Hacking N3DS CFW

[markz716]

Hello everyone, let me start off by saying thanks to everyone here for all of your hard work, seems like an amazing community.

After many days reading and spending money I'm ready to begin! Traded in old 3DS, some games, and just purchased:
US N3DS 9.0.0-20U
Cubic Ninja US Cartridge

Gonna be using a 16gb HC micro SD card for storage.

My end goal right now is to play roms/install cia's (including out of region) and maybe some homebrew games. From my understanding there are a couple different routes I can take right now regarding installing CFW to reach my goal: Gateway, ReiNAND, and Pasta. And since I found a 9.0 N3DS system and Cubic Ninja locally, I'd rather avoid Sky3DS since I've got everything I need.

So now that they've been out for a little bit, I'm wondering, which N3DS CFW do you guys prefer?

ReiNAND - Is it really safer to go with ReiNAND and set up an emuNAND before trying to install and run game cia's (from some ISO site..) ? I've read some posts with people talking about getting black screens trying to set up emuNAND..

Pasta - or would I be fine with setting up Pasta and installing cia's right to sysNAND?

Or should I just order a Gateway and go that route since I'm already this far...?

Will there be N3DS support for rxTools in the future?

And can I back up sysNAND before installing anything at all, in case things go bad?

I want to avoid a brick if possible, and/or deal with a soft brick rather than losing out on my whole investment. I also don't won't to lose functionality like superstable 3D, because that's one of the main reasons I got the new system. I'd also prefer not to have to be connected online to launch the CFW.

I'm sorry for the wall of text and so many questions, I just wanna make sure I do this all the right way the first time around. Thanks for your time and help

 

[Amadren]

You can backup your nand using a hardmode like this one: http://www.infinitydream.com/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=164&osCsid=8n1jj326s27hujldaeeemsq0d7 (french tut).

I would go using PastaCFW because Reinand is still in a early beta phase and Rei broke up his N3DS.

There may be a futur support of N3DS using rxTools because rxTools was discontinued and its code belong to Pasta team.

If you can have a Gateway, buy it

 

[Gadorach]

ReiNAND is the only EmuNAND solution for the N3DS, past Gateway, right now. I recommend backing up your NAND with the Gateway launcher through Cubic Ninja, and keeping it in a safe place. Currently, the only stable EmuNAND solution for the N3DS is Gateway, but rxTools is going to support it as soon as possible, if you can wait. I'd estimate about 4-6 weeks before we see it implemented properly in rxTools. In the mean time, you can use PastaCFW for basic operations on the N3DS.

 

[Technicmaster0]

You can backup your system's NAND with the gateway launcher. You don't even need a gateway to backup the NAND. Just run the launcher through cubic ninja and select "NAND Backup" in the menu.

 

[riggs]

I was in the same boat a couple of weeks ago; N3DS, Cubic Ninja etc. and had a lot of questions and concerns regarding what's safe to do with sysNAND.

So far I've half-filled a 64GB card with CIAs (from different regions), injected GB roms and a couple of apps (Title Manager and eShop Spoofer) and haven't run into an issue yet.

As someone said to me, if you're just installing games you'll be fine.

As soon as a good emuNAND solution for the N3DS appears (i.e., Pasta) I'll be all over it. But for the moment sysNAND is perfectly fine as long as you trust the source files and do your reading.

 

[markz716]

Thank you all very much for your help and input! My biggest concern was the risk with writing directly to sysNAND but appears to be ok. Later today looks like I'll be eating lots of Pasta. Again thank you very much for helping me out !

 

[DSpider]

You can backup your system's NAND with the gateway launcher. You don't even need a gateway to backup the NAND. Just run the launcher through cubic ninja and select "NAND Backup" in the menu.

You can back up your NAND using the Pasta CFW GUI, too. Just hold the L trigger while booting up Pasta to access the GUI.

Pasta doesn't write to sysNAND. It doesn't even install there. It's just a system patch that "installs" to RAM. When you reboot the console it's gone.

From my understanding there are a couple different routes I can take right now regarding installing CFW to reach my goal: Gateway, ReiNAND, and Pasta.

You can't use Gateway "CFW" (i.e. emuNAND) without owning a Gateway red flashcart.

 

[Shadowtrance]

You can back up your NAND using the Pasta CFW GUI, too. Just hold the L trigger while booting up Pasta to access the GUI.

This point is wrong, you cannot backup your nand with pasta, that option is broken. It only dumps garbage, so that dump is useless. Use Decrypt9 or gateway menu.

 

[markz716]

So I followed a YouTube video, and got Ninjhax and Pasta 1.3beta 4 up and running. Got 7 cia's installed so far through BigBlueMenu. But since I downloaded a "total package" zip, I noticed Pasta 1.3 beta 4 isn't the newest, beta 7 is. Beta 4 doesn't included FirmLaunch right? Do you guys know which games require higher than 9.0, so I can decide if I need to use FirmLaunch or not?

Also, I never backed up my NAND. Do I just download the gateway launcher and go about it that way?

Thank you again for all your help guys, this is amazing!!

 

[tipsytoto]

You can use this site to determine FW requirements for games.

http://www.3dsdb.com/

 

[markz716]

Thanks again guys! I might update Pasta if I decide to try Smash Brothers or Xenoblade Chronicles.

I still haven't backed up my sysNAND, installed 12 game CIA's (both Legit and non-legit) and no problems so far...

QUICK QUESTIONS:

If I install a USA Theme CIA (for my US N3DS) and install it with Pasta, is there any greater chance of running into problems or should I be fine?

Also, since I've gotten this far, should I still back up my sysNAND or will I be OK if only installing game CIA's and maybe themes?

Thanks!
-Mark

 

[DSpider]

It's usually a good idea to have a backup, yes.

If you won't ever need one ---> meh. Nothing lost, except maybe a few minutes and some small space on the HDD (like 1 GB or something like that).

But if you ever need it and don't have one ---> you're fucked.


sysNAND backups are unique to every console due to hardware encryption, so you can't just restore someone else's backup.

 

[markz716]

Thanks for the replies guys. I haven't made any other changes, and right now I really want to backup my NAND before anything else, especially with all I've been reading about RxTools getting N3DS support soon!

In order to do so, I'm gonna have to delete my current Cubic Ninja save, copy gateway launcher .dat to SD card, and then use gateway's QR code correct?

After I back up NAND, I'm gonna have the delete the Cubic save again, and then re-install NinjaHax to run Pasta again, correct?

Unless I can backup my NAND another way on my N3DS? I currently have NinjaHax + Pasta 1.3 Beta 4 set up.

Thanks!

 

[riggs]

Afaik, Gateway is the only way to backup your NAND so yes, you'll need to delete your CN save and scan the Gateway QR (then do the same again to get Ninjhax back up and running).

Have you looked into ReiNAND? That's what I'm currently using. It has emunand support (upto 9.5 for N3DS), plus the latest build can actually boot using the MSET exploit, so no need to carry a copy of Cubic Ninja.

 

[hundshamer]

Afaik, Gateway is the only way to backup your NAND...

Well, the only way via software. You can always backup your NAND via hardmod no matter the firmware version.

 

[Shadowtrance]

Well, the only way via software. You can always backup your NAND via hardmod no matter the firmware version.

Not the only way via software. Decrypt9 can backup and restore your nand too.

 

[hundshamer]

Not the only way via software. Decrypt9 can backup and restore your nand too.

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[HaloEffect17]

Not the only way via software. Decrypt9 can backup and restore your nand too.

Could be a dumb question here, but can you use Decrypt9 to restore your 3DS NAND if the 3DS is bricked? The reason why I'm asking this is because for a bricked Wii, one can still run Bootmii (backup/restore NAND software) by holding down a button and restore the NAND that way. I'm not sure if the 3DS has this functionality currently.

 

[Shadowtrance]

Could be a dumb question here, but can you use Decrypt9 to restore your 3DS NAND if the 3DS is bricked? The reason why I'm asking this is because for a bricked Wii, one can still run Bootmii (backup/restore NAND software) by holding down a button and restore the NAND that way. I'm not sure if the 3DS has this functionality currently.

Sadly you can't. Only way if it's bricked and obviously not booting is with a hardware mod.

 

[HaloEffect17]

Sadly you can't. Only way if it's bricked and obviously not booting is with a hardware mod.

That's a shame. Hopefully in the coming years, people can restore their bricked 3DS's via a softmod like the Wii. That would be awesome.

Thanks for the confirmation.