Hacking The Wii's without BC...can they be hacked?

[kasapuf]

I see these great deals on the new Wii's for Black Friday but just curious if these can be hacked as well? I know they different some since there is no BC to the Game Cube but will it work the same or has an extra security feature been placed to make this task more difficult?

Thanks in advance.

 

[libertas34]

If it still runs 4.3, it's very likely.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Nobody will know if there are new methods of blocking homebrew until it comes out (I don't think it does for a few days), but BC and MIOS aren't necessary for hacking, although I would be curious to know if they could be installed. Having them wouldn't do any good of course, but I'd like to know what would happen.

 

[kasapuf]

Nobody will know if there are new methods of blocking homebrew until it comes out (I don't think it does for a few days), but BC and MIOS aren't necessary for hacking, although I would be curious to know if they could be installed. Having them wouldn't do any good of course, but I'd like to know what would happen.

The Bundles are already released... you can order them since yesterday from Target ( online only special ).

 

[tueidj]

They've been out in Europe for over a month, they have the same software as any other ordinary up-to-date wii (including MIOS and BC) and can be hacked the same way.

 

[JoostinOnline]

They've been out in Europe for over a month, they have the same software as any other ordinary up-to-date wii (including MIOS and BC) and can be hacked the same way.

Interesting. Do you know if they run okay on IOS60? I just sent XFlak a PM about it to make sure.

 

[tueidj]

IOS60 is a stub.

 

[JoostinOnline]

IOS60 is a stub.

I mean the non-stub one. It's used as the base for ever SM IOS now.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

From what I gather (although I have not looked into it because I have not played with one of these redesign models) is that they still do have BC and MIOS installed (otherwise they would still get installed by a game update anyways) and we should still be able to use IOS60 in any slot to prevent 003 errors and also allow these wii's to run 3.x using IOS60 in the slot for that specific SM version. I have not tested it yet, but when I get my hands on one I will test and try to confirm it. But the answer seems obvious.

 

[tueidj]

So even if you tell modmii to update your wii to the current software, it installs an inferior out of date IOS instead?
It's great how people love to bag Waninkoko for making unsafe/poorly thought out apps and then end up copying his mistakes...

 

[JoostinOnline]

From what I gather (although I have not looked into it because I have not played with one of these redesign models) is that they still do have BC and MIOS installed (otherwise they would still get installed by a game update anyways) and we should still be able to use IOS60 in any slot to prevent 003 errors and also allow these wii's to run 3.x using IOS60 in the slot for that specific SM version. I have not tested it yet, but when I get my hands on one I will test and try to confirm it. But the answer seems obvious.

Thanks. We probably would have heard something about it by now if there was a problem, but I still wouldn't be shocked if using IOS60 caused a brick, considering the same thing happens now with a couple versions of IOS30 and older SM IOS's.

@tueidj: ModMii, like almost every guide, installs IOS60 into slots because it protects from 003 bricks if you upgrade a region changed Korean Wii, and downgrade bricks if you were to downgrade to 3.3 or lower.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

So even if you tell modmii to update your wii to the current software, it installs an inferior out of date IOS instead?
It's great how people love to bag Waninkoko for making unsafe/poorly thought out apps and then end up copying his mistakes...

I don't dare argue with you but instead seek your knowledge. If you are referring to putting IOS60 into 70's or 80's slot, I don't see what the negative effects can be when no one has ever bricked from this and it can prevent korean wii's from getting the 003 error. Please fill me in.
Wanky did a lot of bad shit like make his updaters download the latest IOS for a SM instead of a specific version and because of that it caused lots of bricks with stubbed IOS's.

Please fill me in on the info that I am overlooking.

 

[tueidj]

Do you see the irony in downgrading an IOS (a process which has caused bricks in the past due to older IOS builds being incompatible with newer hardware) in order to protect against a brick caused by downgrading?
If "almost every guide" recommends doing this, it just shows that the people writing these guides have no fucking idea what they're doing. Installing it into the IOS90 slot with a high version number is particularly stupid - there's no way of knowing how IOS90 will operate, it could be completely incompatible with IOS60 so when a new system menu arrives and calls an IOS90 specific command (which fails because it doesn't exist): instabrick.

"Yo dawg, we heard downgrading was dangerous so we downgraded your wii so you'd be safe when you downgraded your wii."

I don't dare argue with you but instead seek your knowledge. If you are referring to putting IOS60 into 70's or 80's slot, I don't see what the negative effects can be when no one has ever bricked from this and it can prevent korean wii's from getting the 003 error. Please fill me in.

It's an out of date IOS. That means there is no guarantee that it will run on current/newer hardware (or be compatible with things like newer peripherals or online components), just like wanky's old "safe" updaters that installed specific IOS versions that didn't run on the so called "LU64" wiis.
Saying "no one has ever bricked from this" does not mean it's safe, nobody ever got bricked by region changing a korean wii either until Error 003 came along.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Do you see the irony in downgrading an IOS (a process which has caused bricks in the past due to older IOS builds being incompatible with newer hardware) in order to protect against a brick caused by downgrading?
If "almost every guide" recommends doing this, it just shows that the people writing these guides have no fucking idea what they're doing. Installing it into the IOS90 slot with a high version number is particularly stupid - there's no way of knowing how IOS90 will operate, it could be completely incompatible with IOS60 so when a new system menu arrives and calls an IOS90 specific command (which fails because it doesn't exist): instabrick.

"Yo dawg, we heard downgrading was dangerous so we downgraded your wii so you'd be safe when you downgraded your wii."

I don't dare argue with you but instead seek your knowledge. If you are referring to putting IOS60 into 70's or 80's slot, I don't see what the negative effects can be when no one has ever bricked from this and it can prevent korean wii's from getting the 003 error. Please fill me in.

It's an out of date IOS. That means there is no guarantee that it will run on current/newer hardware (or be compatible with things like newer peripherals or online components), just like wanky's old "safe" updaters that installed specific IOS versions that didn't run on the so called "LU64" wiis.
Saying "no one has ever bricked from this" does not mean it's safe, nobody ever got bricked by region changing a korean wii either until Error 003 came along.

All good points (love the part in italics btw, made me lol), which is why I brought up the question if it is compatible with IOS60. Someone needs to install IOS60 into another slot (160 for example) and try loading it with MMM or something. I can't say for sure, but I think that, if it isn't compatible, then it won't be able to load it. Mauifrog already has a check like that in his guide as preparation for this, but I don't think anybody else planned ahead on it.

 

[Krestent]

I'm curious to know what would happen if someone installed BC and MIOS, and then tried to run a GC game through Swiss.

 

[mauifrog]

From what I gather (although I have not looked into it because I have not played with one of these redesign models) is that they still do have BC and MIOS installed (otherwise they would still get installed by a game update anyways) and we should still be able to use IOS60 in any slot to prevent 003 errors and also allow these wii's to run 3.x using IOS60 in the slot for that specific SM version. I have not tested it yet, but when I get my hands on one I will test and try to confirm it. But the answer seems obvious.

Thanks. We probably would have heard something about it by now if there was a problem, but I still wouldn't be shocked if using IOS60 caused a brick, considering the same thing happens now with a couple versions of IOS30 and older SM IOS's.

@tueidj: ModMii, like almost every guide, installs IOS60 into slots because it protects from 003 bricks if you upgrade a region changed Korean Wii, and downgrade bricks if you were to downgrade to 3.3 or lower.

I am also interested in this as my guide installs ios60-v6174 into all system ios slots. I a not worried because I have a test for it, first I install ios60-v6174 into slot236 and reload to ios236. If the wii was not compatible with ios60-v6174 the install should crash at that point. If ios60-v6174 is working, cios236 is installed into slot 236, then the rest of the cios and SM.

 

[tueidj]

Someone needs to install IOS60 into another slot (160 for example) and try loading it with MMM or something. I can't say for sure, but I think that, if it isn't compatible, then it won't be able to load it. Mauifrog already has a check like that in his guide as preparation for this, but I don't think anybody else planned ahead on it.

But even if it works now, there's no guarantee that it will work in the future. Maybe they'll change the hardware again. Maybe they'll push out an IOS only update that changes the way WC24 communication is handled. Maybe there are dormant features in the current IOS80 that a new system menu will try and use. All of these are potential points of failure that could result in large scale bricking by anyone following these guides.

Not to mention, there's no reason for them to even leave the older (non-current) versions of IOS60 on NUS. They could just as easily replace it with a stub.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Someone needs to install IOS60 into another slot (160 for example) and try loading it with MMM or something. I can't say for sure, but I think that, if it isn't compatible, then it won't be able to load it. Mauifrog already has a check like that in his guide as preparation for this, but I don't think anybody else planned ahead on it.

But even if it works now, there's no guarantee that it will work in the future. Maybe they'll change the hardware again. Maybe they'll push out an IOS only update that changes the way WC24 communication is handled. Maybe there are dormant features in the current IOS80 that a new system menu will try and use. All of these are potential points of failure that could result in large scale bricking by anyone following these guides.

Not to mention, there's no reason for them to even leave the older (non-current) versions of IOS60 on NUS. They could just as easily replace it with a stub.

At the very least, a check to see if IOS60 will work should be added to ModMii.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

I agree with your points, but I feel that this is the moment of 'now' and when or if N does something different then we can deal with it at that moment and quickly change the guides or delete them completely if they are incapable of working anymore.

ModMii gets updated constantly. If we ever see anything that would make our current methods obsolete (like by nintendo not allowing IOS60 to be downloaded anymore at all) then we can obsolete those guides and methods.

I personally doubt nintendo is going to put anymore effort into the wii until they see that it is at it's end of life, but of course we can not predict what they might do and only live on what they are currently doing.

Of course, all the guides that never get updated are doomed to failure (like wanky's (ironically) safe updaters), but the ones that are constantly being kept up with the current times can be safe. XFlak can easily make an update that gets downloaded at the start of the program that says "This guide is now out of date. Functionality is limited until a work around is found" so users can rely on modmii because it does have an active developer (for it's app).

I'm open to all things you have to say. If you disagree with anything then you obviously have a good reason to disagree and we all should just shut up and listen. I do think XFlak is active enough to be on top of any changes and try his best to protect users from failure if he is capable of doing so.

Even if N does force stubs only, modmii does MD5 verify all wads before deeming them safe to use. If they constantly fail then they will not be put into the WAD directory that users are told to install, and the user will get a visual flag that the verification (of the MD5) has failed.

I have to say, although modmii is not perfect, xflak has done his very best to make sure to verify everything before it can be called safe to install.

If you disagree with his method or the way that modmi does things then please fill us in so we can learn more. But for N to engineer the same MD5 hash that matches a working file with them pushing out a stub file with garbage data to match the same MD5 is beyond any effort that most anyone would ever care to do, and certainly N would not orchestrate something like that.

btw, I'm half asleep and too tired to think everything out correctly, but this is my half asleep mind trying to make sense of this all.

@tueidj, thank you for all that you are doing and the knowledge that you are sharing. It is greatly appreciated to have someone like you willing to share with us what you know.

 

[JoostinOnline]

A simple "check to see if this IOS loads before continuing" would be easy though. I could even write a little app to run a report on whether to continue or not if XFlak wants me to. It would only be a few lines of code. It may never be needed, but it would ensure that we don't have another issue with old IOS's.