Twl SystemUpdater

Some screenshots and information are from Rare Gaming Dump.

Twl SystemUpdater is a tool used to update DSi development hardware such as the IS-TWL-DEBUGGER or a panda. This does not work on retail units, causing the same -2011 error as TwlNmenu and bricking the console.

TADs in NitroFS

Twl SystemUpdater works by loading a set of firmware TADs and TWLCFG0.dat/TWLCFG1.dat from NitroFS to install onto the target hardware. The updaters are multi-region, so each one contains full sets of firmware TADs for every region. The TADs are sorted into three main folders.

NitroFS:/data/debugger/
These TADs are for the IS-TWL-DEBUGGER.
- HNAx, Home menu
- HNBx, System settings (this was removed in v1.2 of the SystemUpdater)

NitroFS:/data/standalone/
These TADs are for the DSi panda unit.
- HNAx, Home menu
- HNBx, System settings (this was removed in v1.2 of the SystemUpdater)

NitroFS:/data/common/
These are TADs that are common between both the IS-TWL-DEBUGGER and panda units.
- HNIx, Nintendo DSi Camera
- HNKx, Nintendo DSi Sound
- HNLx, Version Data
- HNCx, WiFi Firmware
- HNDx, DS Download Play
- HNEx, PictoChat
- HNHx, Nintendo DS Cart Whitelist
- NandFiler (optional install)
- TwlNmenu (optional install)

The SystemUpdater chooses whether to install from the debuggeror standalone folder based off of the RAM size. 16 MB is TWL CONSOLE (panda and IS-TWL-CAPTURE), while 32 MB is IS_TWL_DEBUGGER.
- Source: RGD

All the TAD files in NitroFS have been created with maketad_updater, a modified version of maketad. Instead of using the normal Wii development key for encryption, maketad_updater uses the debugger common key (A2FDDDF2E423574AE7ED8657B5AB19D3). As a result these TADs can't be installed with TwlNmenu and can only be decrypted with decrypt_tad.py.

Additional ".nand" file

There another file in NitroFS called menu_launcher.nand (found in NitroFS/data/common/). Judging from the menu-launcher source code in TwlIPL, this appears to be the stage2 bootloader. The .nand file has a version number at the bottom showing that it is SDK 2435, IPL 8325. This is the same as every retail DSi.

Changelog

This is from an official readme included with the Twl SystemUpdater. You can read the full version here.

Revision Date	Version	Updated Content
2010/03/04	1.4a	TwlNmenu and NandFiler were updated to the version included in TWL-SDK 5.4. ［Korean version only] DSi camera was updated. ［Korean version only] Updated version data to Ver 1.4.1K_dev. ［Chinese version only] Updated version data to Ver 1.4.1C_dev.
2009/08/17	1.4	Added support for DSi Menu version 1.4. Updated TwlNmenu and NandFiler to versions bundled with TWL-SDK 5.3. Added China and Korea to the selectable regions.
2009/06/30	1.3a	Added an option to update without installing TwlNmenu or NandFiler.
2009/04/28	1.3	Added support for DSi Menu version 1.3. Updated TwlNmenu and NandFiler to versions bundled with TWL-SDK 5.1 patch 4.
2009/01/15	1.2	Added support for DSi Menu version 1.2. Updated TwlNmenu and NandFiler to versions bundled with TWL-SDK 5.1 PR2.
2008/11/13	1.0c	DSi Camera, DSi Sound, and the TWL-SDK tools TwlNmenu and NandFiler are now all installed by default.
2008/10/08	1.0b	Added support for DSi Menu version 1.0.