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!

 

[mashers]

i give up i tried over 100 times

Are you running the arm9loaderhax installer from sysnand or emunand?

 

[dragon_from_iso]

sysnand

 

[mashers]

sysnand

I'm not sure then. Try posting about this the arm9loaderhax thread, as the problem appears to be with getting the installer to run.

 

[DrakeLyon]

So, I've got EmuNAND working again and everything, but when I'm in it it won't play the DS cartridge I have in my 3DS. It will just pop an error on the screen saying to hold down the power button and power off my 3DS. This error has also occurred a couple of times when trying to enter the homebrew menu through browserhax. My only question is- is this intended? Like is this supposed to happen on EmuNAND swapping the NANDs? The homebrew menu still works from time to time, so I can still use EmuNAND for Decrypt9 and EmuNAND9, but still having complete functionality on my EmuNAND wouldn't be bad for me either lol

 

[Excelsis]

Is there an easier way of doing this if I already have a 9.2 emuNAND set up on a seperate SD card? I think I have it figured out but I wanna be sure I don't screw up anything.

E: Actually, couldn't you just use Save Data Manager to backup your emuNAND save files, install your games on sysNAND, restore your save files, then update sysNAND to 10.6 after installing A9LH? Might lose some things like Activity log info, but it seems much more safe to me, no?

 

[Phil5004]

Will it be worth to change from SysNAND 9.0 and EmuNAND 10.6 On a New 3DS to ARM9Hax?

 

[tivu100]

Sorry for asking without doing research I haven't follow the scene lately and kinda getting lost. So arm9hax is patched on 10.6 so the latest CFW for arm9hax sysnand is 10.5?

Is this CFW sig-patched?

 

[daxtsu]

Is this CFW sig-patched?

Yes. The moment you see the home screen with A9LH, you have CFW/sigs patched (assuming you're not running Cakes with that option turned off).

Sorry for asking without doing research I haven't follow the scene lately and kinda getting lost. So arm9hax is patched on 10.6 so the latest CFW for arm9hax sysnand is 10.5?

Not sure where you heard that. You can run sysNAND 10.6 with A9LH just fine, but you obviously have to have installed A9LH on 9.2 first before updating to anything higher, and you have to use a CFW like AuReinand which blocks FIRM0/FIRM1 from being updated.

 

[tivu100]

Yes. The moment you see the home screen with A9LH, you have CFW/sigs patched (assuming you're not running Cakes with that option turned off).



Not sure where you heard that. You can run sysNAND 10.6 with A9LH just fine, but you obviously have to have installed A9LH on 9.2 first before updating to anything higher, and you have to use a CFW like AuReinand which blocks FIRM0/FIRM1 from being updated.

Thanks for quick response.

No I didn't mean 10.6 is patched. I just want to ask question. Since OP of this thread is only talking about 10.5.

 

[dkabot]

Is there an easier way of doing this if I already have a 9.2 emuNAND set up on a seperate SD card? I think I have it figured out but I wanna be sure I don't screw up anything.

E: Actually, couldn't you just use Save Data Manager to backup your emuNAND save files, install your games on sysNAND, restore your save files, then update sysNAND to 10.6 after installing A9LH? Might lose some things like Activity log info, but it seems much more safe to me, no?

Because you have A9LH already installed, there is no lack of safety, ever (at least in my abridged version, the OP version might have some).
A9LH resides in FIRM0/1, and if you do partition dump/inject you're not touching FIRM0/1 ever.
Thus, even if it doesn't work you can still boot A9LH and get into either basic Decrypt9 to restore or a 9.2 (9.0 FIRM) EmuNAND to launch full Decrypt9 and continue trying.

If you already have a separate 9.2 EmuNAND, you can just inject partitions from your "normal" one to SysNAND, and use an external tool like EmuNAND Tool or Multi EmuNAND Creator to copy the 9.2 one to your normal SD (or remove it from your normal SD and keep that one as a recovery)

 

[Excelsis]

Because you have A9LH already installed, there is no lack of safety, ever (at least in my abridged version, the OP version might have some).
A9LH resides in FIRM0/1, and if you do partition dump/inject you're not touching FIRM0/1 ever.
Thus, even if it doesn't work you can still boot A9LH and get into either basic Decrypt9 to restore or a 9.2 (9.0 FIRM) EmuNAND to launch full Decrypt9 and continue trying.

If you already have a separate 9.2 EmuNAND, you can just inject partitions from your "normal" one to SysNAND, and use an external tool like EmuNAND Tool or Multi EmuNAND Creator to copy the 9.2 one to your normal SD (or remove it from your normal SD and keep that one as a recovery)

That's what I figured. So if I understand all this stuff correctly, I dump my emuNAND 10.6 partitions, sans FIRM0/1 and simply inject those to sysNAND? No need to update sysNAND to 10.6 first?

 

[dkabot]

That's what I figured. So if I understand all this stuff correctly, I dump my emuNAND 10.6 partitions, sans FIRM0/1 and simply inject those to sysNAND? No need to update sysNAND to 10.6 first?

Honestly, I only made the versions match because I wanted to be 120% sure, but as stated so long as you don't touch FIRM0/1 the worst you can do is waste some time.
It'll probably work, firmware stuffs is launched by CFW anyway and that's the major incompatibility between versions right there.

 

[tivu100]

Question: if I start fresh, no EMUNAND 10.5/10.6. Can I skip step 4 and the decrypt dump partition EMUNAND.

So this guide is for swapping EMUNAND to SYSNAND only?. Not start fresh 10.6 arm9load SYSNAND?

 

[Birdroun]

I got a small problem, after cloning my SysNAND to EmuNAND, I just can't get anymore my EmuNAND launching with ReiNand or rxTools that were working before. Anyone knows how could I start emuNand ?

 

[tivu100]

I got a small problem, after cloning my SysNAND to EmuNAND, I just can't get anymore my EmuNAND launching with ReiNand or rxTools that were working before. Anyone knows how could I start emuNand ?

Run Reinand.3dsx. make sure you remove menuhax or you're stuck in booting loop

 

[FenrirWolf]

Is there an easier way of doing this if I already have a 9.2 emuNAND set up on a seperate SD card? I think I have it figured out but I wanna be sure I don't screw up anything.

E: Actually, couldn't you just use Save Data Manager to backup your emuNAND save files, install your games on sysNAND, restore your save files, then update sysNAND to 10.6 after installing A9LH? Might lose some things like Activity log info, but it seems much more safe to me, no?

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 if you don't already have the latest version of a9lh. Or you can always run an a9lh updater after the fact if you installed an older version. Just make sure that you use your own OTP file if you download the a9lh source again and it includes a dummy file.

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.

 

[Birdroun]

Run Reinand.3dsx. make sure you remove menuhax or you're stuck in booting loop

Well I tried and go only black screens, or top screen with a bunch of colors and bottom screen full white.

Did again the cloning of NANDS, and still the same, I get black screens or just reboot with Reinand or rxTools not working.
If you have one more idea, I'll try, else I might just go back to my old emunand

 

[tivu100]

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 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.

Latest a9lh should be found from https://github.com/capito27/arm9loaderhax , right (the compiler)? There is not anything new added to it recently (Latest change was 10 days ago)

 

[FenrirWolf]

Latest a9lh should be found from https://github.com/capito27/arm9loaderhax , right (the compiler)? There is not anything new added to it recently (Latest change was 10 days ago)

I believe this is the most recently updated fork. It has screen init at least: https://github.com/dark-samus/arm9loaderhax

 

[tivu100]

I believe this is the most recently updated fork. It has screen init at least: https://github.com/dark-samus/arm9loaderhax

Files compiled from this https://gbatemp.net/threads/compile-a9lh-on-demand.416385/ should be fine, right (flashing SYSNAND.bin as well as instlalinga9lh feature)? This is fork from the same page you pointed