UNOFFICIAL v1.4.2: Boot9strap with Enhanced Boot Order Preference capabilities

What's new in the v1.4.2

Enhanced Boot Order Preference: prior to this version, there was no integrity check being made in the process, which means that if the file you were pointing existed on the SD card and was not a valid firmware, the console would NOT boot to the boot.firm file in fallback (you would encounter the notification LED status informing that the boot has failed, and B9S would try to boot from CTRNAND as usual for a corrupted firmware).

Now, with Enhanced Boot Order Preference, the standard firmware integrity verification and firmware load from Boot9strap is being made during the boot order selection process, and a corrupted firmware will lead Boot9strap to select the next firmware on the list. The integrity and load is being made only once, so when you have a valid firmware, this extra validation will not consume additional resources or time.

In last resort, Boot9strap will always fallback to boot.firm and if that one is corrupted, B9S will then attempt to boot from CTRNAND as usual. This means that starting this version, if you accidentally insert a non-firmware file in the boot_order.txt file, you will no longer make your console boot from CTRNAND due to the corrupted boot file.

Release note from v1.4.1 below

With this release, anyone can override the firmware to be booted by B9S.

By default, it will always boot sd:/boot.firm.

But by creating a sd:/boot_order.txt file, you can specify a list of firmwares to be loaded and the first one that is available is going to be selected for loading.

For example, your sd:/boot_order.txt file could look like:

bax.firm
bax/bax.firm
dev.firm

The provided BAX.firm file in the release and repository has been modified to load sd:/boot.firm after playing the bax file (in contrast with the original BAX.firm which loads sd:/bax/boot.firm). This allows to benefit from the latest improvements from B9S, and to continuously update Luma3DS (or any sd:/boot.firm) using the Universal Updater without ever having to think of moving files around to keep your BAX animation working.

The boot order list acts just like your PCs BIOS: first one in order available gets booted, all the others are skipped.

And of course, if none are available, B9S will always boot the boot.firm firmware so it does not affect its standard behavior.

This would be especially useful for using BAX firms without messing around with ordinary boot.firm locations to allow smoother updates.

Example of installation on a 3DS:

• Copy the two files (boot9strap.firm and boot9strap.firm.sha) from the boot9strap-1.4.zip archive to sd:/boot9strap/
• Copy the SafeB9SInstaller.firm file to sd:/luma/payloads/
• Optional: Copy the boot_order.txt file to sd:/
• Optional: Copy the BAX.firm to sd:/
• Optional: Copy your BAX videos to sd:/bax/ (tools for video conversion available here)
• Boot your 3DS and hold START, if promoted select SafeB9SInstaller and follow the instructions on screen
• Optional: if you have Godmode9 installed, you must have been prompted to select between SafeB9SInstaller and Godmode9 in the previous step. Once you are done with the installation, you can access Godmode9, press the Home button, access Scripts, GM9Megascript, then scripts from the Plailect's guide, and finally Clean SD card. This will remove the boot9strap setup folder. You can then manually remove the SafeB9SInstaller from your SD card in sd:/luma/payloads either directly using Godmode9, or using your ordinary file transfer method.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: The provided BAX.firm will expect the boot.firm in sd:/, as that is intentionally why it has been created. If you prefer the original way, you need to download the original BAX.firm here and move the boot.firm in your SD card to sd:/bax/.

UNOFFICIAL v1.4.1: Boot9strap with Boot Order Preference capabilities

With this release, anyone can override the firmware to be booted by B9S.

By default, it will always boot sd:/boot.firm.

But by creating a sd:/boot_order.txt file, you can specify a list of firmwares to be loaded and the first one that is available is going to be selected for loading.

For example, your sd:/boot_order.txt file could look like:

bax.firm
bax/bax.firm
dev.firm

The provided BAX.firm file in the release and repository has been modified to load sd:/boot.firm after playing the bax file (in contrast with the original BAX.firm which loads sd:/bax/boot.firm). This allows to benefit from the latest improvements from B9S, and to continuously update Luma3DS (or any sd:/boot.firm) using the Universal Updater without ever having to think of moving files around to keep your BAX animation working.

The boot order list acts just like your PCs BIOS: first one in order available gets booted, all the others are skipped.

And of course, if none are available, B9S will always boot the boot.firm firmware so it does not affect its standard behavior.

Note: currently there is no integrity check being made in the process, which means that if the file you are pointing exists on the SD card and is not a valid firmware, the console will NOT boot to boot.firm file in fallback (you will encounter the notification LED status informing that the boot has failed, and B9S will try to boot from CTRNAND as usual for a corrupted firmware).

This would be especially useful for using BAX firms without messing around with ordinary boot.firm locations to allow smoother updates.

Example of installation on a 3DS:

• Copy the two files (boot9strap.firm and boot9strap.firm.sha) from the boot9strap-1.4.zip archive to sd:/boot9strap/
• Copy the SafeB9SInstaller.firm file to sd:/luma/payloads/
• Optional: Copy the boot_order.txt file to sd:/
• Optional: Copy the BAX.firm to sd:/
• Optional: Copy your BAX videos to sd:/bax/ (tools for video conversion available here)
• Boot your 3DS and hold START, if promoted select SafeB9SInstaller and follow the instructions on screen
• Optional: if you have Godmode9 installed, you must have been prompted to select between SafeB9SInstaller and Godmode9 in the previous step. Once you are done with the installation, you can access Godmode9, press the Home button, access Scripts, GM9Megascript, then scripts from the Plailect's guide, and finally Clean SD card. This will remove the boot9strap setup folder. You can then manually remove the SafeB9SInstaller from your SD card in sd:/luma/payloads either directly using Godmode9, or using your ordinary file transfer method.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: The provided BAX.firm will expect the boot.firm in sd:/, as that is intentionally why it has been created. If you prefer the original way, you need to download the original BAX.firm here and move the boot.firm in your SD card to sd:/bax/.

Boot9strap with BAX patch, version 1.4

This release is inspired by @MechanicalDragon0687's work, except that it has been updated to B9S 1.4 which is way more lightweight.

This release removes support for the bootonce.firm mechanism, due to B9S's new FatFS requirements. It could still easily be implemented by making the necessary changes in /stage2/arm9/source/fatfs/ffconf.h to allow f_unlink() and adding the missing piece of code to make it work, but it would add a significant weight to B9S and could lead to future obstacles to keep this patch up-to-date with the latest B9S releases, which does not make worth it for my own use (this release).

This patch is designed to be used with BAX: If sd:/bax.firm is available, B9S will boot it and if not, it will default to sd:/boot.firm.

The provided BAX.firm file in the release and repository has been modified to load sd:/boot.firm after playing the bax file (in contrast with the original BAX.firm which loads sd:/bax/boot.firm). This allows to benefit from the latest improvements from B9S, and to continuously update Luma3DS (or any sd:/boot.firm) using the Universal Updater without ever having to think of moving files around to keep your BAX animation working.

To install on a 3DS:

• Copy the two files (boot9strap.firm and boot9strap.firm.sha) from the boot9strap-1.4.zip archive to sd:/boot9strap/
• Copy the SafeB9SInstaller.firm file to sd:/luma/payloads/
• Optional: Copy the BAX.firm to sd:/
• Optional: Copy your BAX videos to sd:/bax/ (tools for video conversion available here)
• Boot your 3DS and hold START, if promoted select SafeB9SInstaller and follow the instructions on screen
• Optional: if you have Godmode9 installed, you must have been prompted to select between SafeB9SInstaller and Godmode9 in the previous step. Once you are done with the installation, you can access Godmode9, press the Home button, access Scripts, GM9Megascript, then scripts from the Plailect's guide, and finally Clean SD card. This will remove the boot9strap setup folder. You can then manually remove the SafeB9SInstaller from your SD card in sd:/luma/payloads either directly using Godmode9, or using your ordinary file transfer method.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: The provided BAX.firm will expect the boot.firm in sd:/, as that is intentionally why it has been created. If you prefer the original way, you need to download the original BAX.firm here and move the boot.firm in your SD card to sd:/bax/.