11 eMMC Guide

WARNING: Advanced users only! A good SD is not far enough off from eMMC performance to warrant risking your Switch, so you better know what you are doing.

Prerequisites

• Full eMMC Backup (boot0/1 and rawnand.bin)

• (Partition Manager) PC

• (Partition Manager) hekate v6.4.0 or later

• (Manual) PC running Linux

• (Manual) GParted, gdisk

WARNINGS

• Repartitioning, resizing, and flashing your eMMC will destroy your HOS (stock Switch OS) install; you MUST have a backup if you ever intend to use HOS again (this can be achieved with hekate (Tools -> Backup eMMC -> eMMC BOOT0 & BOOT1, eMMC RAW GP)

• We recommend this to advanced users only--the gain is marginal and not worth accidentally nuking your Switch

Installation (Partition Manager)

This approach uses hekate's built-in eMMC partition manager, added in hekate v6.4.0. We recommend this solution as it is easy, robust, and officially supported.

1. Follow installation instructions up until SD partitioning step (files should be in switchroot/install and switchroot/android)

2. Adjust bootloader/android.ini from installation instructions to include emmc=1.

3. Enter hekate's eMMC partition manager by pressing and holding the "Partition SD Card "button (Tools -> Partition SD Card) for 5 seconds

4. Adjust partitions to your liking (we recommend 16GB for Android, though it should be usable with >=8GB)

5. Press Flash Android to flash the files in switchroot/install/ (the files will be erased after flash)

6. Press "Continue" to reboot into Android recovery

Installation (Manual)

This approach does not utilize hekate's built-in eMMC partition manager and is mostly here for legacy documentation and support. We recommend using the above method.

eMMC preparation (for Android and Linux alongside HOS on a larger eMMC)

1. If you have a new eMMC, install it and write back boot0/1 and the rawnand bin in hekate.

2. Under Linux mount the eMMC with hekate. Deactivate write protect!

3. Check where linux has mounted the eMMC (sdb, sdc ...)

4. Open gparted and confirm the resize from the eMMC gpt table.

5. Close gparted.

6. Open Terminal and sudo gdisk /dev/sdx (where x is your the device letter)

7. Press x=>s=>20=>v=>w=>y to enlarge the gpt table to 20 entries. (If you also want to do linux on the eMMC you have to enter 24.)

8. Open gparted again.

9. HOS has 11 partitions, Android need 9 partitions we have to create them.

10. Add the 9 partitions and set the file system as deleted.

Partition	Name	Size
Vendor	vendor	1GiB
System	APP	2GiB
Linux Kernel	LNX	32MiB
Recovery (TWRP)	SOS	64MiB
Device Tree Reference	DTB	1MiB
Encryption*	MDA	16MiB
Cache	CAC	700 MiB
Miscellaneous	MSC	3MiB
Userdata	UDA	Custom

1. If you want to add Linux, add a partition with the label of your choice (e.g.: SWR-UBU for Ubuntu Bionic) and 3 dummy partitions with 1mb unformated. In order to have 24 partitions. gdisk cannot create 21 partitions because the sector is filled automatically (multiple of 4) if there are only 21 partitions on the eMMC and not 24 Horizon does not start. The bootloader checks that and Horizon brings up a pink screen.

Flashing the eMMC

1. Using dd in terminal flash the following (replacing hekate's Flash Android step)

ANDROID 11

File	Label
boot.img	LNX
recovery.img	SOS
nx-plat.dtimg	DTB

1. For Linux, merge the install image with cat l4t.0* > ubuntu.img and dd it to SWR-UBU (replacing hekate's Flash Linux step). Refer to step 3 and 4 here for more detail.

2. Add the release files (bootfiles, ini, lineage zip, any extra zips)

3. Add emmc=1 to bootloader/ini/android.ini

4. Boot hekate -> More Configs -> Switchroot Android 11 while you press VOL +

5. In recovery, flash the lineage zip and any extra zips

WARNING: When setting up Android, under no circumstances use the sd card as a memory extension (adopted storage), otherwise it will be formatted. The FAT32 partition will be mounted regardless, so no need.