Hacking OFW on emunand instead of sysnand?

[Naguz]

Mistyped title, what I am wondering is of course if OFW could be on emunand instead of sysnand! Sorry.

My switch got CFW before emunand was a thing. It's the hackable release version. As far as I know it has never been banned, and hasn't been online in ages.I have a clean NAND backup, but it is really, really old, probably running 2.0.1 or something similar. I have been thinking about getting the switch online again. I probably wouldn't play online much anyway, but to see if it works, and accessing the store would be nice as well.

Instead of creating an emunand for continued CFW, restoring the very old clean NAND, and then updating that, it seems easier to just create an emunand from the NAND backup, keep the sysnand dirty, and use emunand for OFW. I know this is not what the guides tell you to do if you are hacking a switch from scratch, but is there any reason not to do this? I wouuld think performance is slightly better on sysnand, and as CFW is what I'll be running primarily, it seems a good place to have the CFW.

 

[ds34]

sure. but I don't know how long it'll take for Nintendo to ban you (I'm pretty sure they can detect that the switch is running on emunand)
you should create an emunand from your existing dirty nand and then reset the switch's nand using one of the anti-ban guides

 

[Naguz]

(I'm pretty sure they can detect that the switch is running on emunand)

I don't see why that would be easier to detect than the presence of an emunand partition, but I guess it is better to just go with the default option, as that will likely lead to less problems with configs or compatibility later anyway.

Do you have a link to guide? I know how to restore the NAND backup from hekate, but perhaps there are some things to watch out for when connection and updating the old restored nand as well?

 

[BaamAlex]

I'm pretty sure they can detect that the switch is running on emunand

How should they do this? RCM usage is outside the os.

 

[AD2076]

You can run OFW from emunand.
Many people use two emunands ( one for OFW and One for CFW) to keep sysnand FW to a low FW version

 

[LeMageFro]

Mistyped title, what I am wondering is of course if OFW could be on emunand instead of sysnand! Sorry.

My switch got CFW before emunand was a thing. It's the hackable release version. As far as I know it has never been banned, and hasn't been online in ages.I have a clean NAND backup, but it is really, really old, probably running 2.0.1 or something similar. I have been thinking about getting the switch online again. I probably wouldn't play online much anyway, but to see if it works, and accessing the store would be nice as well.

Instead of creating an emunand for continued CFW, restoring the very old clean NAND, and then updating that, it seems easier to just create an emunand from the NAND backup, keep the sysnand dirty, and use emunand for OFW. I know this is not what the guides tell you to do if you are hacking a switch from scratch, but is there any reason not to do this? I wouuld think performance is slightly better on sysnand, and as CFW is what I'll be running primarily, it seems a good place to have the CFW.

If I'm not mistaken it's still not possible to this day to launch an emuMMC partition with the "stock" option of Hekate, the launch option that is the closest to a regular boot and starts HOS without atmosphere running. So no, technically there is no way to boot an emuMMC partition without CFW.

About nintendo being able to detect emuMMC partitions I haven't heard of a single reason to think that they have the ability to do so. When you ask if you can do something even slightly dodgy on this forum 95% of the time people will tell you that you'll get banned without a second thought, so don't take this kind of non argumented answers too seriously. I think it's mostly people who would like to do these things but don't dare to because of the fear of getting banned, so they reassure themselves by perpetrating the narrative that anything gets you banned. This way they don't feel like they are missing out on the good stuff.
Personally I've been online on sysnand with CFW for ages and am not banned, atmosphere has been able to mimic HOS telemetry very accurately (if not perfectly) for a while. Obviously I never installed any illegitimate NSC (this is clearly documented to get you banned) nor used any mods on sysNAND.

EDIT :

You can run OFW from emunand.
Many people use two emunands ( one for OFW and One for CFW) to keep sysnand FW to a low FW version

How do you start OFW on emuNAND, is the stock option of hekate compatible now ? Or is there something I missed ?

 

[Draxzelex]

I don't see why that would be easier to detect than the presence of an emunand partition, but I guess it is better to just go with the default option, as that will likely lead to less problems with configs or compatibility later anyway.

Do you have a link to guide? I know how to restore the NAND backup from hekate, but perhaps there are some things to watch out for when connection and updating the old restored nand as well?

You don't need a guide to restore eMMC backups with Hekate. Just place them in the restore folder and let Hekate do the rest.