This is not needed, but useful if you want to boot your switch using Hekate. One reason you would want to do this is if you have switchroot on your SD card, or like having quick access to some of the tools built into Hekate.

If you do not have Hekate already, download the latest build of Hekate here, extract the bootloader folder to the root of your SD card.

Step 1. Download hekate_ipl.ini from here and place the file in your bootloader folder.

The premade hekate_ipl.ini has three boot options:

Atmosphere CFW uses the fusee-primary.bin payload to load into atmosphere. Without disabling your emuMMC (if you use it), it will always try to boot your emuMMC with the sigpatches provided in the earlier steps of this guide.

Atmosphere FSS0 SYS uses Hekate's fss0 booting to boot your sysMMC (the NAND in your switch.) This won't let you launch game dumps, or homebrew like tinfoil due to how it loads. This option should mainly be used for dumping your own games on your internal NAND if you want to install them to emu later. Or for booting your sys in CFW so you can play Nintendo Online (not recommended this way, but should be fine if nothing "dirty" is done, IE, installing game dumps.)

"Stock" SYS boots your switch in "stock" OFW mode. I consider this not true stock as you're still using atmosphere to boot your switch. Many members in the Nintendo Homebrew discord say this is safe, but you're still relying on something else to boot your clean system NAND. I strongly recommend if you want to boot stock, disable AutoRCM (if you have it enabled), and boot without a payload at all.

Or, edit your pre-existing hekate_ipl.ini to add this to the bottom. If you do not have one already just download it from Step 3.

[Atmosphere CFW]
payload=bootloader/payloads/fusee-primary.bin
icon=bootlogo.bmp

Step 2. Copy fusee-primary.bin to your SD Card in \bootloader\payloads\ (grab it from here if you don't have it.)

Step 3. Rename hekate_ctcaer_X.X.X.bin to reboot_payload.bin and paste it in the atmosphere folder. Hit yes if prompted to overwrite (this will allow you to get to the Hekate screen when you reboot your switch running CFW.)

The config I provided is preconfigured to work with using Hekate to boot CFW. If you wish to boot CFW on your sysMMC, you must disable your emuMMC in order to boot it. See the below steps for how to do this with Hekate.

You do not need to do the bottom steps unless you're wanting to boot your sysCFW instead of emuCFW. DO NOT FOLLOW THEM IF YOU DO NOT WISH/NEED TO DO THIS.

Step 1. Boot into Hekate by injecting hekate_ctcaer_X.X.X.bin as your payload.

Step 2. Select emuMMC by tapping on it.

Step 3. Select Change emuMMC by tapping on it.

Step 4. Select Disable by tapping on it.

Step 5. Close out of the Change emuMMC page and navigate back to the Home page in Hekate. You can now head over to launch and launch your sysCFW.

To re-enable your emuMMC, follow the same steps but on Step 4, tap on your SD RAW 1 partition option, or SD File based if you're using that. Then you can boot your emuCFW again.

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