Save games before modding, possible?

[MrMrMr]

Son has a v1 Switch which I'd like to mod. (already have an OLED with chip, but another family member). I've been told to not delete or lose the saves he has!

1) So where are saves stored? On internal Switch memory, or on a SD?

2) Is it possible to backup saves, and then restore once modded?

3) Is it safe to just mod and the saves will stay? (I'll be using a new SD as current is very small capacity)

4) Is there a way to copy maybe to the OLED, then copy back to a modded switch?

5) Can the saves be used on the cart games and backed up games after or are they linked to the specific cart game?

Basically I need a way to backup and/or not lose the saves so once modded can still use the saves for his games. Thanks for any help. I'm not brilliant but can follow guides, and able to mess about a bit.

 

[hippy dave]

The saves should stay, and still be useable after modding. Backing them up would always be the safest bet tho.

They're stored in the internal emmc, not the SD card. With a v1 tho, you can easily boot Hekate through RCM using a jig and a USB cable or dongle (see hacking guides), and take a complete emmc backup to the SD card before you ever boot into CFW. This will contain all the game saves that you can access later if you need to. Also you should have this complete backup anyway and keep it safe in case anything ever goes wrong when hacking.

There's also the official option to backup online to a Nintendo account if you have/get an NSO subscription.

 

[MrMrMr]

The saves should stay, and still be useable after modding. Backing them up would always be the safest bet tho.

They're stored in the internal emmc, not the SD card. With a v1 tho, you can easily boot Hekate through RCM using a jig and a USB cable or dongle (see hacking guides), and take a complete emmc backup to the SD card before you ever boot into CFW. This will contain all the game saves that you can access later if you need to. Also you should have this complete backup anyway and keep it safe in case anything ever goes wrong when hacking.

There's also the official option to backup online to a Nintendo account if you have/get an NSO subscription.

Thanks for reply.

The word should I'd be nervous of! So during the process it will backup the internal memory for safety anyway?

So getting a NSO sub I could backup to there, and then recover if worst happened? I think you can get a monthly subscription so could get that for safety?

If doing that way could I once modded, recover the saves, can I then use them only on carts, or backed up carts as well?

 

[hippy dave]

Thanks for reply.

The word should I'd be nervous of! So during the process it will backup the internal memory for safety anyway?

So getting a NSO sub I could backup to there, and then recover if worst happened? I think you can get a monthly subscription so could get that for safety?

If doing that way could I once modded, recover the saves, can I then use them only on carts, or backed up carts as well?

The preferred way to run CFW would be to create an emummc on the SD card, which would effectively be a backup of the original emmc, and boot CFW on the emummc only. This would leave the real original emmc clean for playing online if you wanted to, or if not it could just remain unused and safe if the emummc ever went wrong and you needed to create a new one. Still tho as mentioned before, it's always best to take a full backup of the emmc to the SD card using Hekate before ever booting CFW, then move that backup off the SD card for safekeeping somewhere else (ideally multiple places, cloud etc).

Yes NSO subscription allows you to backup save games to your account. It might not work for every game but you should be able to check if there are any that wouldn't be backed up online. I don't actually know if Nintendo would keep your saves indefinitely if you only had a short subscription that expired, but you should be able to find that out beforehand.

Yes save games made with a cartridge will still work with a digital install of the same game, whether the latter is bought from the eshop, backed up from your own cartridge, or straight up pirated off the internet. It will just work automatically if it's the same release of the game with the same titleid. If you ended up with a different release (special edition, different region or something) with a different titleid, you'd usually be able to transfer the save to it using a save manager homebrew like Checkpoint.