Help: Installing CFW on a used Wii U

[Scruber64]

Hello folks, first time posting here.

Sorry if this has been posted a million times already but I just couldn't find specific answers for my questions.

Bought a Wii U yesterday. And I'm thinking of installing a CFW on it. Nothing too fancy, an easy and safe CFW for playing backups and emulators.
It's on version 5.5.1E (Europe).

Here's the problems:
I don't know which CFW should I use.
The previous owner has a compatible DS game (How Old Is Your Brain) installed on it, I can't check if it's downloaded from eShop because outdated firmware.
Install Haxchi?
Or should I update to latest firmware (5.5.5E) and install Tiramisu or Aroma (I don't know which is better).

It's stated that a 64GB sd card is required, my console has 32GB. Is it okay if my sd card can only store 60GB on it (that's what it shows on my phone)? Does the Wii U need it after hacking? Should I buy a standalone sd card just for the Wii U?

Please, any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[a_username_that_isnt_cool]

Tiramisu AND aroma.
64GB sd cards are not required, they are recommended. I use an 8GB SD Card. Haxchi is outdated and not recommended.
use this: wiiu.hacks.guide

 

[AmandaRose]

Tiramisu AND aroma.
64GB sd cards are not required, they are recommended. I use an 8GB SD Card. Haxchi is outdated and not recommended.
use this: wiiu.hacks.guide

64 GB SD card is required to do the essential part of doing a nand backup of the 32gb Wiiu.

Absolutely everyone who hacks a WiiU should do a nand backup incase something gets fucked up along the way.

 

[a_username_that_isnt_cool]

64 GB SD card is required to do the essential part of doing a nand backup of the 32gb Wiiu.

Absolutely everyone who hacks a WiiU should do a nand backup incase something gets fucked up along the way.

Oh right. I forgot (I haven't done a NAND backup in a while)

 

[fringle]

64 GB SD card is required to do the essential part of doing a nand backup of the 32gb Wiiu.

Absolutely everyone who hacks a WiiU should do a nand backup incase something gets fucked up along the way.

Not sure how true this is. I just installed CFW on my 32gb model and used a 32gb card for a full nand backup. Didn't get any errors and the backup is 29.5gb when I check. I'm gonna check the integrity just to be sure it's good to go.

 

[Ettino]

Yeah, it has the old Haxchi on it. Does it auto boot into cfw or do you have to manually do it? If it's auto boot then it's CBHC.

Anyway, just go here: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/#/ and do some reading. Then read some more if you've never modded wii u before. This will walk you through all the SD card preps and installation for Tiramisu. Including how to uninstall old cfw, do the back up etc. Also I would update to 5.5.5 E before intall Tiamisu too.

For the sd card size, 64gb is only if you want to back up all the Nand data (which you should). You can get away with a smaller card for now as you will have the option to select what you want to back up. You can always do a full back up later. The sd card must be in the console all the time after the mod, otherwise it's just a normal console.

For Aroma, I would say familiarize yourself with Tiramisu first. So, you'll know your way around, like installing apps & games etc. For Aroma: https://aroma.foryour.cafe/

 

[Scruber64]

@Ettino
Thank you so much, your comment was very helpful.
Also do you recommend an external SSD through USB or a normal sd card for the frontal slot on the console will suffice? Does removing it cause console brick?
After backing up the NAND, do you leave the backup in there?

 

[AmandaRose]

Not sure how true this is. I just installed CFW on my 32gb model and used a 32gb card for a full nand backup. Didn't get any errors and the backup is 29.5gb when I check. I'm gonna check the integrity just to be sure it's good to go.

My statement isvery true and has been discussed on this site many a time. Anyhoo a WiiU nand backup of a 32gb WiiU model is exactly 32gb. A 32gb sd card is never 32gb it actually comes in about 29gb. Thus a full nand backup ain't gonna fit on it.

https://www.picstop.co.uk/news/why-do-memory-cards-have-less-space-than-advertised.html

Also look at this. Now do you see why a nand backup of a 32gb model won't fit on a 32gb sdcard?

 

[Ettino]

Also do you recommend an external SSD through USB or a normal sd card for the frontal slot on the console will suffice? Does removing it cause console brick?
After backing up the NAND, do you leave the backup in there?

Get an external storage, SSD or HDD. You can't play wii u games from the sd card (well you could, but it's obsoleted now).
SD card is good for emulator, retroarch stuff, GC games etc. It won't brick the console if you remove it, the console would just boot as normal just no cfw.

For the nand back up, the full size is 32gb. So, copy it to pc/mac and keep it safe. Then you can delete it from the sd card. You'll see a handful of bin files, SLC, OTP, seeprom etc (and MLC if you do a full back up which will take awhile).

Lastly use this app Nusspli: https://gbatemp.net/threads/nusspli...nintendo-update-servers-to-your-wii-u.566055/ for the games.

 

[fringle]

My statement isvery true and has been discussed on this site many a time. Anyhoo a WiiU nand backup of a 32gb WiiU model is exactly 32gb. A 32gb sd card is never 32gb it actually comes in about 29gb. Thus a full nand backup ain't gonna fit on it.

https://www.picstop.co.uk/news/why-do-memory-cards-have-less-space-than-advertised.html

Also look at this. Now do you see why a nand backup of a 32gb model won't fit on a 32gb sdcard?

View attachment 383353

Must have worked for me since I used recovery menu to dump the nand there for the 32gb sd card was pretty much empty.

 

[a_username_that_isnt_cool]

Must have worked for me since I used recovery menu to dump the nand there for the 32gb sd card was pretty much empty.

Nope.

 

[fringle]

Nope.

Well it worked for me with a 32gb sd card using the recovery menu so I really don't know what to tell any of you. I did a full nand backup and when I copied the files to my pc I get a complete folder size with all the files of 29.5gb. I joined all the mlc files and the resultant file is 31,205,621,760 bytes.

 

[Hayato213]

Suggesting to use a 32GB card to do a Nand backup for a 32GB Wii U is bad if you ran out of space, that why people would recommend a 64GB card.

 

[SDIO]

My statement isvery true and has been discussed on this site many a time. Anyhoo a WiiU nand backup of a 32gb WiiU model is exactly 32gb.

No it isn't. The eMMC also doesn't have the full 32GiB. But you will get an extra 2x528MiB for the SLCs. Also a few kb for otp and seeprom.
There are sdcards which a slightly larger than the eMMC. Still doubt that they can fit everything.

Well it worked for me with a 32gb sd card using the recovery menu so I really don't know what to tell any of you.

THe recovery menu accesses the MLC through FSA, FSA doesn't expose the full size of the eMMC, as it only uses predefined size, which is a little bit smaller then the eMMC chips. So there is a little space saved. Also the slc backup doesn't contain the RAS information and therefore is only 512Mib. The recovery leaves out the slcmtp for the vWii. So it could barely fit on a big 32GB sdcard.