Hacking Transferring a digital 3DS save to a cartridge? (Probably impossible?)

[Seaniccus]

Hey all,

I'm trying to see if anybody has attempted to take extract 3DS digital purchase savedata from an SD card and transfer it to a 3DS retail cartridge using something like the NDS Adapter Plus: http://www.amazon.com/NDS-Adapter-Plus-Nintendo-Windows-PC/dp/B007QVG3LG

Is this feasible? Possible? Has it ever been tried?

The reason I'm asking actually complicates the question: I'm asking for Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I made the mistake of buying the game digitally, and then my wife got hooked on it. Now she won't give me back my prime 3DS. I have a spare I use to play cartridge games, but now my access to digital content (I have 3-4 full titles on there plus tons of VC stuff, much of which I got through promo codes) is limited. I'd like to be able to put the entire Animal Crossing save on a cartridge, and let her use the spare 3DS.. she's not interested in "moving" to a new town because she has multiple characters, a mayor, and tons of time invested.

I've spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with Nintendo, and they claim this kind of things is impossible, even with their internal tools. ..but they also tried to tell me it isn't possible to extract or modify cartridge save data at all, which I know isn't true. I'm hoping it's possible using the above product, but I wanted to check with GBATemp to see if anybody has attempted something before. I know the fact I'm talking about AC makes it a lot harder, however, since saves are locked with some kid of unique key to keep people from exploiting the game.

Thoughts?

 

[master801]

Nope. Not possible. They aren't the same games, and Animal Crossing New Leaf has a nand-based save system.

 

[Seaniccus]

Nope. Not possible. They aren't the same games, and Animal Crossing New Leaf has a nand-based save system.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "Aren't the same games." Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Animal Crossing: New Leaf aren't the same games? Or do you mean that it needs to be the exact same purchase / cartridge?

Since I'm also new to this subject, I'm not sure what nand-based has to do with it either. Do you mean it's a different format than a normal 3DS save and is not compatible with exiting save transfer products?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "Aren't the same games." Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Animal Crossing: New Leaf aren't the same games? Or do you mean that it needs to be the exact same purchase / cartridge?

Since I'm also new to this subject, I'm not sure what nand-based has to do with it either. Do you mean it's a different format than a normal 3DS save and is not compatible with exiting save transfer products?

Yes, it needs to be the same cartridge. Saves are encrypted per-cartridge or in case of digital downloads, they're encrypted per-console. So a save from one cartridge won't work on another and also won't work on the digital version. The exception is digital purchases that have a save transfer tool available in the eShop but those tools are one-way only.
Hypothetically if you were able to decrypt the digital save and then re-encrypt it with the cartridge's encryption key you may be able to make the save work on a cartridge but this assumes the save format is the same which may not be the case, and to do this you would need 3DS hacking knowledge.

The NAND-based save is stored on the same flash chip as the ROM itself and not on a separate save chip, and indeed existing save transfer products don't support that. There is no reason they can't be updated to do so, but so far they haven't.

 

[Seaniccus]

The exception is digital purchases that have a save transfer tool available in the eShop but those tools are one-way only.

Right, which has been my problem.

I suspected this might be the case, but I had hoped someone in the community had made progress with editing savedata to allow for cross system / cartridge sharing. Sounds like that hasn't happened though, so my wife and I just might have to learn to share. Thanks for the help anyway.

(If anybody does happen to know of a way to edit that encryption, which it sounds like nobody does, please let me know. Thanks!)

I do find it pretty silly that Nintendo designed the tool to only work one way, though.

 

[kalimero]

Hey all, ...
Now she won't give me back my prime 3DS.
...
and let her use the spare 3DS.. she's not interested in "moving" to a new town because she has multiple characters, a mayor, and tons of time invested.

I've spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with Nintendo, ...

Thoughts?

True love on your side Hope she's worth it

 

[Seaniccus]

True love on your side Hope she's worth it

HA!

That was perfect.

She's worth it... I'm just never going to be able to finish Oracle of Ages and Seasons at this rate..

 

[profi200]

There is no reason they can't be updated to do so, but so far they haven't.

Reading should not be a big problem assuming they use the same method as release groups, but writing can be complicated. I don't know how release groups read the ROM data despite of the encrypted gamecard commands.

The save data on CARD2 games is only accessible with encrypted gamecard commands.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Reading should not be a big problem assuming they use the same method as release groups, but writing can be complicated. I don't know how release groups read the ROM data despite of the encrypted gamecard commands.

The save data on CARD2 games is only accessible with encrypted gamecard commands.

Save backup hardware is already able to read the ROM header so they should be able to read the save file using the same commands right?

 

[profi200]

The header can be read without encrypted commands as you can see here: http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Gamecards#Protocol

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The header can be read without encrypted commands as you can see here: http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Gamecards#Protocol

Ah, that complicates things a bit.