Dumping NAND

This page is for making a NAND backup, which is a copy of the data on the Nintendo DSi's internal storage. It can be used to set up hiyaCFW, as well as no$gba and melonDS for DSi emulation.

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Make sure the SD card has at least 250MB of free space, or else you'll run into an error message in dumpTool.

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It is highly recommended that you do this. A NAND backup can be used as a restore point in the future, in case of a brick.

Section I - SD card setup

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If you have already downloaded dumpTool from another section of this guide, you can skip this section.

1. Download the latest release of dumpTool
2. Place dumpTool.nds anywhere on your SD card

Section II - Dumping the NAND

1. Launch dumpTool through the menu you have installed
   • If you've used an exploit to launch it, and you're already in the dumpTool menu, ignore this step
2. Hit the A button on your Nintendo DSi to start dumping your NAND
   • A NAND backup typically takes around 7 minutes
3. When the NAND backup is complete, hit the START button on your Nintendo DSi to exit dumpTool
4. Power off your console and insert your SD card back into your device
5. On the SD card, go to where dumpTool.nds is placed, and you'll see a new folder called DT######... which contains the NAND backup
   • If dumpTool is downloaded from the Get Started page, it'll be named boot.nds
   • Inside the folder is nand.bin which is the backup itself, and nand.bin.sha1 which is the SHA1 hash of the backup
6. Store the DT######... folder somewhere safe, where you won't lose it
   • If possible, make multiple backups across different storage devices
   • Once you've backed it up elsewhere, you can delete it from the SD card
7. If you've started dumpTool via an exploit, and was downloaded from the Get Started page, delete boot.nds from the SD card root

WARNING

The SHA1 hash of the nand.bin will not match the hash stored in nand.bin.sha1. This is because dumpTool adds additional data known as a no$gba footer to the nand.bin file after the SHA1 hash is calculated. You can use the hiyaCFW Helper to create a copy without the footer.

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