Wii U SD-card slot "The device inserted in SD cannot be used" issue, looking for inputs before soldering more.

[HelpfulHooty]

Hey everyone!
So as the topic says I am having issues with the sd card slot. vWii side regonizes the that there is a card in the slot but gives "The device inserted in SD cannot be used" and Wii U side of things "FSGetMountSource failed. Please insert a FAT32 formatted sd card" message when trying to do you-know-what.
I did try total of 4 diffrent sd cards and two micro sd card adapters and got the same errror message, which lead me to to think that there was connection problem with the pins inside the slot.

I googled for solutions and triple checked that the filesystem format was the desired fat 32 (with 16k and 32k cluster sizes) and that I had the right file in the right folder as instruted in wiiu.hacks. guide. I also used compressed air to (gently) blow away any dust etc from the card slot and did the paper-between-the-sdcard-and-slot-cleaning and used SD Card Formater and Guiformat both seperatly and in combination mentioned at this forum.

After none of the methods above did not work, I opened the console and desoldered off the metal cover thingy in top of the card slot and noticed that one of the (in lack of a better term) double pins was slightly bended in horizontal level.
I managed to straighten it a bit as show in the picture and now it seems to make a connection with the corresponding soldering point out side the reader when pressed gently down. As I coudent test the double pin connection before removing the metal shell thingy so I cant say for certain if this was the root of the problem. The double connection (both pins pressed at the same time) seems to work now as well.

I marked the bended pins in the picture (after straigtening). As for the markings on the spring mechanisim area, I was wondering is the rail mechanism in state of fubar or shoud it hold just enough for hacking prosess purpose a.k.a insert the sd card once and never ever again remove it ? The number marking are for to clarify where that really small metal (?) rod shoud go?

My third question is shoud the slot pins be at same height horisozontaly wise when looking in to the slot? This is kinda hard for me to explain clearly so here's picture.

One more question I have is there a way to check with multimeter if sd card makes connection with the slot before re-soldering the metal shell thingy back on?

And yes I know there is quite a bit of fluxgrease and/or residue everywhere, but I'll rinse them off with IPA when Ill start to put console back together.

I can provide more pictures from diffrent angles and such if needed.

Thanks for your inputs in advance!

There is simlar themed topic in the forum named " faulty SD slot in a wiiU" (and to be honest a ton of others) but they didnt provide quite answers I am looking for.

E: typos and stuff

 

[jeannotte]

several questions that can be asked

I would be in your place, I would straighten all the brooches to the same height (see the second image).

when you insert the SD in the reader, there is a small click which maintains the SD in the reader, does it work??

and when you remove the SD from the player, you have to press the SD to release the SD, does it work?

 

[HelpfulHooty]

Sorry for the long response time, there were midsummer festivities during last week so I was afk for few days.

As for your questions, yes there was a click and the press-release mechanism worked too before I removed the metal cover of the slot. After removing the cover the small plastic pin that holds the spring in place at the upper end of the mechanism chipped off along with small piece of plastic of the card slot frame. This can be seen in the first picture, down right corner of the slot.

I have a pretty strong hunch that it was kinda sorta broken to begin with and the heat from soldering off the cover gave it the final blow. It's either that or I broke it with my shitty 12€ soldering iron.

Whatever the case may be, I ordered couple used sd card slots from Zedlabz and was planning to take those with the Wii U to a local phone repair shop to get soldered in.

I probably could get away with the de-soldering part but I'm bit sceptical of my chances of re-soldering the 'new' slot back on.
I feel it will be much easier job to do with proper tools such as heat blower and decent soldering iron that the repair shop most likely will have.

However I'm wondering if one could solder any (from some completely different device such as old camera or so) sd card slot on to board or does it need to be specificly OEM-part? Is there some DRM thing or whatnot preventing this?

I'm also wondering if one could kinda bypass the damn thing all together and replace it with external storage option? Would you need a pcb with some extra components (let's say for an example Rasberry Pico?) to do that or could you do it with wires?

I'm currently looking to buy new soldering station, so I can do bit more demanding soldering projects. If anyone has any opinions or insights regarding what would be a decent bang-for-buck soldering station (not Hakko, too expensive), please do tell me

 

[V10lator]

However I'm wondering if one could solder any (from some completely different device such as old camera or so) sd card slot on to board or does it need to be specificly OEM-part?

As long as it fits (solder points at the correct locations and stuff) it should work but better to measure the slot to make sure there is no crossover path hidden.

I'm also wondering if one could kinda bypass the damn thing all together and replace it with external storage option?

This would need a device emulating a SD card. A RPI Pico might be able to do that but to my knowledge no such code exists yet, so this is highly theoretical.
Another thing which might or might not work is to misuse the SD bus of the Wii U as SPI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Peripheral_Interface ). SD cards need to be backward compatible to SPI but I have no idea if Nintendo implemented this software-side. Also it will be slow as SPI is slow.

 

[HelpfulHooty]

As long as it fits (solder points at the correct locations and stuff) it should work but better to measure the slot to make sure there is no crossover path hidden.

Thanks! This is good to know for future reference. I expected it to be as much but it's allways good to get confirmation.

This would need a device emulating a SD card. A RPI Pico might be able to do that but to my knowledge no such code exists yet, so this is highly theoretical.

I have couple software engineer friends that might have some insights or ideas regarding the code part. Who knows if one of them would be interested to look into it, if for nothing else but for the challenge. But I'll let everyone know if it turns into something more concrete.

 

[V10lator]

I have couple software engineer friends that might have some insights or ideas regarding the code part.

IIRC the RPI Pico has so called PIO (programmable I/O) pins. These can be used for the craziest tasks (there are already codes to add a SD card reader or a second USB port, for example).
This is pretty low-level programming through.

See also https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-examples#PIO (but note that this are not all examples which exist, just the ones from the manufacturer. Like here's USB via PIO: https://github.com/sekigon-gonnoc/Pico-PIO-USB ).

 

[HelpfulHooty]

IIRC the RPI Pico has so called PIO (programmable I/O) pins. These can be used for the craziest tasks (there are already codes to add a SD card reader or a second USB port, for example).
This is pretty low-level programming through.

Allright, good info again. Thanks!