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!

 

[DMG-01]

You need it if you want to ever update arm9. Do you have an old 3ds?

Why would we need it to update A9LH? Couldn't we just use A9LH to launch update.bin via bootctr9 or L+R aureinand?

Also, how do we go about compiling our own update.bins, without having to do a complete compile/reinstall of A9LH? Would be helpful for individuals who want to have newer features but already have screen init and don't want to wait for them to be officially released.

Have O3DS and N3DS.

 

[democracy]

Why would we need it to update A9LH? Couldn't we just use A9LH to launch update.bin via bootctr9 or L+R aureinand?

Also, how do we go about compiling our own update.bins, without having to do a complete compile/reinstall of A9LH? Would be helpful for individuals who want to have newer features but already have screen init and don't want to wait for them to be officially released.

Have O3DS and N3DS.

This has since changed, dark samus said an updater will come.

 

[Robert McCoy]

Can the "updatedsysnand" file just be an empty .txt file?

 

[Robert McCoy]

I am trying and trying and it keeps loading emunand 9.2 on auto and won't load my sysnand updated mode 10.6 even though I made a updatedsysnand.txt with nothing in it inside of the rei folder.

 

[qlm2009]

I am trying and trying and it keeps loading emunand 9.2 on auto and won't load my sysnand updated mode 10.6 even though I made a updatedsysnand.txt with nothing in it inside of the rei folder.

"updatedsysnand" is OK
".txt" is not needed

 

[innercy]

I am trying and trying and it keeps loading emunand 9.2 on auto and won't load my sysnand updated mode 10.6 even though I made a updatedsysnand.txt with nothing in it inside of the rei folder.

as other ppl said. remove .txt extension

 

[Robert McCoy]

as other ppl said. remove .txt extension

Okay, how do you remove the .txt extension because I'm on windows 10 and I keep trying to but there's no option i'm seeing to do that.

 

[innercy]

Okay, how do you remove the .txt extension because I'm on windows 10 and I keep trying to but there's no option i'm seeing to do that.

http://www.file-extensions.org/article/show-and-hide-file-extensions-in-windows-10

 

[Robert McCoy]

http://www.file-extensions.org/article/show-and-hide-file-extensions-in-windows-10

Holy balls, it worked. It now boots into the updated sysnand mode. THANK YOU.

 

[galaktb]

@mashers I feel like this is the really complicated way to do it.... here's the simple way

• boot Decrypt9 however you want, even directly from a9lh if you're using the latest release
• Go to emuNAND options and dump CTRNAND
• Go to sysNAND options and dump CTRNAND (make sure not to overwrite the emuNAND CTRNAND)
• flash the emuNAND CTRNAND into sysNAND
• flash the sysNAND CTRNAND into emuNAND
• ???
• Profit

This has been tested and was one of the first ways it was done by @Shadowtrance

Is it possible that using this method gives you problems later on with the eshop?
I swapped my NANDs in this way, and I can't update my cias through the eshop anymore, it gives me error 007-6106 or 005-something everytime I try when it's almost finished.

 

[Robert McCoy]

Is it possible that using this method gives you problems later on with the eshop?
I swapped my NANDs in this way, and I can't update my cias through the eshop anymore, it gives me error 007-6106 or 005-something everytime I try when it's almost finished.

I am having issues connecting to the internet now after using that method. Like, I can't connect to the browser, hulu plus, eshop, none of those things are working after I tried this. It worked before I did that. I'm not sure how to fix my internet connection problem now.

Edit: I guess my only solution that I can think of on my own would be to download .cia updates for my games and install them that way. However I can no longer play super smash bro's online or any other games online. I haven't done that in a long time anyways. Now I only play Fire Emblem Fates, and pokemon blue.

 

[democracy]

I did this to but didn't test only functionality. I decided to go back to using emunand so I restored from my backups. Online seems to be working on emunand so I suggest if you are having problem than restore

 

[Robert McCoy]

I did this to but didn't test only functionality. I decided to go back to using emunand so I restored from my backups. Online seems to be working on emunand so I suggest if you are having problem than restore

Deleted all the partition backups. *sigh* I do have a 9.2 sysnand backup from before I did this swap, as well as an emunand 10.6 backup from before I did anything. I'm just scared that restoring back to the way things were will lose any new save data I've created in the past few days. My gf plays on my 3ds too and she will flip the fuck out if her Fire Emblem Fates save data is back to a week ago.

Edit: Well anyways the only reason I did the whole nand swapping was to get save functionality back to my GBA VC games. It sucked losing data each time i turned off and on the console.

 

[Just Passing By]

Deleted all the partition backups. *sigh* I do have a 9.2 sysnand backup from before I did this swap, as well as an emunand 10.6 backup from before I did anything. I'm just scared that restoring back to the way things were will lose any new save data I've created in the past few days. My gf plays on my 3ds too and she will flip the fuck out if her Fire Emblem Fates save data is back to a week ago.

Edit: Well anyways the only reason I did the whole nand swapping was to get save functionality back to my GBA VC games. It sucked losing data each time i turned off and on the console.

Why don't you just do a Save Backup on Fates? I do that now and it works fine.

 

[Robert McCoy]

Why don't you just do a Save Backup on Fates? I do that now and it works fine.

Oh yeah true. i have save data filer, and I have JKSave manager. I can just back it up and do the restore afterwards. It'll have to be after she's done doing her FE bizz. She's playing right now. AH FUCK i just remembered I lost my micro SD card reader for the computer. I have to do this in a week from now then. In the mean time I guess no more internet for my poor ol' 3dus.

 

[Halvorsen]

Can we just downgrade emunand to 9.2, install a9lh on emunand, and flash to sysnand?

 

[Robert McCoy]

Can we just downgrade emunand to 9.2, install a9lh on emunand, and flash to sysnand?

You know what, that sounds really smart. I wish I did this before instead of swapping my nands around and losing access to the eShop and my internet connection.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I'm thinking my plan will be this:

back up save game data of important games in my sysnand.
go through the a9lh process (i already have my OTP btw)
format my emunand.
install a9lh on emunand.
backup emunand.
flash the emunand to my sysnand via decrypt9.

finally have a9lh on my sysnand and use AuReinand and update to latest sysnand since AuReinand blocks writing to the FIRM0 and FIRM1,

then i should finally have freaking internet and eShop access.

 

[Robert McCoy]

Question: Does the arm9loaderhax.3dsx install it even to the 10.6 emunand backup if you rename it NAND.bin and place that on your SD card then run the arm9loaderhax.3dsx

 

[FenrirWolf]

How exactly did you lose internet access on your sysnand? If you have a9lh and you already swapped your former emunand to sysnand, there's no reason you can't update sysnand to 10.7 and regain eshop access.

 

[Robert McCoy]

How exactly did you lose internet access on your sysnand? If you have a9lh and you already swapped your former emunand to sysnand, there's no reason you can't update sysnand to 10.7 and regain eshop access.

I can't connect to Internet at all. Any wifi. I tried public wifi, home wifi, library wifi, and all of them won't connect. This was not the case before i swapped nands and was still using emunand instead of updated sysnand.