Homebrew RELEASE Legal NSP splitter for FAT32

[bluedart]

Just installed Okami with a secondary SD card formatted to fat32. It's a slower one, so it took a while, but it worked like a charm, and even played correctly. Wish me luck, as I'm formatting my main 128GB SD card to fat32 and hoping that Hyrule Warriors and a few others install correctly on it. I'll report back later.

PS: Already backed up all my saves with Checkpoint and put them on my PC just in case.

 

[stewacide]

Does the "archive" flag need to be checked or unchecked?

Edit -- Figured it out, checked archive in Windows. Install worked (from/to a FAT32 drive).

 

[Zumoly]

Is exFAT this bad? Never had any corruption with my files so I am wondering.
Also when you format your SD card from exFAT to FAT32, can't you just copy paste your Nintendo folder and have your games working?

 

[pietempgba]

Is exFAT this bad? Never had any corruption with my files so I am wondering.
Also when you format your SD card from exFAT to FAT32, can't you just copy paste your Nintendo folder and have your games working?

Exfat is very bad and it can corrupt after forever

 

[Zumoly]

Exfat is very bad and it can corrupt after forever

Oh I didn't know that! I once had a 64 GB card lock on me. I did everything to get it back but I eventually had to throw it away (this might be an example of that I supposed).
Something weird is happening with my 128 GB card when trying to format it. It's not showing FAT32 but NTFS and exFAT (default). How does one format such a card as FAT32?

 

[Deleted User]

Something weird is happening with my 128 GB card when trying to format it. It's not showing FAT32 but NTFS and exFAT (default). How does one format such a card as FAT32?

When formatting cards of a certain size, you won't have the option of using fat32 unless you use a third-party tool for it.

 

[soaresden]

Hi,

Thanks for this NEEDED feature in the scene !

I just splitted some Big Updates and I'm wondering now, I got a "folder" with a ."nsp"
Am i supposed to transfer it on SD and the switch will see as a "file" ?!

Many thanks !
Really!

 

[Shinryuu]

Does anyone know how to set the archive flag on the folder when using Linux? Stupid Windows 10 won't even recognize my 350 GB FAT32 partition, even though the Switch or Linux has no issues with it.

Edit: Here's how to do it, works like a charm! https://linlog.skepticats.com/entries/2007/10/Editing_FAT32_file_attributes.php

Also, there's a tool called 'fatattr'. It's simple to use and you can find it at, https://github.com/Terseus/fatattr
Basically you can just do this to set the archive attribute:

fatattr +A /path/to/your/file

And if the file is directory, you can run this to handle things recursively:

fatattr +A --recursive /path/to/your/file

 

[pietempgba]

Oh I didn't know that! I once had a 64 GB card lock on me. I did everything to get it back but I eventually had to throw it away (this might be an example of that I supposed).
Something weird is happening with my 128 GB card when trying to format it. It's not showing FAT32 but NTFS and exFAT (default). How does one format such a card as FAT32?

try using guiformat/fat32format by ridge crop it's here http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm

btw nintendo messed up their exfat drivers so it corrupts everything far easier than fat32

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

Hi,

Thanks for this NEEDED feature in the scene !

I just splitted some Big Updates and I'm wondering now, I got a "folder" with a ."nsp"
Am i supposed to transfer it on SD and the switch will see as a "file" ?!

Many thanks !
Really!

Yeah also I have no idea how that works but it works

 

[hawkspace00]

So is there not a way to set archive flags on mac right now?

 

[bluedart]

Well, I finished installing all the games I use. They all installed properly, even the ones that were split. Now I have a 128GB fat32 card in my switch with the games on it I play and I can play with RetroArch without it screwing up. Thanks for this splitting script: it works quite well.

The games I splitted with this utility are: Hyrule Warriors, Okami, and Mario Odyssey. Not a huge list, but it does indeed work. Just don't forget to manually set the archive bit. I used Tinfoil latest for anyone curious. Thanks again!

 

[DocKlokMan]

So is there not a way to set archive flags on mac right now?

I’m looking into a way shortly as that’s what I use. This script would have been out much sooner had I realized the limitations MacOS was doing.

 

[stewacide]

I’m looking into a way shortly as that’s what I use. This script would have been out much sooner had I realized the limitations MacOS was doing.

I haven't tried, but: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/248333/how-to-change-fat32-file-attributes-under-os-x

Edit -- I don't believe Finder will preserve the flag when moving/copying a file, so you'd probably want to supply an option in your script to write the split folder directly to SD.

 

[DocKlokMan]

I haven't tried, but: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/248333/how-to-change-fat32-file-attributes-under-os-x

Edit -- I don't believe Finder will preserve the flag when moving/copying a file, so you'd probably want to supply an option in your script to write the split folder directly to SD.

Alas, this doesn’t work. MacOS not only doesn’t preserve the flags when copying to FAT32 but also will not alter the flags of a file saved on FAT32, so even if the folder is already there the command completes without changing anything.

 

[stewacide]

Alas, this doesn’t work. MacOS not only doesn’t preserve the flags when copying to FAT32 but also will not alter the flags of a file saved on FAT32, so even if the folder is already there the command completes without changing anything.

Did you try doing the opposite-of-what-you-want as suggested in the link?

It doesn't seem there's a fat32 fuse driver for mac unfortunately.

 

[DocKlokMan]

Did you try doing the opposite-of-what-you-want as suggested in the link?

It doesn't seem there's a fat32 fuse driver for mac unfortunately.

I did. I can see the flag get set with the stat command while it’s on my Macs hard disk but as soon as it’s copied the flags are reset and trying the command again directly on the FAT32 copy and checking again with the stat command still shows no flags set. I just don’t think the chflags tool supports FAT32 (it does exFAT though). Maybe I can find a tool similar to the Linux one.

 

[stewacide]

It looks like mtools (available in homebrew) should be able to set the archive attribute. The tricky part is 'mounting' the SD.

 

[HoTsHoTz79]

thanks for this tool...

Question; if i dont want to re-download NSPs, how do i move the 'already installed' nsps from my current exfat and move to fat32?

 

[Mysuke]

thanks for this tool...

Question; if i dont want to re-download NSPs, how do i move the 'already installed' nsps from my current exfat and move to fat32?

Just copy everything in your SD card to your PC, format the card to FAT32 and put it back. Should work fine.

 

[Che007]

Just copy everything in your SD card to your PC, format the card to FAT32 and put it back. Should work fine.

Doesn't work for me. Can't remember the error message, but I had to reinstall the games.