Hacking Want to rip/play Wii backups, but I'm confused

[boomerang42]

Please forgive my being stupid/paranoid here. I have almost everything I want working right on my Wii and at this point I really don't want to risk things getting messed up.

I already have a softmodded Wii but no usb loaders or cIOS stuff. After looking around it seems like modmii is what I should use.

I'm having trouble with getting modmii to do only what I want it to do though. I don't want to reinstall everything, just add what's needed to rip and run wii games through the homebrew channel.

So I choose "no" for the first time option and check "USB Loader" and "Reccommended cIOSs" (because that's needed for USB loaders, I believe). I left everything else unchecked.

This is where I'm getting confused:

I'm a bit paranoid about bricking, so I want to do the absolute least amount of modifications possible. I don't want or need a forwarder on the system menu as I have the Wii boot to the homebrew channel, so I almost never see the system menu. And I have heard that installing forwarders (and VC stuff) are the most likely things to brick a Wii.

I'm confused because the guide that modmii brings up mentions Multi-Mod Manager and IOS236. Are these necessary in order install cIOSes and USB loaders? I have no idea if IOS236 is installed or not.

Plus the guide says this forwarder channel will be installed: USBLoader(s)-ahbprot58-SD-USB-v11b-IDCL. I didn't see an option not to install a forwarder, and I didn't tell it to install a forwarder. I'm very reluctant to install something I know I won't use as (even though it's probably a small chance for bricking, it's still one more thing that can potentially go wrong) .

Background:
I softmodded my 4.3u Wii about two years ago, so I'm a bit rusty with this stuff. I installed bootmii and priiloader and backed up the nand back then. But I held off on cIOSes and USB loaders because that sounded much more likely to be able to brick a Wii.

 

[GreyWolf]

That forwarder is optional. It just tries to load any of the standard USB loaders in order until it finds one.

If you want to rip discs you can just use CleanRip 2.0. As for a cIOS, you will need one to boot your ripped Wii games. I would recommend installing d2x at least v8 if not v10-beta in IOS 249/250. There is an option in ModMii to build those.

 

[DaMan4169]

The only real chance of bricking when following a Modmii guide comes from losing power during an overwrite of either the System Menu or its IOS (IOS80 for 4.3). I've personally modded 7 Wiis with it and haven't lost one yet... (one was my secondary Wii within 24 hours of purchase).
If you did use another guide to mod then maybe consider doing the complete Modmii guide.

But back to your questions,

I don't remember if MMM can install w/o a patched IOS but I want to say no. (IOS236 is a patched IOS36 in slot 236)
WiiMod can use an official IOS58 but it has other options (like region changing) that can brick a Wii (It does warn you if you are about to do something stupid). WiiMod was made to be an AIO modding program so it has advanced options.

So best thing would be to just go back to Modmii and this time check the IOS236 box along with the recommended cIOS box. And then follow the newly created guide.
While the forwarder in Modmii is tested and won't brick your Wii, if you don't want it then either just delete the USBLoader(s)-ahbprot58-SD-USB-v12-IDCL.wad when transferring files to your SD or don't mark it for installation when in MMM. There is no way to not build it with the guide, but it is your Wii and you don't have to install it or even keep it on your SD. However, it does provide another way to load homebrew if something happens to your HBC.


The greatest brick risks are the SM and its IOS. Either not having the correct functioning IOS for your SM, using a corrupt SM wad, or deleting the SM or its IOS (IOS60 for 4.0/4.1, IOS70 for 4.2 and IOS80 for 4.3) will brick your Wii.
Installing themes is another big one. They have to be made for your SM version and region. (Theme bricks can be fixed if Priiloader or Bootmii as boot2 is installed) Installing a 3.2 theme on a 4.3 SM is bad but fixable.
And yes, installing channels. But this is mostly from making your own channel with the wrong size banner, and is easily fixed with ability to launch HBC. (You stated you have Priiloader installed so that would be enough even if you didn't autoboot HBC)

The cIOSs used by USB loaders and IOS236 have nothing to do with your Wii booting. So even if you install bad wads into those higher than 200 slots, only bad thing that can happen is homebrew not working.


Hope that answers your questions and clears up some concerns about bricking your Wii.

 

[boomerang42]

Thank you very much. That clears up a lot of things. And now that I understand more of how some things work I can make better decisions about what to mess with or not.

With usb loaders now working, I think about the major thing I might be interested in that I haven't looked into yet is emunand. Have to check that out sometime when I'm feeling ambitious.

However, it does provide another way to load homebrew if something happens to your HBC.

That would only happen if you did something that directly affects the HBC, correct? (which I don't do as I don't care about themes)

 

[GreyWolf]

That would only happen if you did something that directly affects the HBC, correct? (which I don't do as I don't care about themes)

The system menu brick he was referring to was if you install a channel that has a bad banner it can also brick your Wii because the system menu crashes while it's loading. If you get banner bricked you can't launch the homebrew channel without bootmii or at least priiloader installed because you never make it to the channel layout to launch the HBC.

 

[DaMan4169]

Having the USB loader channel as another homebrew launcher is good if someone deletes the HBC, either in channel management or using a homebrew app like Any Title Deleter.
It was also nice to have when 4.2 and 4.3 released to delete HAXX and JODI before HBC channel ID got switched again. Nintendo won't be releasing a new Wii SM so that's not a concern anymore.

I personally use Priiloader to autoboot/return to my USB loader channel on my kid friendly Wii. As long as my Wii drive is plugged in that's all kids see when they turn it on. GX loads, they pick a game, when done playing if the choose to exit to SM it will return to GX. Or if they are really done playing they just turn it off.
I don't leave a SD card in there and GX and WiiMC are the only apps in the USB's apps folder. Without the drive, it gets stuck in an infinite bootloop (have to goto Priiloader to just boot SM or change the autoboot/return options).
My older niece or my sisters know how to load Wiimc from within GX or exit GX to HBC to load it.
WiiMC can stream my movies (located on network drive) over SMB or FTP.

 

[boomerang42]

I use WiiMC+ a lot myself. Never used it for streaming from a PC though. Would that by any chance allow it to play videos beyond 480p, because the PC would be doing all the thinking/decoding instead of the Wii? (I'm guessing no, and that the Wii just receives the streamed file and decodes it itself. But I certainly wouldn't mind being wrong about that.)

It was also nice to have when 4.2 and 4.3 released to delete HAXX and JODI before HBC channel ID got switched again.

So JODI isn't the current HBC channel ID. No wonder I couldn't get CFG USB loader mod to return to the HBC after I exit a Wii game. What is the current HBC channel ID?

I was surprised that there doesn't seem to be very much information about channel IDs at all, when I found out that you need to know them in order to tell CFG USB loader mod where to go when you leave a game.

 

[DaMan4169]

The Wii can only output 480p, WiiMC can use a 720p video but has to downscale it. I have a lot of XVID movies from when I had my original XBOX modded and just continued with XVIDs. I've been getting more HD stuff lately and will probably end up with x265 to save space.

No Jodi isn't the current one and I believe it has been changed twice now.

 

[GreyWolf]

I think the current HBC's title ID is LULZ.