Hacking Anyone care to send me a Wii Mini?

[DeadlyFoez]

Ok. Some bad news. I got SSBB today and I tried my rigged up SD card. My card was not detected at all. So time to take a look at everything again to see if there was anything that I missed or messed up. I'm sure there is. I can't think of any other reason for it to not work besides a mistake on my part considering all the test points are the same.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Both this wii mini and a normal wii has the same hardware between the test points and hollywood. Those components are DA8, DA10, RA10, and RA11. The only component missing from the wii mini that is on a normal wii is C141, which is just a capacitor, which the system can easily do without.

What I find strange is that pin 5 floats at 1.67v, pins 1,2,7,8,9 floats high at 3.3v, pin 4 is at 0v and it is supposed to be power to the SD card, and pins 3 and 6 are ground like they should be.

Looks like I need to figure out why the power pin 4 isn't giving any power. It might depend on the CD switch, but I tried that also without success.

Back to fuck around some more.

EDIT: Pin 4 is getting 3.3v. I must just have not had a good connection with my multimeter.

I will have to test all of this on a normal working wii to see is all the pins are like that when no card is inserted.

 

[techboy]

Been following this since the topic popped up. Good to hear you finally got one I'm not surprised that the SD interface doesn't work though. They probably left something out to save money.

As for the SM not seeing the SD card, I'm curious as to how much of the software they changed / ripped out. The SM likely emptied of its SD code and network functions, but I wonder if IOS is some custom version with missing / stub code for the SD and Wifi hardware. Any chance of a NAND dump of the Mini's titles if you manage to get the SD working?

 

[DeadlyFoez]

I can do a infectus nand dump right now so some people can take a look at it to see what titles are on it, but since I don't have the keys not much will be able to be figured out. I was figuring that it had somethign to do with the IOSes.

What I just noticed is that pin 5 stays at 0v when at the health screen. Once in the SM it goes up to 1.67v.

I wonder if I could corrupt certain parts of the nand so some IOSes are not seen as installed anymore and then I do an update from a disc to get a function version of IOSes installed that have the full SD code. Thats the only reason that I can think of why SSBB wont detect my SD card.

Does anyone know if that can be done, or do I need to consult giantpune on that?

 

[techboy]

I wonder if I could corrupt certain parts of the nand so some IOSes are not seen as installed anymore and then I do an update from a disc to get a function version of IOSes installed that have the full SD code. Thats the only reason that I can think of why SSBB wont detect my SD card.

Does anyone know if that can be done, or do I need to consult giantpune on that?

Giantpune has done a heck of a lot with respect to nand, so he'd probably know better than anyone.

I can't do much with a dump unless I can unpack it. I was thinking of installing the contents of the dump on a wii with bootmii/boot2 and trying a few things like Wifi in a normal SM with the Mini's IOS, but until we can get the SD to work, it's moot.

Can a Mini use a normal Wii drive or is the connector different? I feel like those multi-partition games with an "Install Channel" option might be exploitable for an IOS installation, but then I don't know when the second partition's signature is checked...

 

[lismati]

I can't do much with a dump unless I can unpack it. I was thinking of installing the contents of the dump on a wii with bootmii/boot2 and trying a few things like Wifi in a normal SM with the Mini's IOS, but until we can get the SD to work, it's moot.

BootMii won't let you install a NAND dump from another wii AFAIK. You need to try harder hashimoto-san!

 

[obcd]

That pin 5 is probably pulsed explaining the strange voltage reading. You might need a scope to know for sure.

 

[techboy]

BootMii won't let you install a NAND dump from another wii AFAIK.

You can't. That's why I need the keys so I can unpack it. An unpacked dump can be used to make wads of the Wii Mini titles. Wads don't care what wii they're installed on.

Whether or not they'll work on normal Wii hardware is another story.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

That pin 5 is probably pulsed explaining the strange voltage reading. You might need a scope to know for sure.

No, it isn't. I checked it with my o-scope before even checking it with my multimeter.

 

[Sicklyboy]

Watching this thread. Good luck foez.

 

[XFlak]

Keep up the great work Foez, and I'll be back soon for a proper progress report

 

[JoostinOnline]

Wow, I can't believe I missed this thread. Awesome that you got one!

I was figuring that it had somethign to do with the IOSes.

While I can't think of an alternative (other than a problem with the SD card or connector), it's highly unlikely that the recoded the IOS's. That would risk compatibility with every single game, so they'd have to go back and test them to make sure they worked. As there is no free way to update on the console (having no wifi), they would need to be sure everything worked fine before shipping it out. The whole reason behind the individual IOS titles is updates without having to worry about breaking compatibility with old games.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Wow, I can't believe I missed this thread. Awesome that you got one!
While I can't think of an alternative (other than a problem with the SD card or connector), it's highly unlikely that the recoded the IOS's. That would risk compatibility with every single game, so they'd have to go back and test them to make sure they worked. As there is no free way to update on the console (having no wifi), they would need to be sure everything worked fine before shipping it out. The whole reason behind the individual IOS titles is updates without having to worry about breaking compatibility with old games.

I see what you're saying, but as we see with the Wii U's vWii, they did in fact make new versions of the IOSes, if I remember correctly.

I would not be surprised if they did. But I will have the nand dump available later for people to check out if they want. Of course I don't have the keys so there isn't a whole hell of a lot to figure out with it, but it's still something. Just taking out the SD and network functions would not be all that hard to do without breaking anything else.

 

[Yepi69]

I like where this thread is going.

 

[techboy]

I see what you're saying, but as we see with the Wii U's vWii, they did in fact make new versions of the IOSes, if I remember correctly.

They did. The drivers in Wii IOSes are incompatible with vWii, and vice-versa.

Just taking out the SD and network functions would not be all that hard to do without breaking anything else.

Just make the related commands always return the values for "No card inserted" and "Not connected" and drop the drivers.

IIRC, a normal Wii won't even boot if the Wifi module is missing...

 

[DeadlyFoez]

IIRC, a normal Wii won't even boot if the Wifi module is missing...

It's been so long since I've had to deal with it. But I do think it just won't boot without the bluetooth module. I think it will still boot without the wifi module, but my memory is a little fuzzy. Mauifrog would know for sure.

It is rather funny that the mobo does have the spot all set up for the wifi module. They must have just dropped it at the last minute to save even more money. Jerks. But if we can get homebrew on here then I will try putting on the wifi module and getting that to work too. This thing should still be able to run all the normal IOSes for the lu64+ wii's. I'm positive that they did not change the dies or the manufacturing process of the chips at all.

 

[techboy]

It's been so long since I've had to deal with it. But I do think it just won't boot without the bluetooth module. I think it will still boot without the wifi module, but my memory is a little fuzzy. Mauifrog would know for sure.

Maybe it was the BT module. I know that a failed BT module makes it stop booting, but I never tested one with either module entirely removed.

It is weird that the spot for wifi is there and the hardware was just omitted. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason was as you said: Last minute removal to save money.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Congrats on your 1,666th post
You lucky devil.

 

[lismati]

The Wii won't boot without a BT module nor a WiFi one. At least it shouldn't, and it does otherwise only to the special people, eg. me. My Wii's Bluetooth stopped working, I couldn't connect anything to it, or even boot it from the remote, yet the system loaded the SM perfectly fine. After replacing the module everything was fine again.

 

[obcd]

As deadly said, he will have to check the testpoints he is using and compare them with the same points on a normal wii.
Another thing he can try if all signals are equal is connecting an sd card to those testpoints on a normal wii and checking if the sd card is working like that.
I am sure he don't have to read that here and he is probably already trying something like that.
If sd isn't working, the only other way to mod the thing would be using a modchip and a homebrew disk.
For that, the mini drive and normal wii drive needs to be equal. If the keys could be dumped like that, the nand contents can be analysed.