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SD Preparation

We will now place the required files for the Atmosphère custom firmware and some additional homebrew files on the microSD card.

Atmosphere has its own bootloader, called fusee. For the purposes of this guide we will be using Hekate instead, so that we can back up the system's NAND (internal storage) and take advantage of other advanced features in the future.

File name extensions

If you use Windows, you should enable file name extensions before continuing. See this link for a guide on how to do this.

What you need:

  • The latest release of Hekate (Download the hekate_ctcaer_(version).zip release of hekate)
  • The Hekate config file: hekate_ipl.ini
  • The DNS-MITM DNS redirection config: emummc.txt
  • The bootlogo zip folder: bootlogos.zip
  • The latest release of Atmosphere. Download the atmosphere-(version)-master-(version)+hbl-(version)+hbmenu-(version).zip release of Atmosphere.
  • The latest release of JKSV (Download the JKSV.nro release of JKSV)
  • The latest release of FTPD (Download the ftpd.nro release of FTPD)
  • The latest release of NXThemeInstaller (Download the NxThemesInstaller.nro release of NxThemeInstaller)
  • The latest release of NX-Shell (Download the NX-Shell.nro release of nx-shell)

Instructions:

  1. Navigate to the accessible drive.
  2. Copy the contents of the Atmosphère.zip file to the root of your microSD card.
  3. Copy the bootloader folder from the Hekate .zip file to the root of your microSD card.
  4. Copy the bootloader folder from the bootlogos.zip file to the root of your microSD card.
    • If you're asked to merge the bootloader folders, do so.
  5. Copy hekate_ipl.ini to the bootloader folder on your microSD card.
  6. Copy Lockpick_RCM.bin to the /bootloader/payloads folder on your microSD card.
  7. Create a folder named hosts inside the atmosphere folder on your microSD card, and put emummc.txt in it.
  8. Copy JKSV.nro, ftpd.nro, NX-Shell.nro and NxThemesInstaller.nro to the switch folder on your microSD card.
  9. If you were already using your microSD card as a storage device for your games and backed up the Nintendo folder before partitioning your microSD card, please place it back on the root of your microSD card.

    • If you created an emuMMC on the previous page, don't forget to copy the Nintendo folder to SD:/emuMMC/RAW1/!

    About emummc.txt

    Putting the emummc.txt file provided by this guide into /atmosphere/hosts will prevent your emuMMC (emuNAND) from connecting to Nintendo. Not doing this will likely result in a ban.

    Your microSD card should look similar to the image below. The Nintendo folder will not be present if your Switch has not already booted with the microSD card inserted and the emuMMC folder will not be present if you're following the sysCFW path of the guide/you haven't created an emuMMC! payload.bin will not be present if you're using an unpatched Switch.

    sdfilesimg

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