How to install the exFat Update without updating your Switch.

Who didn’t experience it? You got yourself a Switch on an older firmware but upon inserting the SD your Switch complained that it needed an Update to support exFat formatted SDCards. Oh the misery but with all the progress currently done in the Switch Scene it was only a matter of time until something like this would’ve been possible and now we can finally install the exFat update to our Nintendo Switches without having to update our Switches and having to sacrifice being on a lower Firmware. Thank to a user called Raugo over at the spanish forum elotrolado and riyyi over at GBATemp we now have a pretty easy guide for every who has the ability to launch RCM Payloads on their Switch and can get the exFat Update file.

Before continuing to install the exFat a fair warning though. Since your Switch gets flagged online when normally downloading the exFat update Ninty could ban your Switch when updating normally since your Switch is not registered for exFat but still has the Update. This can also brick your Switch if you use the exFat update for another Firmware than the one you are currently on. But if you do a rawNAND Backup beforehand you can just recover your whole NAND if worst comes to worst. If you still want to continue then go on ahead.

All credit for this Tutorial go to Raugo and riyyi.
You need the following requirements to install the exFat Update to your Switch.
– A console with firmware version 2.0 or higher (does not work on 1.0.0)
– A Game dump with an update on it that is the same version as the console. More on this later. (tested: trimmed xci works)
– Switch encryption keys (these can’t be shared, Google ‘nswroms’ to find them)
– This zip: link
– TegraRcmGUI / TegraRcmSmash (TegraRcmGUI)
– memloader (https://switchtools.sshnuke.net/)
– HacDiskMount (https://switchtools.sshnuke.net/)

If you have all this it’s time to start installing the exFat update to our Switches ^^

step 1: Copy the contents of the sample directory of memloaderv1.zip to the root of your SD card.
step 2: Enter RCM mode using your preferred method: how-to-test-fusee-gelee.
step 3: Inject the memloader.bin payload that is located inside of memloaderv1.zip.
step 4: Select ‘ums_emmc.ini’ by navigating with the volume buttons and confirming with the power button.
step 5: open HacDiskMount as administrator and select ‘Linux UMS disk 0’:

step 6: Double click BCPKG2-1-Normal-Main and a window will pop-up:

step 7: Use the ‘Start’ button in the ‘Dump to file’ section to extract the partition.
step 8: (!) Create a backup of BCPKG2-1-Normal-Main.bin and store it somewhere safe.
step 9: Create a new directory and extract the contents of patch.zip into it.
step 10: Copy the game dump and BCPKG2-1-Normal-Main.bin to the same directory.
step 11: Create a file named keys.txt in the same directory.
step 12: Copy all of the Switch encryption keys to this file.
step 13: Inside of the directory we created, drag the game dump .xci onto the patch.bat file.
step 14: If the process executed successfully you should see something like this:
(The number of bytes can vary)
(Don’t worry about the ‘Failed to match key’ warnings)

step 15: Go back to HacDiskMount and click on ‘Browse’ in the ‘Restore from file’ section and select BCPKG2-1-Normal-Main.bin that we just patched.
step 16: Close the pop-up window and double click on BCPKG2-2-Normal-Sub.
step 17: Repeat step 15 and restore the same BCPKG2-1-Normal-Main.bin file (optional, but advised).
step 18: Hold the power button on your Switch for 15 seconds to turn it off and then boot it with an exFat SD inserted to check if the exFat update works.

Here are a few Game examples for specific Firmwares
3.0.0 – Pokken Tournament
3.0.1 – Mario Oddyssey
3.0.2 – Penny Punching Princess
4.0.1 – Bayonetta 2

The Switch scene is progressing at a pretty darn fast speed and this is the cherry on the top for all the people who rather want to stay on an older firmware but still have the full SD functionality. With Atmosphere and also Team Xecuters SX OS around the corner this can prove to be rather helpful for many people.

Source: Elotrolado (Spanish), GBATemp (English)