I wanted to share a method I found to restore eShop save games after performing a system format.
If you managed to make a backup of the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder and also made a NAND.bin backup of your system from before the format, it's possible to get back your save games.
YOU WILL NEED
# a backup of your SD card from before the system format
# a NAND.bin backup of your sysnand from before the system format
# a spare SD/MicroSD (advisable)
Note: check the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder from your SD card backup actually has your save data inside.
HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SAVE GAMES
1. Take your spare SD and copy the files for Ninjhax and EmuNand9
(or you could use your existing SD card at this point to boot into EmuNand, and then swap over the SD cards when you move onto the next step. I find the prior method less...worrying)
2. Boot into Ninjhax, run EmuNand9 and setup EmuNand on the SD card
3. Once this is complete, put your spare SD card back into your PC and load on files for Ninjhax, EmuNand9, Cakes/ReiNand/RxTools (or whatever you prefer), the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder you backed up from your system, and put the NAND.bin backup you made into the /EmuNand9 folder.
4. Go back into EmuNand9, select 'EmuNand Manager Options' and choose 'Clone NAND.bin to EmuNand'
5. Once this has completed, open up Cakes/ReiNand/whatever and boot up your emunand. Hey, presto! You'll be greeted by your old system with your eShop games, savedata, and all that goodness.
Now you've reached this point you can backup your saves with SaveDataFiler or use the option in the homemenu (note: second option doesn't work on all games, such as Pokemon)
Edit: for the brave there is also a way of transferring mii plaza & mii maker save data. The guide is here and another here
I recently and hastily downgraded my primary 3DS system to 9.2 before the 10.4 update came out (had a feeling it was incoming, and it came the next day).
I made sure to backup the contents of my SD card as a .img file (though I could just have easily copied the files onto my computer)
Post-downgrade I made a NAND.bin backup of my SysNand.
Then I made a silly mistake - instead of using TinyFormat, I formatted my sysNand from System Settings. This, if you don't know, connects to the Internet and pings Nintendo's servers to let them know, so you're NNID gets put into a suspended state.
This means is that your emunand can no longer login to your NNID. To solve this you have to format emuNand from system settings and go through the setup process, using your NNID at this stage so it becomes re-activated.
But the backup of the SD Card that was made? None of it will work now. The system folder ID changes every time you format, and it will not read/decrpyt the savedata.
I made sure to backup the contents of my SD card as a .img file (though I could just have easily copied the files onto my computer)
Post-downgrade I made a NAND.bin backup of my SysNand.
Then I made a silly mistake - instead of using TinyFormat, I formatted my sysNand from System Settings. This, if you don't know, connects to the Internet and pings Nintendo's servers to let them know, so you're NNID gets put into a suspended state.
This means is that your emunand can no longer login to your NNID. To solve this you have to format emuNand from system settings and go through the setup process, using your NNID at this stage so it becomes re-activated.
But the backup of the SD Card that was made? None of it will work now. The system folder ID changes every time you format, and it will not read/decrpyt the savedata.
YOU WILL NEED
# a backup of your SD card from before the system format
# a NAND.bin backup of your sysnand from before the system format
# a spare SD/MicroSD (advisable)
Note: check the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder from your SD card backup actually has your save data inside.
There will be a folder and sub-folder with random letters/numbers. Inside that will be the folder 00040000. Inside there are your save games.
e.g. /Nintendo 3DS/e435o234029we9riw0923492034/707734023982r98uuur293843/00040000/....[Save games]....
You can check if the savedata for your games is there by looking for the titleid on 3dsdb.com. Take off '00040000' from the titleid and the remaining string (e.g. 000EE000) will be the folder where your game is stored.
e.g. /Nintendo 3DS/e435o234029we9riw0923492034/707734023982r98uuur293843/00040000/....[Save games]....
You can check if the savedata for your games is there by looking for the titleid on 3dsdb.com. Take off '00040000' from the titleid and the remaining string (e.g. 000EE000) will be the folder where your game is stored.
HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SAVE GAMES
1. Take your spare SD and copy the files for Ninjhax and EmuNand9
(or you could use your existing SD card at this point to boot into EmuNand, and then swap over the SD cards when you move onto the next step. I find the prior method less...worrying)
2. Boot into Ninjhax, run EmuNand9 and setup EmuNand on the SD card
3. Once this is complete, put your spare SD card back into your PC and load on files for Ninjhax, EmuNand9, Cakes/ReiNand/RxTools (or whatever you prefer), the 'Nintendo 3DS' folder you backed up from your system, and put the NAND.bin backup you made into the /EmuNand9 folder.
4. Go back into EmuNand9, select 'EmuNand Manager Options' and choose 'Clone NAND.bin to EmuNand'
5. Once this has completed, open up Cakes/ReiNand/whatever and boot up your emunand. Hey, presto! You'll be greeted by your old system with your eShop games, savedata, and all that goodness.
Now you've reached this point you can backup your saves with SaveDataFiler or use the option in the homemenu (note: second option doesn't work on all games, such as Pokemon)
Edit: for the brave there is also a way of transferring mii plaza & mii maker save data. The guide is here and another here
Last edited by Wilsonec,
