Hacking Question regarding alternative route to a9lh with updated sysnand

[ostboegar]

I have used my N3DS (J) without any hax for a long time, and therefore had all my saves/DLC on my sysnand.
I just recently downgraded to 9.2 to go through with the usual emunand/sysnand setup which went smoothly, and I now have my previous sysnand as my emunand (and my sysnand formatted).
Now I'm interested in the a9lh solution for an updated sysnand solution, and I've been reading through the Plailect guide. I have some questions regarding and alternative route for me to reach that goal.

If I understand correctly, restoring your emunand to your sysnand at the end of the guide could result in a brick if you're unlucky. Therefore, I'm wonder if it is possible to:

1. Restore sysnand from my pre-emunand sysnand backup.
2. Set up a fresh emunand.
3. Format emunand (instead of sysnand) to unlink
4. Do the other otp related things on the formatted emunand.
5. Install a9lh on my original sysnand (thus skipping the step of transferring emunand to sysnand). Keeping my saves/DLC.
6. Profit

Would this be possible? If not, why not?

 

[Housey]

I don't think you can boot a 2.1 emunand w/ any cfw yet.

 

[bakageta]

4. Do the other otp related things on the formatted emunand.

This isn't possible. If your sysnand is 3.0 or higher, the system locks out access to the OTP before you can run code. Nothing boots a 2.1 emunand right now, but even if it did, you'd still not be able to read your OTP. This is why you have to downgrade sysnand to 2.1. The guide takes the safest approach possible, and wouldn't have you do it if it wasn't necessary.

It's still fairly low-risk, with tools checking if your nand image is ok before flashing. If for some reason you do get a brick (mostly user error), you're not completely out a system - a hardmod will allow you to restore a nand backup and be up and running again.

 

[ostboegar]

I guess I got a little confused. If I understand correctly, step 15 "Select "One Click Setup" and confirm. This can take a while." actually copies emunand to sysnand even though it's not explicitly written in the guide.

I could then ask another, related question.

Why couldn't we in step "Section IV - Restoring the System" restore the nand backup we did from the pre-emunand sysnand (i.e. step 21 from Part 2 "Go to EmuNAND Manager Options, then dump SysNAND to sysNAND.bin")?. This is your original sysnand, and should include all your games/saves.
I can understand that you want to transfer your emunand to sysnand if you have gotten a lot of content on your emunand since unlinking, but if you follow this guide from the beginning, this should not be the case. All your saves/games should still be on your sysnand backup.

 

[night_hawk]

Yes correct, at the end of the guide you will restore your original sysnand (with your games etc) and if you want restore the emunand

 

[ostboegar]

So, what I'm saying is, if you follow the guide, it tells you to restore "sysNAND_original.bin" after getting the OTP. If you have followed this guide, that is the formatted sysnand, without your games and saves. But if you are following this guide, you will have the sysnand, including all your games and saves backed up as sysNAND.bin. If you restore this instead you don't have to copy emunand to sysnand in the step "Copying EmuNAND data to SysNAND".

If you read this guide from beginning to end, it makes it seem like you have to copy your emunand to sysnand if you want to keep your games and saves. However, if I'm correct, you can just restore your sysNAND.bin from step 21 in Part 2, and be done with it. No need to copy your emunand to sysnand. If that's correct, maybe the guide should be updated (at least with some information explaining this) as this would remove another step where the user could make a mistake.

 

[bakageta]

Restoring a good emunand backup to sysnand is no more risky than restoring a sysnand backup. The reason you copy the emunand to sysnand is so that you'll have FBI in place of health & safety, otherwise you may not have any way to load .cia files. You'd also be on 9.2, instead of the updated 10.7 your emuNAND should be at, which means you'll need to update again, adding more time to the process. You could always set up browserhax yet again after restoring the sysnand_original, then re-inject FBI, and update, but you've already done all that with your emuNAND.

 

[ostboegar]

That I can understand! Thanks!
I have another question:

When I did my initial setup I installed FBI directly to my sysnand as a CIA; not injected in the health & safety app. This was then of course also transferred to my emunand. Would this be any problem when installing arm9loaderhax? Or should I redo the whole emunand setup according to this guide?

Furthermore, my nand backups differ in size from the ones given in the guide: 1.300.242.432 B.

It is already functional and I've been using it for a while now (even restored the sysnand at one point) without any problems. I guess this should not be any problem? This might be because I have a Japanese N3DS, which downgraded to 9.1 instead of 9.2.
Edit: Nevermind. Used the wrong command to see the size of the NAND backup.