Hacking Help with installing boot9strap CFW

[edyedy]

Hi. I have an old 2DS that I want to install boot9strap on again. The last time I did this, I successfully put the boot9strap CFW on my old 2ds using Homebrew Launcher (soundhax) because my 2ds was version <= 11.3.0. This worked and I was happy with this. Fast forward to last week, I dropped my 2ds and apparently, that corrupted my SD card and on my home menu, I could no longer see any games that I had previously installed. So I got a new SD card and factory reset my 2ds to try again with the boot9strap process again. However, I noticed that my 2DS was now version 11.6 and I could no longer use the Homebrew Launcher. I do not have a compatible flashcart, nor do I want to try hardmodding. I only have 1 DS. All I have is the backup I have the first time I did the boot9strap installation. This backup contains a NAND file, if that is relevant. I am considering updating versions and doing the Seedminer method, but it says not to do it if I've installed Luma before. When I power on my 2DS and press Select, it does not show the Luma menu, so does that mean no CFW is installed in my 2DS?

 

[Ryccardo]

First, boot9strap is not a CFW (at least with the definition commonly used in the 3DS scene - literally it is one), and it's installed in the NAND

The main purpose of B9S is to load another "firmware" (an arm9 homebrew in .firm format - typically a boot manager or a CFW) from boot.firm on the root of the SD, if that fails it will try loading one from boot.firm on the root of the CTRNAND (internal storage), else it will turn the console off

So if your console is booting to the OS without the SD inserted, either boot9strap was removed (which, if you always used Luma, should not have happened without deliberate action like restoring a full nand backup) or you DO have a valid CFW installed on ctrnand (which may or may not be Luma; just to be sure, you should be holding Select before turning on the power, as the time window is very small)

To further complicate the guessing game, if you somehow booted the 11.3 or newer kernel without a CFW that blocks the kernel update function, B9S will be uninstalled (as 11.3+ try to reinstall the kernel on every boot)

 

[Quantumcat]

You need to hold Select to see the Luma config menu rather than Start. I don't think B9S could get uninstalled by dropping the console.