Homebrew Question Thinking about hacking my switch what are so precautions i should use?

[Dominator211]

Im tired of nintendos bullshit and i dont want to pay 1500$+ for all the games i want. Do t ask why i have a lot of games on my wishlist. Nintendo as a company is pissibg me off right now and i have had enough of it. I would like to not get banned but i know it is a risk. What precautions should i take to negate the risk of getting banned. Note im probably going to downlaod a lot of games

 

[Draxzelex]

Backup the NAND before you start hacking the console so you have a clean NAND that you can restore prior to going online. Also whenever you restore the NAND and go online, if you intend to return offline for more hacking, you will need to make a new NAND backup before returning offline. This is because your NAND has changed from Nintendo's perspective so if you return to the old NAND backup a second time, Nintendo will know you modified your NAND.

 

[Dominator211]

Backup the NAND before you start hacking the console so you have a clean NAND that you can restore prior to going online. Also whenever you restore the NAND and go online, if you intend to return offline for more hacking, you will need to make a new NAND backup before returning offline. This is because your NAND has changed from Nintendo's perspective so if you return to the old NAND backup a second time, Nintendo will know you modified your NAND.

so hoow many time can i restore my nand before its a risk?

 

[Draxzelex]

so hoow many time can i restore my nand before its a risk?

Several thousand times, likely around the time your grandkids would be married and Nintendo unveils the New Nintendo Switch XL Mini & Knuckles.

 

[Dominator211]

Several thousand times, likely around the time your grandkids would be married and Nintendo unveils the New Nintendo Switch XL Mini & Knuckles.

so lets say i hack and get a few "things" when i want to go online i restore the backup i made. then when i want to go back to offline i should make a backup with my homebrew stuff too?

Also should i reformat my sd card to FAT32 for ease of everything?

 

[Draxzelex]

so lets say i hack and get a few "things" when i want to go online i restore the backup i made. then when i want to go back to offline i should make a backup with my homebrew stuff too?

That would be a good idea otherwise you will spend time recovering all of your homebrew and backups. I would suggest making backups of your homebrew/CFW using the ReiNX toolkit as it is much faster than Hekate's implementation. One should backup the NAND in Hekate if they want to make it as clean as possible since it is loaded before the NAND unlike the toolkit.

 

[Dominator211]

That would be a good idea otherwise you will spend time recovering all of your homebrew and backups. I would suggest making backups of your homebrew/CFW using the ReiNX toolkit as it is much faster than Hekate's implementation. One should backup the NAND in Hekate if they want to make it as clean as possible since it is loaded before the NAND unlike the toolkit.

jeez, that a lot to remember im not sure if I could follow that for a long period of time. but yet again being completely banned from everything is gonna be annoying because i wont be able to update anything at all and will have a potato for a console. lets say hypothetically i cant get eshop to work i have heard NSPs are faster to load how would one install a game like that. I haven't been paying too much attention to the scene so I am not sure.

 

[Draxzelex]

jeez, that a lot to remember im not sure if I could follow that for a long period of time. but yet again being completely banned from everything is gonna be annoying because i wont be able to update anything at all and will have a potato for a console. lets say hypothetically i cant get eshop to work i have heard NSPs are faster to load how would one install a game like that. I haven't been paying too much attention to the scene so I am not sure.

If you are familiar with the 3DS or even the PS4, .NSP files are basically the .CIA/.PKG equivalents on the Switch. Once you have the file, you need a tool to install them which we refer to as a title installer/manager. Examples of these include Rommenu (built into SX OS), DevMenu (copyrighted Nintendo application), or Tinfoil which is arguably the best. They all install .NSP files the same way with the same restrictions spread across all three, but the .NSP files have to be put in different places depending on the one you use. For example, Rommenu and DevMenu detect .NSP files on the root but Tinfoil reads them from /tinfoil/nsp

 

[Gnarmagon]

hmmm,
I can recommend this package over ReiNX (simply use the CFW option in hekate) https://github.com/tumGER/SDFilesSwitch/releases/ , because ReiNX sometimes crashed my switch and that was very annoying especially if no computer is near to sideload the payload. It's not hard to remember: if your switch is online, you can be banned! so remove wifi and only use it on an unhacked/stock switch, hence the backup!, also exfat is better than fat32 because fat32 can only store file up to ~4GB...

 

[Elliander]

What about the option of using an EmuNAND with SX Pro? In my case, I'm not interested in Piracy, I'm interested in Homebrew, but that seems to be worse in Nintendo's eyes. Could I make a SysNAND backup, create an EmuNAND for the Homebrew, and only take the SysNAND online without being banned? So I could enjoy legitimate online play, and Homebrew, on the same console?

What are the detectable differences between a SysNAND and an EmuNAND that never had Homebrew on it? Suppose that instead of swapping the SysNAND (and risking a brick if I do it wrong), I leave SysNAND alone and just operate more than one EmuNAND? One with Homebrew and Game backups, and the other that goes online for legit online play with real game carts?

Alternatively, if I only put backup games from my own dumps (not scene releases) on the EmuNAND without ever putting a Homebrew on the emuNAND, would it be detectable? I mean, there should be a cart ID since Nintendo is apparently banning specific dumps from online play now.