Tutorial More-or-less Catch-All Tutorial

[Sgt. Lulz]

hey sgt. lulz just wanna say i finally got cfw working on my 2ds and some cias installed finally thanks alot for all the help and the tutorial you have provided me and others keep up the awesome work..

btw i got one quick question if i wanted to buy a bigger sd card could i just transfer all the files and folders on my current sd over onto the new one or would i have to go through the whole process again??

You'd have to use one of the emuNAND tools out there to extract your emuNAND first, then inject your emuNAND backup to your new SD card.
After that you'd just have to move all your files over to the new card and you're set to go.
I think Multi emuNAND creator can fix the FAT partition tables on its own without having to run the new card thorugh EmuNAND9.

 

[Sgt. Lulz]

Wow fuck on that note I should probably update this guide with a multiNAND section, that'd be sick
brb testing

edit:

it works
wicked

 

[ExcideSC]

Wow fuck on that note I should probably update this guide with a multiNAND section, that'd be sick
brb testing

edit:

it works
wicked

Awesome im looking to upgrade to a 64gb SD card all i know is that it has to be formatted to Fat32 but if you could add a tutorial then that would be fantastic

 

[Diogoudard]

So I've unlinked my NANDs, but formatted emuNAND instead of sysNAND. I ended up with a sysNAND 9.2 with all my eshop games and data, and a new clean emuNAND 9.2 (now it's 10.3). What should I do to have an emuNAND with my sysNAND data now? Also, is it possible to keep my emuNAND game saves too? Thanks

 

[SCOTTIEZEN]

Hello. I have a o3ds on 10.3 and I wanted to know how long downloading the payload takes
nvm I got it working

 

[AlBa]

Silly questions (?) before attempting a downgrade on my N3DSXL :
1. How to safely backup my savegames ?
2. How to keep a legit game that is already on my console ? (my Legend Of Zelda:ALBW legitely downloaded for instance)

 

[Sgt. Lulz]

So I've unlinked my NANDs, but formatted emuNAND instead of sysNAND. I ended up with a sysNAND 9.2 with all my eshop games and data, and a new clean emuNAND 9.2 (now it's 10.3). What should I do to have an emuNAND with my sysNAND data now? Also, is it possible to keep my emuNAND game saves too? Thanks

To do that you'd have to format a new emuNAND through emuNAND9 and run TinyFormat on sysNAND instead next time.
To keep your savegames you'd use svdt or SaveDataFiler to back them all up and restore them after the reformat.

Silly questions (?) before attempting a downgrade on my N3DSXL :
1. How to safely backup my savegames ?
2. How to keep a legit game that is already on my console ? (my Legend Of Zelda:ALBW legitely downloaded for instance)

Use svdt to back up whatever you can.
That said, running a system format isn't necessary to downgrade, so it's possible to just run the downgrade process and everything will be largely intact.
Of course, games that require a higher minimum firmware version won't work, but the save data will be fine.

 

[AlBa]

Use svdt to back up whatever you can.
That said, running a system format isn't necessary to downgrade, so it's possible to just run the downgrade process and everything will be largely intact.
Of course, games that require a higher minimum firmware version won't work, but the save data will be fine.

So, correct me if i'm wrong, downgrading is like formatting a system partition on a computer, thus keeping all other partitions and data untouched ?

 

[Sgt. Lulz]

So, correct me if i'm wrong, downgrading is like formatting a system partition on a computer, thus keeping all other partitions and data untouched ?

Something like that, I guess.
It's not an entirely fair and square comparison since Windows is more monolithic and the 3DS's firmware is a modular title system, but that's more or less what's happening.
What SysUpdater does is uninstall the system titles and replace each and every one with the desired version for the downgrade process. This is done because the AM service does a prior check of the corresponding applications' versions and cancels the operation if the installed title is a higher version than the title to install.
But yes, all of your data should still be intact after the fact. Some applications with a high enough minimum system version will become incompatible, but that's a reversible process.

 

[dronesplitter]

I was wondering, the tut seems to have you install cake cfw? How is that different from rxtools and reinand? I'm pretty confused at that part of the process.

 

[dronesplitter]

I've been trying to use safesysupdater to downgrade for a while now but I just keep getting the pink dots (people say to try like 50 times before complaining...i'm around 30-40, I think).

Is there a chance it will be more likely to work if I use something other than menuhax to get to the homebrew loader? I have cubic ninja and I'm on 10.3 (downgrading to 9.2, of course) so I guess I would get homebrew loader launched that way. Please say that helps, lol.

edit: took a long time but finally downgraded to 9.2 perfectly!!

 

[GigamanTheSinner]

Anyone encountered error like that during downgrading from 10.3.0-28E?

titleException:
main.cpp:148: Result: 0xD900182F
Failed to get CIA file info!

I got all .cia files in /updates/ folder.

 

[Luglige]

Would a backup consist of copying your files and pasting them into a folder?

 

[GigamanTheSinner]

Launched three times more, worked.
Didn't touch the files, it just worked.
Magic.

 

[Sgt. Lulz]

Would a backup consist of copying your files and pasting them into a folder?

In the SD card's case, yes.
In the case of save files, etc., absolutely not. Not without dumping them with svdt or SaveDataFiler first.

I was wondering, the tut seems to have you install cake cfw? How is that different from rxtools and reinand? I'm pretty confused at that part of the process.

Beyond regionfree support and some technical stuff, the three are basically the same: Patching signature checks and
This tutorial used to deal in rxTools, but then CakesFW and ReiNAND started supporting 9.6+ on N3DS, and ReiNAND is N3DS-exclusive (up until a few days ago), which narrowed the options down to just the one.
Most CIAs come prepatched as regionfree nowadays anyways, so I'm not all that bummed by the lack of RF on Rei and Cakes.

 

[Luglige]

In the SD card's case, yes.
In the case of save files, etc., absolutely not. Not without dumping them with svdt or SaveDataFiler first.

Beyond regionfree support and some technical stuff, the three are basically the same: Patching signature checks and
This tutorial used to deal in rxTools, but then CakesFW and ReiNAND started supporting 9.6+ on N3DS, and ReiNAND is N3DS-exclusive (up until a few days ago), which narrowed the options down to just the one.
Most CIAs come prepatched as regionfree nowadays anyways, so I'm not all that bummed by the lack of RF on Rei and Cakes.

Ok, i don't have much stuff to save (My homebrew is my pride and joy) But would that mean that my homebrew would be gone if i downgraded?

 

[Sgt. Lulz]

Ok, i don't have much stuff to save (My homebrew is my pride and joy) But would that mean that my homebrew would be gone if i downgraded?

No, not at all.
You just have to update your entrypoint payloads, like Menuhax.

 

[Luglige]

No, not at all.
You just have to update your entrypoint payloads, like Menuhax.

Ahhhh i see is menuhax compatible with 9.2?

 

[dronesplitter]

So cakes supports 10.5 emunand and all that like the others?

 

[Sgt. Lulz]

Ahhhh i see is menuhax compatible with 9.2?

Yes

So cakes supports 10.5 emunand and all that like the others?

and yes.
rxTools doesn't actually support 9.6+ emuNAND on N3DS though.