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!

 

[FenrirWolf]

Sure. That would work perfectly.

 

[Sonansune]

kwazy nice thing!
but I choose stay on a9hl + emunand

 

[Hypnotizing]

Nice tutorial , after 3 hours amd a couple of restorations it finally worked.

 

[lettuce]

Just some clarification, on Stage 2, Step 8.....

"Launch hax and run CFW to get into emunand"

how would you do this as wont your SD card be blank at this stage???, do you need to add files to the card before doing this step???

 

[dkabot]

Just some clarification, on Stage 2, Step 8.....

"Launch hax and run CFW to get into emunand"

how would you do this as wont your SD card be blank at this stage???, do you need to add files to the card before doing this step???

For one, that clone process is just an alternative to dumping SysNAND partitions and injecting them manually (and I suppose has the benefit of theoretically having an A9LH-enabled EmuNAND, if you were to ever inject it)

For two, EmuNAND9 doesn't act like Gateway.
Formatting the EmuNAND for partitions and cloning the SysNAND into EmuNAND are two different processes.

 

[lettuce]

I mean what CFW is the guide relating to?, what CFW do i load from the homebrew channel???

 

[lettuce]

Ok im proper stuck at Stage 2, Step 8.

Im not sure on how to loaded the CFW to get into emnNAND!!.

I have tried putting Smea’s boot.3dsx file in the root of my SD card and then loading Homebrew launcher via the yellows8's QR code (http://yls8.mtheall.com/3dsbrowserhax.php) and then scrolling down to ReiNand and loading but i just get a black screen.

I have also tried removing Smea’s boot.3dsx file from the root of the sd card and replacing it with ReiNand.3dsx and then booting via yellows8's QR code, but then the lower screen flashes different colours and freezes on red.

Any guidance please??

 

[lettuce]

Do i need to hold down L or R on boot up in order to load the CFW to get into emuNAND?

As as per the guide i have set my theme to red, but if i hold L button on boot it boots up but the theme is blue but im still on FW 9.0??

 

[lettuce]

Is there anyway to reverse these step of the guide, as im unable to get past Stage 2, Step 8, no matter what i have tried i cant get CFW to boot

 

[Naked_Snake]

imo the easiest way to swap sysnand and emunand is to do the following:

1) Use Decrypt9 to back up your sysnand to sysNAND.bin and your emunand to emuNAND.bin

2) Rename eumNAND.bin to NAND.bin, then rename sysNAND.bin to emuNAND.bin

3) Go back into Decrypt9 and flash emuNAND.bin (formerly sysNAND.bin) to your emunand. The end result is that both your sysnand and emunand will be clones of each other on 9.2 again.

4) This next step is very important: DO NOT FLASH NAND.BIN TO SYSNAND WITH DECRYPT9. Your emunand did not have a9lh installed to it, so if you do a direct flash of an image of your emunand to sysnand, you will end up with an updated sysnand and no a9lh. And that would be no fun at all.

Instead, what you do is leave Decrypt9 and run arm9loaderhax.3dsx again just like when you installed a9lh the first time around. The installer has a feature where, if a NAND.bin exists on your SD card, it will flash it to your sysnand, and then install a9lh to your newly flashed sysnand. That way, you will end up with your emunand successfully swapped to your sysnand, and a9lh will be installed.

NOTE: You might want to recompile your arm9loaderhax.3dsx so that you end up with the latest version of a9lh. Or you can always run an a9lh updater after the fact if you installed an older version.

Also, don't forget to create the /rei/updatedsysnand file on your SD card once you've successfully performed the swap. Wouldn't hurt to create the /rei/installeda9lh file too if you haven't already.

Is "updatedsysnand" just a blank file? and if I'm going to keep SysNAND on 9.2 is there any point for that file?

 

[FenrirWolf]

Yes, updatedsysnand is just a blank file. And if you're going to keep sysnand on 9.2 then you shouldn't follow a guide on how to update your sysnand.

 

[Naked_Snake]

Yes, updated sysnand is just a blank file. And if you're going to keep sysnand on 9.2 then you shouldn't follow that guide, since it is a guide on how to update your sysnand.

Thanks I really don't see any point of updating SysNAND when my emuNAND is working fine is all

 

[MRDOCA]

Is installeda9lh also a blank file? What is it for?

 

[Naked_Snake]

Is installeda9lh also a blank file? What is it for?

It is but I don't know what the extension is or what it's for

 

[MRDOCA]

Nah I can't seem to find any info about it. Here was the first place I've seen it mentioned

 

[Naked_Snake]

Nah I can't seem to find any info about it. Here was the first place I've seen it mentioned

Maybe ask @FenrirWolf they told me it was a blank file

 

[FenrirWolf]

There's no extension or anything. Just make a blank text file and rename it to "updatedsysnand" with no .txt extension.

 

[lettuce]

Ok im proper stuck at Stage 2, Step 8.

Im not sure on how to loaded the CFW to get into emnNAND!!.

I have tried putting Smea’s boot.3dsx file in the root of my SD card and then loading Homebrew launcher via the yellows8's QR code (http://yls8.mtheall.com/3dsbrowserhax.php) and then scrolling down to ReiNand and loading but i just get a black screen.

I have also tried removing Smea’s boot.3dsx file from the root of the sd card and replacing it with ReiNand.3dsx and then booting via yellows8's QR code, but then the lower screen flashes different colours and freezes on red.

Any guidance please??

Ok, ive got a work around for my problem...well kind of. Ive had to replace the firmware.bin file that is used for arm9launcherhax with the firmware.bin file found in ReiNand 3.2 zip file. If i use the reinand firmware.bin file and load into homebrew launcher and load up Reinand then i can access the emunand, if i tried this before without replacing the firmware.bin file then i would just get a black screen. Now the only issue with doing this is i have to boot the n3ds whilst holding down L, if i just try and boot without holding a button then the system doesnt boot into sysnand (i guess because ive changed the firmware.bin file from the arm9launcher bin to the Reinand firmware.bin file??).

So is it safe for me to proceed from step 8 of the guide, im not sure why i cant get the system to boot into emunand when using the firmware.bin file found in AuReiNand zip file??

 

[DarkKaine]

You can still launch Decrypt9 even if you're running Aureinand already.
Simply make sure its in emunand mode (by folder) and hold L while booting to boot sysnand with 9.x FIRM.

Side note: isn't it easier to just dump all emuNAND partitions except for firm0/firm1 and then just inject those into sysnand for those that already have a9hl installed? You won't even need to downgrade.

 

[MRDOCA]

I can confirm swapping them works, but I followed a slightly simpler set of steps.

Start: AiReiNAND latest is running thorough A9LH, 9.2 SysNAND and 10.X EmuNAND. Backups exist of both for safety but are not directly used should it work.

• Use SysUpdater on EmuNAND to downgrade it to 9.2
• Run SysNand with 9.0 FIRM (hold L on boot, needs latest AuRei)
• Open Decrypt9, backup all partitions of both NANDs that aren't FIRM
• Inject SysNand partitions into EmuNAND
• (Optional) Reboot now to make sure it worked, since all you changed so far is EmuNAND
• Inject EmuNAND partitions into SysNand
• Eject SD or shut down and add updatedsysnand flag to rei folder on SD
• (Re)Boot, update SysNand, and you're done

Of course, there's only one safety check in these steps, but so long as you're sure of what you're doing it's pretty easy.

just done this thanks dkabot, very simple guide