Hardware USB Loader GX stopped working.

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Hi, my daughter was playing very fine from USB yesterday.
Today I only get this error: An error has occured. Press the eject button, remove the game disc, and turn off the power to the console. Please read the Wii operations manual for further instructios.
I can play gamecube disks through nintendont, homebrews are working fine, but I can't run any Wii games or channels.
The only thing I could see different is that the Wii's DVD drive is not working anymore.
It seems totally dead!! No light turning on, no motor noise, nothing.
I have read some threads and some suggests that USB Loader needs the DVD drive to run, others say it don't. What is the truth?
If USB Loader really needs the drive, is there a way to make it don't need it?
I have seem some tutorials that are very confusing.
Can anyone please help?

 

[Cyan]

did you try to insert a disc in the drive?
it doesn't work at all ? (not grabbing and inserting the disc), or it can still insert/eject it?
are there a disc stuck inside and you can't eject it?

I think the console need the disc drive to work, the cIOs is redirecting disc access to USB, so without a disc it can't redirect anything because there's no disc access possible.


the error you described is not necessarily a disc issue, it could be because you enabled "EmuNAND Save" to full, without having a full nand dump.
start verifying that option.
Settings>loader settings>emuNAND save
set to disable.

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Yes, the drive is tottally dead. I don't pull any disks I try to put in.
If I insist, the disk ge stuck and it's difficult to remove.
Emunand saves are set to no. If I try to change it tells me that emunands save are for Cios D2X.
Does that means that I don't have this Cios?

Edit: Tried install the cIOS, no deal! I even tried postloader and nothing either :-(

 

[Cyan]

sorry then
I guess you will need a new drive, or a new wii (shouldn't be expansive or hard to find now).

Maybe you could try something else : Sneek
Neek2o has a disc emulation and can mount wbfs games.

If you never setup neek, I just wrote a tutorial.
https://gbatemp.net/posts/5884793
I hope it's easy to follow.

once you have neek installed, you need to create an emuNAND on your USB first fat32 partition.
usbgx settings, change the path in the user setting menu :
settings>user paths>EmuNAND Channel folder
usb:/nands/my wii NAND copy/
or
usb:/nands/nand1/
etc.

then,
settings>features>dump NAND

then, launch neek
settings>features>launch neek.
wait a little, it can take few seconds to load.

It should load into the system menu.
but it's not the real one, it's a redirected NAND to usb.
press 1 on wiimote to open a hidden menu, you should see the games, select one to mount it on the Disc channel.

launch the disc channel to test if it works without the drive.


if it doesn't work, then you will have to buy a new wii.

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Nice tutorial. Seems to be the way to go!
Could you please help me with the links of the files?
I can't find crediar's neek installer, neek2o and have some doubts if I got the right neek and font.bin.

 

[Cyan]

neek
https://code.google.com/p/sneek/downloads/list
download the installer and font.bin

neek2o
https://code.google.com/p/custom-di/downloads/list
download r96

NUSD (only if the "IOS download" is not working in neek installer)
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/NUS_Downloader

you can also use Modmii to generate the neek files (look one post above the tutorial I linked)

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

I have done as said on the tutorial, but got a neek kernel loading failed.
What could I have done wrong?
Should I put the USB folder and Data folder inside the sneek folder on my HDD?

Edit:
I got these files:

Spoiler

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek

26/12/2015 15:59 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 15:59 <DIR> ..
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> data
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> sd
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> usb
0 arquivo(s) 0 bytes

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek\data

26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> ..
26/12/2015 16:01 168.920 0000000e.app
26/12/2015 16:10 168.920 0000000E_patched.app
25/07/2011 11:43 43.293 armboot.bin
25/07/2011 11:43 42.045 armboot.elf
25/07/2011 11:43 32.593 armboot.elf.map
26/07/2012 07:33 54.812 dimodule.elf
26/07/2012 07:33 31.029 dimodule.map
27/07/2012 03:00 36.446 esmodule.map
27/07/2012 01:19 28.788 fsmodule-sd.elf
27/07/2012 01:19 17.988 fsmodule-sd.map
27/07/2012 01:21 54.410 fsmodule-usb.elf
27/07/2012 01:21 32.417 fsmodule-usb.map
12 arquivo(s) 711.661 bytes

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek\sd

26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> ..
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> bootmii
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> sneek
0 arquivo(s) 0 bytes

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek\sd\bootmii

26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> ..
25/07/2011 11:43 43.293 armboot.bin
1 arquivo(s) 43.293 bytes

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek\sd\sneek

26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> ..
26/12/2015 16:10 222.096 kernel.bin
1 arquivo(s) 222.096 bytes

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek\usb

26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> ..
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> sneek
0 arquivo(s) 0 bytes

Pasta de C:\Users\Fisher\Downloads\wii DVD\neek\usb\sneek

26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> .
26/12/2015 16:10 <DIR> ..
26/12/2015 16:10 34.788 di.bin
26/12/2015 16:10 222.096 kernel.bin
2 arquivo(s) 256.884 bytes

 

[Cyan]

you used r194 instead of r96 ?
the .map files are from Sneek, not from Neek2o (and you don't need to copy the map files)

So you probably didn't use the correct neek version.
you need to follow the "neek2o" step (the "4 ter"). not step 4 or step 4 bis.

you need these files in the data folder:
0000000e.app
armboot.bin
dimodule-sd.elf
dimodule-usb.elf
esmodule-sdon.elf
esmodule.elf
fsmodule-sd.elf
fsmodule-usb.elf

rename the file
dimodule-usb.elf
to
dimodule.elf


launch Sneek installer, select "USB + Di"
click install Sneek button.


Finally, copy font.bin and the kernel.bin located in your "usb" folder to USB:/sneek/kernel.bin

be sure your EmuNAND is on USB, first partition, FAT32, 32k/cluster, primary partition (not GPT or Extended or Logical)

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Where should the data folder be?
On usb:/sneek/data ?

 

[Cyan]

nowhere.

the data is the place where you place the neek file to be used to generate Sneek/uneek/neek2o.
these files are not used by the console, but by the installer to generate the "kernel.bin" file that the console needs.

What you need is only the "kernel.bin" and font.bin files.
oh and di.bin (sorry, I forgot to tell you that, but in the tutorial I said to copy the entire folder, so the di.bin is inside)
That' all.


the content of usb, goes to USB root. (copy the ENTIRE /sneek/ folder located inside your usb folder to your USB root) : USB:/sneek/
the content of sd, goes to SD root.


maybe I should change the tutorial and rename "usb" to "COPY_TO_USB" like modmii?
or just use modmii tutorial, it will do everything for you.

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Tried again. This time I used the check sneek install button. it says kernel.bin and di.bin have incorrect sizes... weird!!

 

[Cyan]

that's fine if incorrect size.
the installer expect sneek files, but it just build neek2o (which is not official, it's a different version) so it doesn't have the correct size.

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Made it, but just got a black screen... :-(
Do you know somewhere I can get hardware information on wii's DVD drive?
I would like to at least know how it is powered up, you know, the voltages on the power cable...

 

[Cyan]

sorry, I don't know hardware details.
wiibrew.org is probably the best place to find informations, but I don't know if it has this kind of information.

 

[Fisher Vargas de Moraes]

Anyway, thanks for your help!! I'll post if I figure out something else.

Edit: Found a nice power connector pinout:
http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu4/Ashen12345/Wii DVD-WODE-Wiikey to GC Guide/1.png
Since the drive seems dead, I think I should start by looking at these tensions first!
Hope this can help someone else!!