Restoring / Updating CFW

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Required Reading

This page prepares consoles with an existing modern boot9strap installation for reinstallation and/or updating of custom firmware applications. It can also be used in the event of a lost or corrupted SD card.

Your SD card must be formatted as FAT32 to follow this guide, or else the 3DS will be unable to recognize it. If your SD card is not yet properly formatted, use one of these pages to format it, depending on your operating system: Windows, Mac, Linux.

What You Need

Instructions

Section I - Prep Work

  1. Insert your SD card into your computer
  2. Copy boot.3dsx and boot.firm from the Luma3DS .zip to the root of your SD card, replacing any existing files
    • The root of the SD card refers to the initial directory on your SD card where you can see the Nintendo 3DS folder, but are not inside of it
  3. Copy GodMode9.firm from the GodMode9 .zip to the /luma/payloads/ folder on your SD card, replacing any existing file
    • If the luma or payloads folder doesn’t exist, create them
  4. Copy the gm9 folder from the GodMode9 .zip to the root of your SD card, merging it with any existing folder and replacing any existing files
  5. Reinsert your SD card into your device

Section II - Configuring Luma3DS

  1. Press and hold (Select), and while holding (Select), power on your device
    • You should now see a Luma3DS configuration menu
  2. Use the (A) button and the D-Pad to turn on the following:
    • “Show NAND or user string in System Settings”
  3. Press (Start) to save and reboot

Section III - CTRNAND Luma3DS

  1. Power off your device
  2. Press and hold (Start), and while holding (Start), power on your device. This will launch GodMode9
    • If you do not boot into GodMode9, ensure that GodMode9.firm is in /luma/payloads/ and that payloads is correctly spelled
  3. If you are prompted to fix the RTC date&time, press (A) to do so, then set the date and time, then press (A) to continue
  4. Press (Home) to bring up the action menu
  5. Select “Scripts…”
  6. Select “GM9Megascript”
  7. Select “Scripts from Plailect’s Guide”
  8. Select “Setup Luma3DS to CTRNAND”
    • This will copy the updated version of Luma3DS to internal memory so that your device will be able to boot without an SD card inserted
  9. When prompted, press (A) to proceed
  10. Press (A) to unlock SysNAND (lvl1) writing, then input the key combo given
  11. Press (A) to continue
  12. Press (B), then navigate to “Exit” to exit GM9Megascript
    • When prompted, relock write permissions
  13. Press (Home) to bring up the action menu
  14. Select “Poweroff system” to power off your device

The latest version of Luma3DS has been installed on your SD card and on internal memory.

If you wish to re-install or update other homebrew applications, continue to Finalizing Setup