Procedure for exfat support and other newb questions

[Protossido]

Hello, i'm getting a switch soon and planning to install sx os on it. i want to keep it as safe as possible, so i'm trying to plan out the correct procedure i will use in order to hack it. the switch i'm going to buy is an untouched old switch, which should have OS 4.0.1 on it, from my understanding this firmware does not have exfat support, and since i plan to keep XCIs on sdcard i want to know the procedure to achieve that.
from my understanding i should launch payload from a fat32 sd, then use ChoiDujourNX to install a newer version and then format exfat and move on with the rest of things?
what ofw version should i install to have exfat support?
some other questions

1. at what fw version shall i make my emunand (my understanding is 6.2 but i want to be sure)
2. how do you update emunand without internet? I want to keep my emunand always offline and use my legit games on sysnand, so how will i update the emunand once support for 7.0 will drop?
3. once i got emunand installed and working, is it safe to upgrade sysnand to 7.0.1? (again, from my understanding it should be, but i want to be sure)

 

[imprezgc8]

Welcome to the Forum!

First - you will want to make a nand back up via the SX Bootloader
Second - You can create an emunand right after that which would put the emunand at 4.0.1
Third - Once that is created you can boot to the emunand and then run Choi to update the emunand to 6.2 w/exFAT support

Once you do that there is really no reason to update the sysnand at all, but I would recommend not updating yet as SX does not support 7.0.x yet and some people have reported issues with emunand working with a sysnand of 7.0.x if they did not use the hidden partition emunand.

 

[Protossido]

Thanks for the support and for the advices, i still have a question, what if i want to use sysnand for legit games online? staying on 4.0.1 certainly won't work
also in the last changelog of sx os 2.5.3 states that it fixes emunand with sysnand 7.0, does that still have problems? also, is there any way to try and then downgrade if emunand has some issues?

 

[imprezgc8]

2.5.3 does support emunand, but some users who are using have posted here saying that it only works with the hidden partition emunand.

To be completely honest if you want to play online you should not mode the Switch. There are precautions you can take, but nothing is 100% and you will most likely get banned. That being said you will need to have your sysnand on 7.0.1 to go online. You can follow my steps and then update your sysnand officially through Nintendo if you still choose to try playing online.

 

[Qubs]

So my setup is sysNAND (with preserved efuses from 3.0.0) on 7.0.1 "clean" and an emuNAND on 6.2.0 where i do all my cfw stuff
have been running this setup since 6.2.0 launched, havent been banned so far...
so id say yes you can go online as long as you NEVER EVER touched your sysNAND with any cfw (by that i mean fully boot any cfw)

 

[Icarium]

So my setup is sysNAND (with preserved efuses from 3.0.0) on 7.0.1 "clean" and an emuNAND on 6.2.0 where i do all my cfw stuff
have been running this setup since 6.2.0 launched, havent been banned so far...
so id say yes you can go online as long as you NEVER EVER touched your sysNAND with any cfw (by that i mean fully boot any cfw)

Do you also change sd cards when going from sysnand to emunand, Qubs? Or use the same sd card for both?

 

[imprezgc8]

So my setup is sysNAND (with preserved efuses from 3.0.0) on 7.0.1 "clean" and an emuNAND on 6.2.0 where i do all my cfw stuff
have been running this setup since 6.2.0 launched, havent been banned so far...
so id say yes you can go online as long as you NEVER EVER touched your sysNAND with any cfw (by that i mean fully boot any cfw)

How did you preserve your 3.0 fuses if you have a "clean" sysnand on 7.0.1? You would have had to use Choi to update to 7.0.1 I believe by booting to CFW on your sysnand and potentially have autoRCM on. Both of those would not give you a "clean" nand.

Can you share your method if neither of those things are what you did?

 

[Protossido]

Welcome to the Forum!

First - you will want to make a nand back up via the SX Bootloader
Second - You can create an emunand right after that which would put the emunand at 4.0.1
Third - Once that is created you can boot to the emunand and then run Choi to update the emunand to 6.2 w/exFAT support

Once you do that there is really no reason to update the sysnand at all, but I would recommend not updating yet as SX does not support 7.0.x yet and some people have reported issues with emunand working with a sysnand of 7.0.x if they did not use the hidden partition emunand.

About this, i missed something. At what point i can reformat my sd in exfat? If i try to use exfat from the beginning it won't work, right?

 

[imprezgc8]

About this, i missed something. At what point i can reformat my sd in exfat? If i try to use exfat from the beginning it won't work, right?

Which emunand did you choose?

After you create your emunand with 6.2 exFAT, back your entire SD card up then reformat to exFAT and copying everything back. Just note that if you ever boot to your sysnand then you will get a message about not being able to use the SD card since that was not updated to exFAT support.

 

[Protossido]

Which emunand did you choose?

After you create your emunand with 6.2 exFAT, back your entire SD card up then reformat to exFAT and copying everything back. Just note that if you ever boot to your sysnand then you will get a message about not being able to use the SD card since that was not updated to exFAT support.

I still haven't got the switch, but since you say the partition emunand let's me update my switch I'll probably do that.
In that case i will just have to format the mass storage partition and not the emunand right?

 

[imprezgc8]

Yes, that should work. I do not use the hidden partition since the SD Files version is easier to backup or move to another SD.

Make sure you make a nand backup before doing anything and also make one after you update just incase. I think I noted before, but there is no 100% way to not get banned if you use CFW and connect to Nintendo's services. No one has confirmed what Nintendo is actually checking to ban consoles. There are just some precautions you can take to lower the chance.

 

[Protossido]

Yes, that should work. I do not use the hidden partition since the SD Files version is easier to backup or move to another SD.

Make sure you make a nand backup before doing anything and also make one after you update just incase. I think I noted before, but there is no 100% way to not get banned if you use CFW and connect to Nintendo's services. No one has confirmed what Nintendo is actually checking to ban consoles. There are just some precautions you can take to lower the chance.

yes i know that. i'll see how i goes, just in case, how do you backup a partitioned emunand? you copy image or?

 

[imprezgc8]

I am not actually sure. Sorry, I believe someone did post on here somewhere though.

 

[Qubs]

How did you preserve your 3.0 fuses if you have a "clean" sysnand on 7.0.1? You would have had to use Choi to update to 7.0.1 I believe by booting to CFW on your sysnand and potentially have autoRCM on. Both of those would not give you a "clean" nand.

Can you share your method if neither of those things are what you did?

thats why i put the clean in these ->" "<- thingies
i updated from 6.2.0 with ams0.8.4 booted (hekate) using sysSettings (ams autoprotecs fuses when updating)
after the update i have never booted a cfw on sysnand again (neither do i have before other than when i was updating my sysNAND; i never used hbapps onm sysNAND either )
so far i havent been banned (can eshop and purchase titles)

 

[imprezgc8]

thats why i put the clean in these ->" "<- thingies
i updated from 6.2.0 with ams0.8.4 booted (hekate) using sysSettings (ams autoprotecs fuses when updating)
after the update i have never booted a cfw on sysnand again (neither do i have before other than when i was updating my sysNAND; i never used hbapps onm sysNAND either )
so far i havent been banned (can eshop and purchase titles)

Gotcha. Was just wondering if I had missed something somewhere. Thanks for confirming it's "clean" haha.

 

[hardiee00]

Hi There,

I bought a Nintendo switch last week and updated it to FW 7.0.1 knowing the fact that SXOS supports it.
Today I purchased my SXOS license and managed to install SXOS on FW 7.0.1 with a 128 GB FAT32 SD card
I never used exfat formatted SD card on my switch before
So when I formatted my SD card to exfat to install game files larger than 4 GB my switch is asking me to install a system update to use SD card
Sad part is Nintendo yesterday itself released a new FW version 8.0 which would also get installed as a part of this stupid SD card update
I have taken a NAND backup on FW 7.0.1 before installing SX OS
Is there any way I can use my exfat SD card? I am new to gaming community and very excited to get my hands on some games. Please help!