Hacking The Definitive vWii Hacking Guide!

[kwall24]

With all these people having hard drive issues, I've got one of my own that I may as well ask about, because I'm stumped.
This occurs on IOS58 and 249 with USB Loader GX, and it happens whether the 1TB drive is formatted as FAT32 or WBFS, or as a 500GB partition with 500GB unallocated vs. a 1TB partition.

As long as the drive is powered off/unplugged before starting USBLoader GX, and I power it back on/plug it in during the 20 second countdown, the hard drive works fine.
If I then exit USBLoader GX and go back into it, without turning the Wii U off it will continue to work fine.

If I turn the Wii U on with the drive connected/turned on, and try going into vWii and starting USBLoader GX, it will freeze on the initialize stage. No countdown, just hangs. It spins the drive up within maybe 5 seconds, at which point I would expect it to continue loading USBLoader GX. It does not. Requires pulling the power plug on the system to reset.

So, has anybody come across this issue before and been able to solve it? It's not a huge deal if I need to just keep the drive powered off until I load USBLoader GX, but for the sake of convenience I thought I'd ask.

UNRELATED SIDE QUESTION: Do I need to make the Nintendont folder manually when setting that up, or should Nintendont be able to do it?

 

[racertj5]

With all these people having hard drive issues, I've got one of my own that I may as well ask about, because I'm stumped.
This occurs on IOS58 and 249 with USB Loader GX, and it happens whether the 1TB drive is formatted as FAT32 or WBFS, or as a 500GB partition with 500GB unallocated vs. a 1TB partition.

As long as the drive is powered off/unplugged before starting USBLoader GX, and I power it back on/plug it in during the 20 second countdown, the hard drive works fine.
If I then exit USBLoader GX and go back into it, without turning the Wii U off it will continue to work fine.

If I turn the Wii U on with the drive connected/turned on, and try going into vWii and starting USBLoader GX, it will freeze on the initialize stage. No countdown, just hangs. It spins the drive up within maybe 5 seconds, at which point I would expect it to continue loading USBLoader GX. It does not. Requires pulling the power plug on the system to reset.

So, has anybody come across this issue before and been able to solve it? It's not a huge deal if I need to just keep the drive powered off until I load USBLoader GX, but for the sake of convenience I thought I'd ask.

UNRELATED SIDE QUESTION: Do I need to make the Nintendont folder manually when setting that up, or should Nintendont be able to do it?

Set the loader ios to 58

 

[kwall24]

Set the loader ios to 58

Like I said, it happens on 58 or 249.

 

[maraxion]

that's just a little confusing.
if it's freezing in the loader, it could be an HDD issue, but you say that it works fine with other homebrew.
so if it's not a HDD issue, it shouldn't freeze inside the loader.
it could freeze while playing, because of a cIOS issue or a sleep timer value of the HDD.
well, it could be a sleep timer issue inside the loader too.

if it's seagate or Western digital, the drives come with their own program which can change the sleep timer value. set it to never go to sleep.

How come your always right Cyan?
Wel I pulled an old 80gb hitatchi drive from a laptop and put 1 game on it, and sure enogh it seems to work.

*FIXED*. So after some digging I came to something that seems like a fix for many WD disks, but not guarantee for all.
I followed this thread: https://gbatemp.net/threads/people-with-westerndigital-hdd-sleep-problem.318273/
And then found the program in the dead link here(use at own risk):
https://www.userdrivers.com/RAID-HD-Controller/WDIdleDisable-Tool-v6-for-Windows-XP-Vista-7/

The crystaldiskinfo said my disk was 60H, so below 80H.( It still says so now after I modded the disk with WDIdletool). But after use i have been able to play 2 levels of galaxy, where I before couldent start 1. So im pretty sure its fixed.

 

[Cyan]

That was the last logic possibility.
cIOS have a random (to prevent disk cache) sector access function every minute, but if your drive has sleep under 60sec then the wii can't wake it up (game is supposed to be on spinning disc, not hdd, so there's no wake up command) and the data is not accessible anymore.

though, 60h is 0x60 = 96seconds
so maybe cIOS is set to access the disk randomly every 2mins? 80h = 128sec

 

[RoyMaster4]

Is there a specific thing that would cause vWii to take much longer to load than usual? It started happening a few days ago for no apparent reason (the only thing that changed was a new home wifi, which seems unrelated). It used to load in 5 seconds and now it takes over a minute, so something is definitely wrong...

 

[Cyan]

no, I don't think of anything which could slow the load speed of the system menu, except having excessive channels installed to the console's memory.
did you install a lot of games on vWii ?
did you try without any hdd or devices plugged?

 

[RoyMaster4]

I think I fixed the slowness... unplugging my flash drive sped it up. Not sure why...

Anyways, I have another issue now. I got a new hard drive (HGST Touro Mobile 500GB, got a reccomendation to use that one) to work with this. Works on my PC flawlessly - reformatted with Bootice to FAT32 and 1 partition with MBR partition table, then used Ustealth to hide it. Plugged it into the Wii U... but the Wii U can't detect it? Nintendont crashes when I select USB, and the USB Loader GX tries to initialize but is unable to.

Am I doing something wrong? This seems pretty straightforward but for some reason it's simply not working.


EDIT: Just started working... still don't get it, but whatever, not gunna complain.

 

[s0ula55a551n]

before i go and buy a game to use the exploit. I have a hacked wii u on 5.5.2e. Will i defo need to use one of the game exploits to hack the wii part, does the browser hack just not work on 5.5.2 on the wii part ? thanks

 

[Cyan]

if you already have a way to launch WiiU homebrew in your WiiU mode, just use WUPhax to hack your vWii mode.
You don't need a game.

Maybe it's saying it doesn't work on 5.5.2? it's probably a guide update issue, it's now possible to have homebrew on 5.5.2

 

[s0ula55a551n]

I had figured as much when i re-read the guides. I have hacked my 5.5.2e so can launch homebrew. I think cause the guide is instructuing you to hack the wii u first and and hasn't mentioned that you can hack 5.5.2 now. Thanks for the clarification

 

[Daser]

Hi everyone !

I have a little prob', i install the vWii Homebrew channel (With the method 1), but when i add something (Like XYZZY, Dump Mii NAND, or something els...) in my "apps" folder who are in my SD... That doesn appear in my vWii Homebrew. :/

Is this because i use the same card SD that for the WiiU Homebrew ?
Is this because i have to create another "apps" folder just for my vWii Homebrew ?

I really dont know, if somebody can help me. :/

EDIT: Solution FIND !

It was because i have to use another "apps" folder who are in the core of my sd card, not the same that for the WiiU Homebrew channel !

 

[skarmachild]

Gunna try getting the homebrew channel on the vWii on my Wii U, since ive just gotten used to hacking the Wii U itself.

I currently have 1 Hard Drive taking up both back ports for Wii U games, can I also have another Hard Drive inserted into the front USB for Wi//GC backup storage? Would means i could fully replace my Wii with my Wii U for everything inc WiiSXR/Not64 etc...

 

[k7ra]

Gunna try getting the homebrew channel on the vWii on my Wii U, since ive just gotten used to hacking the Wii U itself.

I currently have 1 Hard Drive taking up both back ports for Wii U games, can I also have another Hard Drive inserted into the front USB for Wi//GC backup storage? Would means i could fully replace my Wii with my Wii U for everything inc WiiSXR/Not64 etc...

For vWii you need 1 Hard Drive taking up both back ports for Wi//GC backup storage (Yes, for vWii only back side) and Wii U 1 Hard Drive taking up both front ports.
So yeah, you can use both

 

[skarmachild]

For vWii you need 1 Hard Drive taking up both back ports for Wi//GC backup storage (Yes, for vWii only back side) and Wii U 1 Hard Drive taking up both front ports.
So yeah, you can use both

Thanks, currently my PSX/Sega CD ISOS share the same Hard Drive as the Wii/GC Games currently, for use on the Wii. Will the Wii U's vWii be able to use the same folder/file structure no problem and run games using WiiSXR/GenPlusGX the same way? Will try today!

 

[MattGTX]

Hello Guys!
I've already intalled the Homebrew Channel on my 5.5.2 Wii U and I have a question: Does the metod 1 works with the Wii U on 5.5.2U?

 

[k7ra]

Thanks, currently my PSX/Sega CD ISOS share the same Hard Drive as the Wii/GC Games currently, for use on the Wii. Will the Wii U's vWii be able to use the same folder/file structure no problem and run games using WiiSXR/GenPlusGX the same way? Will try today!

I really don't know what is WiiSXR/GenPlusGX thing is...
But they should have same path, bcs I use same loader that was created for wii to launch games and for GC I use nintendont that run automatically from loader shell (not remember name xD)

 

[jjh76]

Gunna try getting the homebrew channel on the vWii on my Wii U, since ive just gotten used to hacking the Wii U itself.

I currently have 1 Hard Drive taking up both back ports for Wii U games, can I also have another Hard Drive inserted into the front USB for Wi//GC backup storage? Would means i could fully replace my Wii with my Wii U for everything inc WiiSXR/Not64 etc...

Only have one usb powered hdd atm so don't know how well it will work with multiple drives, but I couldn't find a y-cable at my local stores so instead I'm using a 4-port usb hub with an external power supply. Works perfectly with my Wii U games, and as a bonus the other 3 ports on the hub can be used for charging the controller batteries for all my other systems

 

[NTOYVAS]

Hello Guys i have a question i hack in wiiu the wii and i install the ios236 the
D2x Cios and install one red homebrew channel in wii like in this video
.
Now i want to make like this in this video
all from the biginning i will have problem?
Thank you!!!

 

[kid sampson]

I was about to attempt this today but realized that the SD Card in my WiiU already has a boot.elf file at root. I can't remember what it's for though. Can I temporarily replace and then restore it to my card after completing step 1? Or is there a way to find out what the existing boot.elf is for?