 

Ryccardo

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The system seems to hang...
Then they're most likely factory rejects (does the guide need 3D/infrared/wifi/speakers?) recycled with a custom NAND!


----------------------

Here are some photos from that GBARL topic... https://imgur.com/a/W1TYh
It will "brick" with the last picture if you put it into standby for 5 minutes, or at least that's what the original poster reported!
"This 3DS can only be used inside Louvre and doesn't support regular software" Tjessx
 

megatallica

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Seems like somebody has managed to snuggle a Louvre 3DS for cheap (€5 rental) out of there and sold it.

http://www.louvre.fr/en/museum-audio-guide

It seems to have been juggled around Australian ebay for a while now

Is it able to boot normal games as well?
Could you share the content of the SD card?

It cant boot normal games

Then they're most likely factory rejects (does the guide need 3D/infrared/wifi/speakers?) recycled with a custom NAND!


----------------------

Here are some photos from that GBARL topic... https://imgur.com/a/W1TYh
It will "brick" with the last picture if you put it into standby for 5 minutes, or at least that's what the original poster reported!
"This 3DS can only be used inside Louvre and doesn't support regular software" Tjessx

Everything seems to be functional, wifi is active since the unit uses spotpass for each exhibit, 3D is fine, The unit is a tour guide so it needs Speakers.
 

_Chaz_

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So the cartridge substitutes a custom firmware for the missing firmware? If this got into the hands of certain people, it could mean a lot for the 3DS hacking scene.
 
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endoverend

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So the cartridge substitutes a custom firmware for the missing firmware? If this got into the hands of certain people, it could mean a lot for the 3DS hacking scene.

It could be that there's a code in the 3DS bootrom which causes it to autoboot certain title ID's and bypass regular firmware. If this was the case, it would be possible to sell an identical cart which loads FW from an SD card, which would be amazing.
 

sweis12

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Can you please do a few things that might help the community?

1. Can you try to dump the rom of the cart?
2. Can you upload the contents of the SD card and leak them somewhere?
3. would it be possible for you to backup the nand for people to look at awell, if you cannot do it with sofware, you can always do a hardware nand mod.
 

zoogie

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Can you please do a few things that might help the community?

1. Can you try to dump the rom of the cart?
2. Can you upload the contents of the SD card and leak them somewhere?
3. would it be possible for you to backup the nand for people to look at awell, if you cannot do it with sofware, you can always do a hardware nand mod.
1. He has, he said it didn't work.
2. Maybe he will, but talking about it is walking the line of what is acceptable according to the forum rules.
3. It will be per console encrypted and totally useless (I suspect the same of the SD contents)
 

gamesquest1

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yeah tbh without some sort of new hack i dont think there will be much people can do with this, as he cant run retail games so CN/OOT exploits are out of the picture, and SD contents and NAND would need to be decrypted, which he can't do without some sort of hack to be able to decrypt them.......that being said i would love to get hold of something like that....i wonder if there is any way to access the browser......i think we need louvrehax to be developed XD

but tbh even if the console nand was decrypted and nand contents decrypted it would still likely only be any good for making clone louvre consoles out of standard retail consoles (if your into that sort of thing)

i guess at the least he could see what titles are installed on the SD card by going to x:/nintendo 3DS/***********/***********/title/ and listing the contents
 

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