Arm9loaderhax coupled with AuReiNand gives us lucky 3DS users the amazing option of running Custom Firmware on sysnand. The advantages of this are as follows:

• Much faster and more reliable CFW cold booting compared to menuhax + emunand
• Slightly faster CFW cold booting compared to arm9loaderhax + emunand
• Using 2GB of SD card space for emunand is no longer needed (but still recommended to keep a 9.2 emunand around)
• GBA ROMs only need to be installed once, since they run from sysnand now!

Most CFW users will already have a 9.2 sysnand which is usually kept as vanilla as possible, and then an emunand running a higher FW version (i.e. 10.5) booted through CFW. With arm9loaderhax and AuReiNand, we can now swap the firmware versions over so 10.5 runs directly on SysNand, and EmuNand is used only when 9.2 is really needed (e.g. for running decrypt9). This tutorial will walk you through the process of swapping your sysnand and emunand, and changing your arm9loaderhax to use AuReiNand in order to cold boot directly to a patched 10.5 sysnand.

This tutorial assumes the following:

• You have a 9.2 or below sysnand and CFW running an emunand of a higher firmware version
• You know how to verify a SysNAND backup using md5
• You know how to back up your sysnand, emunand and SD card
• You know how to access hax to get to the Homebrew Launcher
• You know how to install homebrew apps on your 3DS
• You know how to install CIAs
• You have already captured your OTP and built an arm9loaderhax installer
• You have FBI installed on your sysnand

I won’t explain how to do all of these as this guide is intended to be an overview of the process I used to swap my sysnand and emunand.


If you follow this guide and do not have a valid sysnand backup, you risk bricking your console and this may not be recoverable without a hardmod.

This guide involves updating your sysnand to 10.5. If you don’t have a reliable way of downgrading to 9.2 if you need to, don’t follow this guide. This means you need to be able to use arm9loaderhax to boot CFW, or have a hardmod and a NAND backup, if you want to undo this.

Do not attempt this procedure without a working arm9loaderhax installer. A hardmod is not required but is recommended.


You will need:

• Homebrew hax already set up and running on your sysnand
• CFW already installed with a working emunand
• Decrypt9
• EmuNAND9
• MiniPasta
  
• AuReiNand mod (do not install this yet)

If you already have arm9loaderhax set up to boot your emunand, you will need to remove it. This is because one of the needed tools, decrypt9, can only run from sysnand. Arm9loaderhax will prevent you from entering sysnand at all, so will need to be removed. I did this by restoring a vanilla 9.2 sysnand backup which I took from the console prior to installing arm9loaderhax.


Stage 0: Make a backup of your SysNand, EmuNand and 3DS SD card

Seriously, you’ll be glad you did if something goes wrong. This process involves a lot of messing around with both sysnand and emunand.


Stage 1: Dump EmuNAND partitions

1. Boot your 3DS to sysnand
2. Launch hax and run MiniPasta
3. When back at sysnand, launch hax and run Decrypt9
4. Go to “EmuNAND Options” and then “Partition Dump”
5. Dump each of the partitions with the exception of FIRM0 and FIRM1, pressing B after each one to return to the menu and dump the next partition
6. Press START to quit Decrypt9, and reboot back to sysnand

Stage 2: Downgrade EmuNand to 9.2

1. From sysnand, launch hax and run MiniPasta
2. When back at sysnand, launch hax and run EmuNAND9
3. Choose “EmuNAND Manager Options” and then choose “Clone SysNAND to EmuNAND”
4. Once this is complete, press START to reboot
5. From sysnand, launch hax and run TinyFormat to format SysNand and unlink NANDs
6. Once the system reboots, complete the initial setup without linking NNID
7. Once you are at the home menu, set your sysnand theme to red
8. Launch hax and run CFW to get into emunand
9. Once in emunand, set the theme to blue
10. Power off the 3DS

At this point, your sysnand and emunand should both be on 9.2, and you should have dumps of your original emunand. The purpose of setting the NAND colours to red and blue is to ensure you can tell which NAND you are in, since they are both at this stage running the same FW version and will look identical.


Stage 3: Update SysNand to AuReiNand CFW 10.5

1. Take out your 3DS SD card and put it in your computer
2. Replace the rei folder, arm9loaderhax.bin and ReiNand.dat in the root of your SD card with the ones from AuReiNand.
3. In the new rei folder on your SD card, place the firmware.bin and firmware90.bin from the FIRMs archive linked from the AuReiNand GitHib page
4. Create an empty file on the SD card in the /rei folder called updatedsysnand
5. Put your SD card back in your 3DS and boot it up to sysnand
6. Launch hax and run arm9loaderhax.3dsx to install the loader
7. If you get stuck on a message saying “Exploiting arm9…”, you can safely reboot your 3DS
8. The 3DS will reboot once this process is complete
9. You should now be in sysnand but running ReiNand. Verify that arm9loaderhax has been installed by powering off your 3DS, removing the SD card and powering on again. Your system should hang on a black screen because the arm9payload is not available. If your 3DS boots to sysnand without the SD card inserted, this means that arm9loaderhax has not been installed properly and you MUST NOT proceed
10. Once you have verified that arm9loaderhax is working, replace the SD card and power on your 3DS to boot to sysnand
11. Open System Settings set up your Internet connection
12. Update to 10.5 (seriously, don’t do it unless you’re certain the CFW is running by doing the SD card removal test in step 9. If you update to 10.5 without CFW up and running, you risk not being able to run any unsigned code, meaning you could end up stuck on 10.5 with no CFW)
13. Once the update is complete and the system has rebooted, enter System Settings to verify that you are now on 10.5

Step 4: Reinject emunand partitions to sysnand

This stage will make your new 10.5 sysnand how your emunand used to be

1. Power off the 3DS
2. While holding L, power the 3DS back on. This will boot into the 9.2 emunand
3. Launch hax, and run Decrypt9
4. Choose “SysNAND Options” and then “Partition Inject”
5. Inject each of the partitions in turn, with the exception of FIRM0 and FIRM1, pressing B after each one to return to the menu and inject the next partition
6. Press START to quit Decrypt9 and reboot back to SysNand.

If everything went according to plan, you should be looking at your sysnand but with all your CIAs showing. In my case, they were all back in presents and out of their folders which was a mild inconvenience. I also lost my custom theme, so that had to be reinstalled.


Final checks

1. Launch a CIA from sysnand to verify that it works. Successful launching of a CIA will indicate that the sysnand CFW is working
2. Enter System Settings from sysnand to confirm that you are on 10.5
3. Power off your 3DS, and power it back on while holding L. You should then be booted to your emunand, which will resemble your sysnand before the swap over
4. Enter System Settings from emunand to confirm that it is on 9.2
5. Now, do another sysnand, emunand and SD backup!

 

[dkabot]

Just to clarify, when it says 'create an empty file' that does mean create a folder there with that name right?

"empty file"
"does that mean create a folder"

file != folder

It means create a file, without an extension.
If you have extensions enabled in your OS, you can right click, create a blank text file and remove .txt from the name.

 

[PixelBurst]

"empty file"
"does that mean create a folder"

file != folder

It means create a file, without an extension.
If you have extensions enabled in your OS, you can right click, create a blank text file and remove .txt from the name.

Hurr durr. I was sitting here like 'it's that or creating a .file..is this something I haven't learned about yet?" It's 1am, excuse my stupidity, I'll blame tiredness, yeah.

 

[dkabot]

Hurr durr. I was sitting here like 'it's that or creating a .file..is this something I haven't learned about yet?" It's 1am, excuse my stupidity, I'll blame tiredness, yeah.

For the record, you're not creating a dotfile either.
Just to make it crystal clear.

 

[PixelBurst]

For the record, you're not creating a dotfile either.
Just to make it crystal clear.

Nonono, I got that, I've done what you meant before with other things. I was giving my stupid thought process at the time where I didn't realise this was a thing. But thanks for clarifying just in case

 

[DrakeLyon]

I fucked up... I looked through my SD and realized once all of this was over that I created an "updatedsysnand" folder instead of a file... so.. What really has been happening is my EmuNAND has been loading up and my SysNAND is what is unreachable.. Shit...what am I supposed to do to fix this?

 

[Supster131]

I fucked up... I looked through my SD and realized once all of this was over that I created an "updatedsysnand" folder instead of a file... so.. What really has been happening is my EmuNAND has been loading up and my SysNAND is what is unreachable.. Shit...what am I supposed to do to fix this?

Create the file?

I don't know how you fucked up, looks like you're fine to me. (Unless you updated sysNAND without the flag.)

 

[DrakeLyon]

Create the file?

I don't know how you fucked up, looks like you're fine to me. (Unless you updated sysNAND without the flag.)

I'm not certain..I'm so mixed up right now. I followed every bit of the tutorial EXCEPT for that part. So I may have updated SysNAND and maybe that's why I can't boot into it holding L. I don't know what to do :'( A mistake like this has never happened to me before.. I took a chance and I blew it..

 

[Supster131]

I'm not certain..I'm so mixed up right now. I followed every bit of the tutorial EXCEPT for that part. So I may have updated SysNAND and maybe that's why I can't boot into it holding L. I don't know what to do :'( A mistake like this has never happened to me before.. I took a chance and I blew it..

Try booting sysNAND with R instead. If it boots, you successfully didn't mess up! Then you can just create the updatedsysnand flag if you want.

 

[DrakeLyon]

Try booting sysNAND with R instead. If it boots, you successfully didn't mess up! Then you can just create the updatedsysnand flag if you want.

Well, nothing really happens. It loads up the same as when powering it on regularly. Does that mean that I'm in SysNAND? I mean, the 3DS won't boot on properly if my SD card is out so there's no doubt that A9LH installed in some way..
..I'm getting confused..

 

[Supster131]

Well, nothing really happens. It loads up the same as when powering it on regularly. Does that mean that I'm in SysNAND? I mean, the 3DS won't boot on properly if my SD card is out so there's no doubt that A9LH installed in some way..
..I'm getting confused..

Wait, do you already have the flag?

Try checking the system version you're on when you boot the 3DS. (I'd say try it without the flag.)

 

[DrakeLyon]

Wait, do you already have the flag?

Try checking the system version you're on when you boot the 3DS. (I'd say try it without the flag.)

I'm sorry, I should've asked you this already.. What do you mean about the flag? All I know is that I installed A9LH without having the empty updatedsysnand file created. Holding L when powering on my 3DS hangs on a black screen so I assumed that my EmuNAND was destroyed. Around the end of the tutorial when I was supposed to inject SysNAND partitions into EmuNAND is when EmuNAND no longer booted anymore. In fact, my NANDs didn't seem to swap whatsoever and I didn't have my files transferred from EmuNAND to SysNAND. So I used EmuNAND Tool on my PC and injected a backup of my EmuNAND I made earlier in this tutorial into my SD and the files that I had on my EmuNAND finally appeared on SysNAND. However, EmuNAND still didn't work.

I only began to question whether or not I was in SysNAND or EmuNAND all along when I saw that I never created the updatedsysnand file before installing A9LH..

All apologies if I'm beginning to confuse you, I'm just trying to let you know where I'm at..

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I'm on 10.6 when I boot, as checked in system settings.

 

[Supster131]

I'm sorry, I should've asked you this already.. What do you mean about the flag? All I know is that I installed A9LH without having the empty updatedsysnand file created. Holding L when powering on my 3DS hangs on a black screen so I assumed that my EmuNAND was destroyed. Around the end of the tutorial when I was supposed to inject SysNAND partitions into EmuNAND is when EmuNAND no longer booted anymore. In fact, my NANDs didn't seem to swap whatsoever and I didn't have my files transferred from EmuNAND to SysNAND. So I used EmuNAND Tool on my PC and injected a backup of my EmuNAND I made earlier in this tutorial into my SD and the files that I had on my EmuNAND finally appeared on SysNAND. However, EmuNAND still didn't work.

I only began to question whether or not I was in SysNAND or EmuNAND all along when I saw that I never created the updatedsysnand file before installing A9LH..

All apologies if I'm beginning to confuse you, I'm just trying to let you know where I'm at..

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I'm on 10.6 when I boot, as checked in system settings.

Oh god.. how did you flash the NAND backup to your sysNAND?

Also, when I say flag, I mean the updatedsysnand file.

 

[DrakeLyon]

Oh god.. how did you flash the NAND backup to your sysNAND?

Also, when I say flag, I mean the updatedsysnand file.

I don't really know.. My goal when using EmuNAND Tool was to fix my EmuNAND with an EmuNAND.bin backup. But somehow it only changed what I believe is my SysNAND.

If you're talking about what I did to flash my EmuNAND into SysNAND from Decrypt9, as so in the tutorial, I followed every direction step-by-step..injecting the EmuNAND partitions to SysNAND.. From what I remember lol.. it was really late at the time

 

[PixelBurst]

Wow, now I'm glad I asked before I just settled on the folder. Everythings sorted on my end at least, thanks for the guide mashers and all the best with yours DrakeLyon.

I am a total scrub, so someone more experienced should tell you if I'm right on this but worst case as a9lh works (verified by removing SD card) couldn't you use the a9lh version of D9 from the discussion thread and boot that to restore a sysnand backup from after a9lh (assuming you have one) and just start the process again?

 

[Supster131]

I don't really know.. My goal when using EmuNAND Tool was to fix my EmuNAND with an EmuNAND.bin backup. But somehow it only changed what I believe is my SysNAND.

If you're talking about what I did to flash my EmuNAND into SysNAND from Decrypt9, as so in the tutorial, I followed every direction step-by-step..injecting the EmuNAND partitions to SysNAND.. From what I remember lol.. it was really late at the time

Alright, create the updatedsysnand file in the rei folder. (Create it using notepad or something, but remove the .txt extension from the file.)

What happens when you boot your 3DS then?

 

[DrakeLyon]

Wow, now I'm glad I asked before I just settled on the folder. Everythings sorted on my end at least, thanks for the guide mashers and all the best with yours DrakeLyon.

I am a total scrub, so someone more experienced should tell you if I'm right on this but worst case as a9lh works (verified by removing SD card) couldn't you use the a9lh version of D9 from the discussion thread and boot that to restore a sysnand backup from after a9lh (assuming you have one) and just start the process again?

Wha? There's an A9LH version of Decrypt9? I'm definitely willing to do that lol. But I've only heard from everywhere that Decrypt9 can only work on 9.2.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Alright, create the updatedsysnand file in the rei folder. (Create it using notepad or something, but remove the .txt extension from the file.)

What happens when you boot your 3DS then?

I just did that. And nothing changed at all actually.. I'm even more confused here lol

 

[Supster131]

Wha? There's an A9LH version of Decrypt9? I'm definitely willing to do that lol. But I've only heard from everywhere that Decrypt9 can only work on 9.2.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


I just did that. And nothing changed at all actually.. I'm even more confused here lol

Yeah, an A9LH version of Decrypt9 exists.. EDIT: https://mega.nz/#!yEoAzAqD!6bA4PefqiBkCr1UYPKYp8vpfE5DKpCj_0p_zpJqpUZc
Here's the link. It includes both Decrypt9UI and Decrypt9WIP. Both are minimal though, as it excludes the features that don't currently work.


Oh crap.. uh, turn off your 3DS, remove your SD, then turn on your 3DS. Tell me what happens.

 

[PixelBurst]

Wha? There's an A9LH version of Decrypt9? I'm definitely willing to do that lol. But I've only heard from everywhere that Decrypt9 can only work on 9.2.

This version boots straight from A9LH so no need for that. But again, check with someone more experienced before proceeding, You can find it in the thread, sorry I'd link it but I'm on mobile. Supster131 seems to know his stuff and might be able to get you out of it without resorting to that.

 

[DrakeLyon]

Yeah, an A9LH version of Decrypt9 exists.. EDIT: https://mega.nz/#!yEoAzAqD!6bA4PefqiBkCr1UYPKYp8vpfE5DKpCj_0p_zpJqpUZc
Here's the link. It includes both Decrypt9UI and Decrypt9WIP. Both are minimal though, as it excludes the features that don't currently work.


Oh crap.. uh, turn off your 3DS, remove your SD, then turn on your 3DS. Tell me what happens.

Lol, yeah my 3DS doesn't come back on without my SD. So I know A9LH is working to some extent. Thank you for posting that link @Supster131. Hopefully this will allow me to fix something lol

 

[PixelBurst]

Lol, yeah my 3DS doesn't come back on without my SD. So I know A9LH is working to some extent. Thank you for posting that link @Supster131. Hopefully this will allow me to fix something lol

Let us know how it goes!