Hacking Talk to me like I'm brand new. (GW emuNAND to Luma)

[alpha_noj]

I currently have my sysNAND at 9.2.0-20U, and GW at 3.7.1 with emuNAND at 10.4.0-29U

My emuNAND currently has my NNID and all of my games on it. I know I would lose saves from Gateway potentially, but I have all of my cartridges backed up using powersaves and am not too worried about the .3ds saves. I'm more worried about the NNID and all of my DLC and games, and even MORE importantly, my actual cartridge games.

I've seen the guide, but it doesn't really address how well things carry over from GW to Luma. Would my cartridge games (MH4U being the most important) be safe and useable on Luma? Could I keep my GW emuNAND on it's current SD card and just get another for Luma, or even use them both at on the same card?

I understand CFW is the way we're moving toward, so I don't mind getting rid of GW somewhat, but I still have some hesitation in moving over without questioning first, and just want to make sure I still have the option to retain my actual purchases/account--and honestly, I'd like to keep GW for the rom support too. Installing CIAs all the time has taken a lot of time in my experience.

Thanks for any help!

 

[cvskid]

I currently have my sysNAND at 9.2.0-20U, and GW at 3.7.1 with emuNAND at 10.4.0-29U

My emuNAND currently has my NNID and all of my games on it. I know I would lose saves from Gateway potentially, but I have all of my cartridges backed up using powersaves and am not too worried about the .3ds saves. I'm more worried about the NNID and all of my DLC and games, and even MORE importantly, my actual cartridge games.

I've seen the guide, but it doesn't really address how well things carry over from GW to Luma. Would my cartridge games (MH4U being the most important) be safe and useable on Luma? Could I keep my GW emuNAND on it's current SD card and just get another for Luma, or even use them both at on the same card?

I understand CFW is the way we're moving toward, so I don't mind getting rid of GW somewhat, but I still have some hesitation in moving over without questioning first, and just want to make sure I still have the option to retain my actual purchases/account--and honestly, I'd like to keep GW for the rom support too. Installing CIAs all the time has taken a lot of time in my experience.

Thanks for any help!

You can setup menuhax/lesshax with ctrbootmanager to swap between gateway 3ds and luma3ds whenever you feel like it so you don't have to choose one over the other.

https://github.com/yellows8/3ds_homemenuhax/releases

https://gbatemp.net/threads/ctrbootmanager-3ds-boot-manager-loader-homemenuhax.398383/

 

[Quantumcat]

If you end up installing sysNAND-only a9lh you can have Gateway autoboot using liomajor's method. But since Gateway prevents the use of GBA games most people would prefer to install CIAs and convert the saves to the CIA games. Then no longer use Gateway. If you wanted you could use GW's a9lh.bin and chainload it with Luma (so you can hold a key on boot to go into Gateway mode instead of Luma).

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I currently have my sysNAND at 9.2.0-20U, and GW at 3.7.1 with emuNAND at 10.4.0-29U

My emuNAND currently has my NNID and all of my games on it. I know I would lose saves from Gateway potentially, but I have all of my cartridges backed up using powersaves and am not too worried about the .3ds saves. I'm more worried about the NNID and all of my DLC and games, and even MORE importantly, my actual cartridge games.

I've seen the guide, but it doesn't really address how well things carry over from GW to Luma. Would my cartridge games (MH4U being the most important) be safe and useable on Luma? Could I keep my GW emuNAND on it's current SD card and just get another for Luma, or even use them both at on the same card?

I understand CFW is the way we're moving toward, so I don't mind getting rid of GW somewhat, but I still have some hesitation in moving over without questioning first, and just want to make sure I still have the option to retain my actual purchases/account--and honestly, I'd like to keep GW for the rom support too. Installing CIAs all the time has taken a lot of time in my experience.

Thanks for any help!

You can use your GW emuNAND with all your CIAs and saves with Luma. Cartridges and their saves should work as normal.
You can convert your Gateway saves to CIA saves too.

Tickets are a great alternative to downloading .CIA/.3DS. It's easier than .3DS roms and easier/faster than CIAs if you use a tool like TIKDevil, CIAngel or freeShop. Can't get much better than that.

 

[Kyojin]

The guide you are mentioning is for setting up arm9loaderhax, not just switching to Luma3DS. arm9loaderhax is not tied to one custom firmware, you could even have a setup to load Luma as a default custom firmware and load Gateway's custom firmware when a specific button is pressed if you wanted.

As @cvskid said, you can already use Luma3DS with your EmuNAND to make sure that everything works (spoiler: it should work). Of course, you won't be able to use the Gateway mode from Luma3DS.

As for following the guide to set A9LH up, you can keep your EmuNAND and everything that goes with it. To keep it simple, here's what would happen:
Updating the EmuNAND to 11.0 -> Making a backup of it before formatting it -> Downgrading it to 2.1 before it is copied to SysNAND -> Getting necessary files and installing arm9loaderhax -> Restoring your original backup to SysNAND -> Deleting the EmuNAND (if you want).

Might sound scary, but the point is that at the end, you will be using your current EmuNAND as a main system.

 

[CreAtor135]

The guide is really subjective, as it leads you not to an A9LH install, but to what it thinks is the perfect setup for you. In that, it is flawed. However, you don't need to install a sysNAND only Luma, update sysNAND, or even use redNAND over your current emuNAND. Just follow the guide with emuNAND, backup everything beforehand, and once you reach the area with updating sysNAND, just stop. You can even use Gateway's arm9loaderhax.bin in addition to Luma.

 

[Kyojin]

The guide is really subjective, as it leads you not to an A9LH install, but to what it thinks is the perfect setup for you. In that, it is flawed. However, you don't need to install a sysNAND only Luma, update sysNAND, or even use redNAND over your current emuNAND. Just follow the guide with emuNAND, backup everything beforehand, and once you reach the area with updating sysNAND, just stop. You can even use Gateway's arm9loaderhax.bin in addition to Luma.

The guide now uses the new payloads by Aurora Wright, which breaks compatibility with Gateway's current arm9loaderhax.bin. A solution would be to install the old payloads with SafeA9LHInstaller v1 instead of going with the v2.

EDIT 2: Apparently this is not the case anymore, see @astronautlevel's comment below (#13).


EDIT: Also, since s/he already has a 10.4, not updating SysNAND when the guide advises to would just leave them with a 10.4 SysNAND, since EmuNAND is already flashed to SysNAND at that point.
If you want to advise them to keep a 9.2 SysNAND, then they should flash SysNAND_original.bin instead of EmuNAND_original.bin near the end of the guide.

 

[Kibido]

Everybody links Plailect's guide but I feel like it assumes you start from zero. What if someone already has a cfw like rxTools? Still follow it from step one?

 

[Quantumcat]

Everybody links Plailect's guide but I feel like it assumes you start from zero. What if someone already has a cfw like rxTools? Still follow it from step one?

You can skip creating an emuNAND if you want (if you create another one it will wipe the one you have), but you still need to follow all the other steps. If it says to use Luma for a step, don't use rxTools.

 

[Kyojin]

Everybody links Plailect's guide but I feel like it assumes you start from zero. What if someone already has a cfw like rxTools? Still follow it from step one?

No, it does not assume anything. Read the "Get Started" page, it covers pretty much all the possible cases. It especially has a bold-text paragraph for the situation you are talking about:

If you already have a CFW setup on any version between 9.0.0 and 9.2.0, change menuhax to type 1, set your menuhax trigger to D-Pad down, then start the guide at Part 4. Note that anywhere "RedNAND" is mentioned, you can pretend it says "EmuNAND" instead as they are very similar and the instructions will be the same other than that.

 

[iceaco]

No, it does not assume anything. Read the "Get Started" page, it covers pretty much all the possible cases. It especially has a bold-text paragraph for the situation you are talking about:

Is setting up GW EmuNAND considered a substitute for step 3/RedNAND also?
Confused because there's no CFW set up but it uses the term EmuNAND.
(I'm assuming the answer is no)

 

[Kyojin]

Is setting up GW EmuNAND considered a substitute for step 3/RedNAND also?
Confused because there's no CFW set up but it uses the term EmuNAND.
(I'm assuming the answer is no)

Answer is yes, Gateway's patches to the system qualify for the term "custom firmware", even if it tends to be used only for community developed ones. But you should "install" (i.e. copy a few files on the SD card) Luma3DS before going further, just for convenience.

 

[astronautlevel]

The guide now uses the new payloads by Aurora Wright, which breaks compatibility with Gateway's current arm9loaderhax.bin. A solution would be to install the old payloads with SafeA9LHInstaller v1 instead of going with the v2.

GW's payloads work fine with a9lhv2 but you need a bootmanager.

 

[iceaco]

Answer is yes, Gateway's patches to the system qualify the term "custom firmware", even if it tends to be used only for community developed ones. But you should "install" (i.e. copy a few files on the SD card) Luma3DS before going further, just for convenience.

Welp I guess it was the right question to ask.
Thanks for the additional info also, I wouldn't have thought about it.

 

[alpha_noj]

Thanks all for the tips! I'll look through this more through the weekend and probably set up my next days off. Hope everyone is prepared for questions!

It seems copying emunand and making it my sysnand is what I want to do--it at least make things easy for me. Then I assume I could make a new emunand just for when I want to use GW Roms?

 

[Quantumcat]

Thanks all for the tips! I'll look through this more through the weekend and probably set up my next days off. Hope everyone is prepared for questions!

It seems copying emunand and making it my sysnand is what I want to do--it at least make things easy for me. Then I assume I could make a new emunand just for when I want to use GW Roms?

Once you have sysNAND-only a9lh, you can get the arm9loaderhax.bin from Gateway's website and chainload it so you can hold a key on boot and end up in Gateway mode. If you don't have an emuNAND on your SD card you can use Gateway on sysNAND. You don't have to have anything separate, everything on your system will be available (except you can't play GBA or DSiWare games in Gateway mode).

 

[alpha_noj]

Once you have sysNAND-only a9lh, you can get the arm9loaderhax.bin from Gateway's website and chainload it so you can hold a key on boot and end up in Gateway mode. If you don't have an emuNAND on your SD card you can use Gateway on sysNAND. You don't have to have anything separate, everything on your system will be available (except you can't play GBA or DSiWare games in Gateway mode).

So copy my emunand, it becomes my sysnand, and I can use the gateway card there with no issues (sans no GBA and such)? Interesting. Time for sleep, will figure out what I'm doing over the weekend.

 

[Quantumcat]

So copy my emunand, it becomes my sysnand, and I can use the gateway card there with no issues (sans no GBA and such)? Interesting. Time for sleep, will figure out what I'm doing over the weekend.

At the risk of sounding too obvious/maybe offending you, make sure you have a9lh installed before flashing emuNAND to sysNAND and tick the "keep a9lh" in Decrypt9! If you don't have a9lh installed you will have an unexploitable console by flashing (>9.2)emuNAND to sysNAND.

 

[Kyojin]

At the risk of sounding too obvious/maybe offending you, make sure you have a9lh installed before flashing emuNAND to sysNAND and tick the "keep a9lh" in Decrypt9! If you don't have a9lh installed you will have an unexploitable console by flashing (>9.2)emuNAND to sysNAND.

Or just use Hourglass9 to be completely sure. Best thing for @alpha_noj would probably be to start by reading the Home and Get Started pages of Plailect's guide, and then carrying on with part 4 and 5.

 

[alpha_noj]

OK, so I've started the guide to getting this installed and want to clarify one thing. In part 2 of the guide it states an error is fairly common for systems that have ambassador status--which mine did prior to GW EmuNAND. If I remember correctly, I formatted sysNAND to separate the two NANDs way back when, so I don't have to worry about formatting again and getting this error, correct?

EDIT: Nevermind, it would help if I read anything. It appears I can skip the part that could cause this, at least according to the guide as I'm on 9.2.0-20.