You know the drill—someone managed to screw something up while upgrading or downgrading the System Menu or applying an update. He makes a frantic plea on the board looking to see if there's anything he can do with a Wii that no longer has a System Menu. Inevitably someone will come along and say "hay did u try savemiifree press all 4 buttons on the dpad of ur gcn controller." Then the convo will go along and perhaps end up with some guy investing in a SaveMii or result in a GCN controller's D-Pad being offered as a sacrifice to the angry Nintendo gods in an attempt to revitalize his console.
But guess what? Most of the time the recovery menu won't do diddly-squat for you. In order for it to be worth anything the following conditions must be met:
-The recovery menu is a part of the System Menu and therefore the System Menu MUST be present. If you've deleted it, you're not saving anything for frii unless you have BootMii/boot2. If you are banner bricked, theme bricked, or have Error 003, the recovery menu IS accessible. Whether or not that helps you at all depends on the next few factors.
-The System Menu's IOS must be present and functional. If it's gone or replaced by a stub then the menu can't boot up, simple as that.
-You must have a hack in place that disables the diagnostic disc check or no game disc will autoboot, regardless of whether it's legit or burnt. Some modchips can also force a disc to autoboot from the recovery menu, but I don't know all the details about that. Use Preloader or StartPatch to disable the diagnostic disc check.
-The System Menu's IOS must have the trucha bug if you're going to try booting modified discs (i.e. Wad Manager disc) from it.
-If you plan to autoboot into a game with a hacked save file (i.e. Indiana Pwns or the Twilight Hack) and run homebrew from there, said save has to already be installed to the console.
-Finally, it's a lot easier to get into the menu if you apply one of the Preloader/StartPatch hacks to remap the recovery menu call. That way you won't have to gut out your GCN's D-Pad to be able to press all four directions at once.
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Okay, now you're all set up to use the recovery menu! But what is it actually good for? The simple answer is "not much." If you're still kicking around on 3.2 you can autoboot into Zelda TP and launch Wad Manager from the TP hack to resolve semi-bricks. The same can be done with Lego Indiana Jones and the Indiana Pwns hack on any non-japanese firmware.
USA users can also attempt to launch SSBB and run recovery tools from Smash Stack. This method has the added bonus of not requiring a hacked savegame to run since it exploits a vulnerability in Brawl's stage builder. However, the USA version of Brawl will NOT autoboot without first disabling the diagnostic disc check via Preloader or StartPatch.
The thing is, the same tasks are far easier to accomplish with Preloader. And since the conditions for being able to use Preloader and the recovery menu are more or less the same, there's not much point to wasting a DVD-R on Wad Manager or something except in specific circumstances where Preloader might be deleted but the recovery menu remains accessible and functional. But Preloader, much like the Recovery Menu, will only work if you've installed it and set it up BEFORE you brick yourself. If there's one thing I'm trying to teach with this guide, it's that preparation is the key to surviving a brick.
Frankly, I find that the most useful feature of the recovery menu is being able to autoboot directly into Brawl without needing a Wiimote to navigate the System Menu. But since I load everything from USB nowadays that's also become more or less a moot point. If it were able to autoboot GCN games then I'd really love it since it would eliminate the need for a Wiimote to get them started.
Hopefully you all have found this guide useful in discovering how not-useful the recovery menu is. Now stop suggesting its use in situations where it won't do jack, okay? Thanks.
But guess what? Most of the time the recovery menu won't do diddly-squat for you. In order for it to be worth anything the following conditions must be met:
-The recovery menu is a part of the System Menu and therefore the System Menu MUST be present. If you've deleted it, you're not saving anything for frii unless you have BootMii/boot2. If you are banner bricked, theme bricked, or have Error 003, the recovery menu IS accessible. Whether or not that helps you at all depends on the next few factors.
-The System Menu's IOS must be present and functional. If it's gone or replaced by a stub then the menu can't boot up, simple as that.
-You must have a hack in place that disables the diagnostic disc check or no game disc will autoboot, regardless of whether it's legit or burnt. Some modchips can also force a disc to autoboot from the recovery menu, but I don't know all the details about that. Use Preloader or StartPatch to disable the diagnostic disc check.
-The System Menu's IOS must have the trucha bug if you're going to try booting modified discs (i.e. Wad Manager disc) from it.
-If you plan to autoboot into a game with a hacked save file (i.e. Indiana Pwns or the Twilight Hack) and run homebrew from there, said save has to already be installed to the console.
-Finally, it's a lot easier to get into the menu if you apply one of the Preloader/StartPatch hacks to remap the recovery menu call. That way you won't have to gut out your GCN's D-Pad to be able to press all four directions at once.
----------------------------------------------------
Okay, now you're all set up to use the recovery menu! But what is it actually good for? The simple answer is "not much." If you're still kicking around on 3.2 you can autoboot into Zelda TP and launch Wad Manager from the TP hack to resolve semi-bricks. The same can be done with Lego Indiana Jones and the Indiana Pwns hack on any non-japanese firmware.
USA users can also attempt to launch SSBB and run recovery tools from Smash Stack. This method has the added bonus of not requiring a hacked savegame to run since it exploits a vulnerability in Brawl's stage builder. However, the USA version of Brawl will NOT autoboot without first disabling the diagnostic disc check via Preloader or StartPatch.
The thing is, the same tasks are far easier to accomplish with Preloader. And since the conditions for being able to use Preloader and the recovery menu are more or less the same, there's not much point to wasting a DVD-R on Wad Manager or something except in specific circumstances where Preloader might be deleted but the recovery menu remains accessible and functional. But Preloader, much like the Recovery Menu, will only work if you've installed it and set it up BEFORE you brick yourself. If there's one thing I'm trying to teach with this guide, it's that preparation is the key to surviving a brick.
Frankly, I find that the most useful feature of the recovery menu is being able to autoboot directly into Brawl without needing a Wiimote to navigate the System Menu. But since I load everything from USB nowadays that's also become more or less a moot point. If it were able to autoboot GCN games then I'd really love it since it would eliminate the need for a Wiimote to get them started.
Hopefully you all have found this guide useful in discovering how not-useful the recovery menu is. Now stop suggesting its use in situations where it won't do jack, okay? Thanks.
