Yeah, no shit. Not complete guides for what I was doing, which was to go from no hardware 3DS XL 9.2 to where I got.. Nowhere did I see anybody mention that it matters whether you create emunand in original nand before downgrading.
Explain to me why it matters?
Edit: By "complete", I mean a step-by-step guide for Dummies to go from 9.2 to where I get (4.2.0 SysNAND with 9.8.0 EmuNAND, without Gateway/CN/DS Flashcart). I mostly followed various tutorials to piece things together on what I needed to do, occasionally with erroneous or incomplete information.
I'm still no expert on 3DS modification. Don't be a dick. Tell me why it was wrong so I can correct it. Does format NAND in Gateway pull OS version related keys when crafting the EmuNAND? I imagined it may key something off of SysNAND, but assumed it was a system unique value not based off of the OS version.
Here's the deal, though it's definitely off-topic at this point.
The 3DS has a thing called "Tickets", think of them like a game key. When a game or app is installed to the 3DS, the 3DS gives it a ticket. You can think of it like Steam, and how, when you buy a game, your account is given the ability to install that game, through a "License". They're similar to what's happening in your 3DS.
When you install the application, the ticket is made, and the 3DS now knows that you "own" and can use that application. That prevents people from simply copying the installable data from the SD card of one 3DS to another, and having free piracy from the get-go. Also, when you download a game or app from the eShop, another ticket is created and stored on the Nintendo servers, which grants your NNID the ability to re-download that game or app in the future as well. That's not the ticket we care about right now though.
When this ticket becomes active, the 3DS will recognize the installed data on your SD card, and allow the app to be displayed, and run (if signed correctly), from the home menu. When you format your 3DS, or do a system transfer, all the tickets are reset to the way they were when your console was brand new. This prevents the console from playing those games on another NNID. At the same time, the console creates a new "random seed", used for encryption. What this means, is that the console is basically giving itself a new name, much like you would if reincarnation was a real thing, or you just escaped from the USA after almost getting caught running a drug cartel. Either way, the console will no longer recognize any SD data from before the format, and you will have to start over.
The effect of this, is that you can make the same console fail to recognize installed data from the second system image, or EmuNAND in this case. Thus, you can separate the data recognized by each one. This is called "Unlinking", and is used to prevent the 3DS from deleting software that is recognized as being unsigned, or improperly signed, and therefore not legitimate. The system image present on the hardware, called "SysNAND", is by default unhacked. That's why it tries to delete the unsigned data installed by the EmuNAND partition, usually when it checks it from the Data Management app. This is why we unlink our NANDs in the first place.
Hopefully that explained what you were trying to understand. Good luck on your attempts to get your console set up properly.