[alex.ap.pacman]

Hey friends at GBAtemp - I need your help restoring my old bricked Wii,

I made a video showing what happened and what I am able to actually do with it, maybe then you can tell me how I can possibly restore it?

Edited by alex.ap.pacman, 04 February 2012 - 05:37 AM.

[bradzx]

Have you try format your system?

[alex.ap.pacman]

bradzx, on 04 February 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

Have you try format your system?

yes. thats what got me here..

[DeadlyFoez]

bradzx, on 04 February 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

Have you try format your system?

very very bad advice. Who knows what could go wrong if he were to do that.

First, try using bannerbomb v2 to see if you can get it to launch the hackmii installer. Report back and tell us what happened.

[damysteryman]

OK, just watched the video, and it looks like it is a semi-brick (these are most likely caused by changing the region settings to ones that your region of system menu does not support... did you ever try region-changing at one point?). This should be easily fixable these days.

bradzx, on 04 February 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

Have you try format your system?

Never, EVER, format a semi-bricked system, or else this will turn it into a full brick (the "Opera brick"). The "Format Wii System Memory" feature is actually pretty useless, and quite nasty to Wiis that have been modded or bricked in any way... just thought I would let you know. Not to mention that the format option is not even accesible due to settings being inaccessible.

Here is the main plan:
1. Use exploit to run The Hackmii Installer
2. Use The Hackmii Installer to install Bootmii and The HomeBrew Channel
3. (optional, but definitely recommended) Use BootMii to make a NAND memory backup (that way we have at least a backup from this wii we can fall back on should things actually get worse... just a failsafe really, better than nothing)
4. Use The Homebrew Channel to run AnyRegion Changer
5. Use AnyRegion Changer to change your Wii's region settings so that they do not conflict with your currently installed System Menu's region.

Here we go:
1. OK, there are a few ways we may need to do this, depending on your System Menu's version. Based on what I have seen in the video, it could be 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, or even 4.3. We can use the bannerBomb exploit to hack into 4.0-4.2, but not 4.3. For 4.3, we could use the LetterBomb exploit, but that one works on ONLY 4.3. So, since we do not know for sure which version it is, for now try to use BannerBomb to load The Hackmii Installer. Try putting BannerBomb v1 on your SD card as per its instructions found on the download page, and then grab The Hackmii Installer, and take the boot.elf from there, and put it on the root of your SD card. After that is setup, put the SD card in the Wii, go to Wii Options -> Data Management -> Channels, then select the SD Card tab. BannerBomb should appear, and ask if you want to load boot.dol/elf. Load it, and The Hackmii Installer should load up.

If BannerBomb does not load up, then you could be on System Menu 4.2 or 4.3. In that case, use BannerBomb v2 instead of v1, and this time, go to the SD Card menu instead of Channel data management, and it should load up. Should that also fail (with "Error 004"), then you would most likely have 4.3, and would need to use LetterBomb, but LetterBomb requires knowing your Wii's MAC Address, which you currently have no access to... for the meantime try using BannerBomb and reply back here with the results (hopefully you get The Hackmii Installer loaded up though).
2. Once The Hackmii Installer is loaded, use it to install bootmii (as Boot2 and IOS possible, but as IOS if not possible for Boot2 version install), and The Homebrew Channel. Installer is pretty self-expanatory.

3. Once it finishes installing The Homebrew Channel, it should load it up once you exit the installer.Once there, hit the HOME button to bring up HBC's main menu, and use it to load BootMii. Then use BootMii to make a NAND Backup to your SD card (make sure you have about 528MB of free space on it). You said in the video that you made a backup of another Wii, implying that you already know how to do that, so I will not explain that here.

4. Now after you have a NAND backup for this Wii as a failsafe, grab AnyRegion Changer and take the .dol from there, and put it in and rename it to SD:\apps\ARC\boot.dol. Then just load up HBC, put in the SD, and load up ARC.

5. Once you have loaded ARC and gotten to the main menu with all the options to change, just tell us which settings you currently have, or just give us a screenshot of said menu, that way I can see what is wrong so I can tell you which settings then need to be changed...

EDIT: ninja'd to a degree by DeadlyFoez

Edited by damysteryman, 04 February 2012 - 07:18 AM.

[alex.ap.pacman]

Thanks Guys, This may take a bit to do considering I dont have an SD card reader - ALSO JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS - I HAVE ANOTHER WII THAT I AM USING THAT I HAVEN'T BRICKED - THIS ONE IS JUST MY PERSONAL ONE THAT I DID END UP BRICKING.

At any rate - Thank you all your help is appreciated greatly - I will keep this thread active as I will report back when I get the chance to do the steps. using an SD card reader

[Wever]

Well...if you have a working wii, you can use that as a large SD card reader: copy the stuff from bannerbomb on the USB drive on your working wii, use wiixplorer to copy-paste it on the SD card of your working wii, and voila: there you go.

Other than that, I can't add a single thing to what damysteryman said (I could +1 the "never reformat your wii" remark, but everyone knows that by now ).


btw: is that a tattoo on your left arm?

Edited by Wever, 04 February 2012 - 12:49 PM.

[alex.ap.pacman]

Wever, on 04 February 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

btw: is that a tattoo on your left arm?

Yes it is, I have one on each.

[alex.ap.pacman]

damysteryman, on 04 February 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

OK, just watched the video, and it looks like it is a semi-brick (these are most likely caused by changing the region settings to ones that your region of system menu does not support... did you ever try region-changing at one point?). This should be easily fixable these days.

bradzx, on 04 February 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

If BannerBomb does not load up, then you could be on System Menu 4.2 or 4.3. In that case, use BannerBomb v2 instead of v1, and this time, go to the SD Card menu instead of Channel data management, and it should load up. Should that also fail (with "Error 004"), then you would most likely have 4.3 :

Well that's what came up, so I'm assuming that I have 4.3, in that case, there has to be a way to use letterbomb some way.

[damysteryman]

Ah OK. Now this complicates things... you need to obtain your MAC address in order to use LetterBomb, but you cannot access Wii Settings to get it. There are other exploits out there, but they all need a certain game discs to run... (and I assume you cannot boot any discs, correct?)

Can you still have your Wii connect to any Wireless networks (that is, do they already have internet/network settings already configured and still up-to-date and still usable)?
Can any networks "see" your Wii? If so, then it should be possible to obtain the MAC address by getting it from whatever can see your Wii connecting to your network... but I have not tried this before though... (I know my Wii connects to my network not long after I switch it on, but not sure if that is because of WiiConnect24 being on or not... do you know if your Wii has that enabled?)

If you cannot boot any discs or get a computer to see your Wii and it's MAC address, there may be another way, but...

...that will only work if:
1. (Important!) Your Wii is an old enough version to be able to support BootMii install as boot2, and
2. Are able to manually install BootMii into it (solder Wii's NAND chip to a programmer and flash BootMii into it as boot2)

I know DeadlyFoez can provide this service via post (for a fee of course), but I am not 100% sure of how this works, so you would have to speak to him about that.

Then after getting BootMii on there, use BootMii to run The HackMii Installer, so that you can proceed with the previously posted steps. But that is only if you cannot run any discs at all and have absolutely no way of obtaining your Wii's MAC address.

[tueidj]

The disc slot appears to flash twice when it's turned on, it's probably already got bootmii as boot2 installed.
If it doesn't, play a game to make a savefile. Use data management to copy that save onto an SD and you can find the MAC address in there (use a hex editor to find the "BK header").

[damysteryman]

Not sure if you are still trying to fix this Wii or not, but I have sent you a PM related to this thread.

[alex.ap.pacman]

Dear GbaTemp,

In my other thread - I talked about how my old Wii was bricked, well DaMysteryman helped me by pointing out a few things in my last video that helped me fix my Bricked Wii, or atleast put it on the road to helping me fix it, I made this video to show you the process and the success of it all.

Edited by alex.ap.pacman, 12 February 2012 - 06:56 AM.

[alex.ap.pacman]

damysteryman, on 12 February 2012 - 02:35 AM, said:

Not sure if you are still trying to fix this Wii or not, but I have sent you a PM related to this thread.

DaMysteryMan - you have helped me, I made a video to show you and everyone else at GBATemp how much you helped: http://gbatemp.net/t...-of-mine-watch/

[tueidj]

alex.ap.pacman, on 12 February 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

well DaMysteryman helped me by pointing out a few things in my last video that helped me fix my Bricked Wii

*cough*

tueidj, on 06 February 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

The disc slot appears to flash twice when it's turned on, it's probably already got bootmii as boot2 installed.

You're welcome.