Hacking Won't Boot Into Wii Menu

[mrhomiec]

this section is pretty dead now, i tried searching through the old threads and nothing sounded like what i'm experiencing right now.

so basically i haven't turned on the Wii in many many months. today, i tried to turn it on and my TV was saying "No Signal Found" even though the light on the Wii was green. i turned it off, then put in my SD card with apps on it.

BootMii launches and i get 4 selections- Wii, the homebrew channel, SD, and settings. if i choose Wii or the homebrew channel, i get the "No Signal Found" on my TV.

i'm not sure what else i can do from BootMii.

any help would be awesome!

EDIT: more info from the Settings > Info
BootMii v1.1
Stub v1.1
Mini v1.1
SysMenu 4.2u boot1b boot2v2
NAND FS usage 84.3%

i also tried selecting the icon that shows an arrow point from a chip to the SD card. it looked like it was going through some scan, then it backed up something. not sure what all this was. but now if i try to select the SD option from the first menu, i get "Failed to read dir!".

EDIT: i left the entire Wii unplugged over night, about 9 hours. i just plugged everything in, and the same things happened. the Wii can be powered on with a Wii remote. so i guess that means the Bluetooth module still works? i never use Wi-Fi on it, but it could go bad?

PROBLEM SOLVED (so anyone with this issue doesn't have to read the entire thread):

• go here: http://www.hacksden.com/showthread.php/5574-Format-Wii-Nand-Using-ohneswanzenegger-Guide
• and download the "ohneschwanzenegger" software.
• while that's downloading, make a backup of your nand through BootMii. the backup creates 2 files on your SD card "keys.bin" and "nand.bin" copy these to your hard drive in a safe place. then copy again these files into the "ohneswanzenegger_r85" folder.
• launch the "ohneschwanzenegger.exe"
• click on "Nand Dump" on the upper left. then "New nand..."
• click on the big "Existing Nand..." button and select your "nand.bin" file within the same folder.
• click on the "Keys" button and select your "keys.bin" file. then click OK.
• type in "4.1u" in the first row, first input box, and click "Get It!"
• this will take some time.
• a popup prompt will come up with info about your Wii. make sure everything matches. in my instance, this popup did not have the correct Serial Number. so i had to manually change it. click OK.
• this then created a "testnand.bin" file. rename this to "nand.bin"
• copy this new "nand.bin" file and replace the one on your SD card. do not touch the "keys.bin" file.
• put this SD card back into the Wii and launch BootMii.
• restore your backup, and this should a longer while.
• done.

 

[mrhomiec]

bump, and update.

so i read that DOP-Mii can re-install the System Menu. i copied over the files to my SD card. from the BootMii interface, i selected SD > browsed to apps > DOP-Mii > and tried to launch the "boot.dol" file.

then i got an error about it failing to boot.

i was looking into getting an updated version of BootMii also, but all the things i found required the Homebrew Channel, which i can't access.

 

[Luigi2012SM64DS]

The chip to SD card thing was a nand backup, if you're already bricked then there's no point in having it, (unless you're are generating a new nand)
As for your wii, do you have priiloader installed? Remove the sdcard (since bootmii will appear) and hold the reset button on the wii. It should go into priiloader within 5-10 seconds but if nothing happens then i guess you're screwed.
I think you could try making a new nand using the nand generator. I don't remember the exact name but im sure a search here will find it.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The chip to SD card thing was a nand backup, if you're already bricked then there's no point in having it, (unless you're are generating a new nand)
As for your wii, do you have priiloader installed? Remove the sdcard (since bootmii will appear) and hold the reset button on the wii. It should go into priiloader within 5-10 seconds but if nothing happens then i guess you're screwed.
I think you could try making a new nand using the nand generator. I don't remember the exact name but im sure a search here will find it.

BootMii provides better brick protection than Priiloader. It sounds like the NAND here is rather badly corrupted since nothing will load but it might be fixable without generating a new NAND.

this section is pretty dead now, i tried searching through the old threads and nothing sounded like what i'm experiencing right now.

so basically i haven't turned on the Wii in many many months. today, i tried to turn it on and my TV was saying "No Signal Found" even though the light on the Wii was green. i turned it off, then put in my SD card with apps on it.

BootMii launches and i get 4 selections- Wii, the homebrew channel, SD, and settings. if i choose Wii or the homebrew channel, i get the "No Signal Found" on my TV.

i'm not sure what else i can do from BootMii.

any help would be awesome!

EDIT: more info from the Settings > Info
BootMii v1.1
Stub v1.1
Mini v1.1
SysMenu 4.2u boot1b boot2v2
NAND FS usage 84.3%

i also tried selecting the icon that shows an arrow point from a chip to the SD card. it looked like it was going through some scan, then it backed up something. not sure what all this was. but now if i try to select the SD option from the first menu, i get "Failed to read dir!".

EDIT: i left the entire Wii unplugged over night, about 9 hours. i just plugged everything in, and the same things happened. the Wii can be powered on with a Wii remote. so i guess that means the Bluetooth module still works? i never use Wi-Fi on it, but it could go bad?

It sounds like your NAND is pretty badly bricked if you can't load HBC or the system menu. You can make a fresh NAND with ohneswanzenegger (will wipe everything), this would probably be the best course of action seeing as we don't know the extent of the damage.

However, if you want to avoid that for some reason, you can try cBoot2 (you will have to find a preinstalled package on Google though as the official download has an installer that has to be run on a usable Wii, because it requires copyrighted Nintendo code that can't be included in the official download), placing MMM or DOP-Mii on the root of the SD card as "boot.dol" (it has to be in .dol format) before turning on the Wii with the cBoot2 files on it. I had success unbricking with this method when I accidentally bricked my Wii somehow and didn't have a NAND backup handy. When you turn on the Wii with the correct files on the SD card it should load your homebrew of choice automatically and you can do what you need to from there.

NOTE: IMPORTANT! You must make a backup of the "bootmii" folder on the SD card before you do this as it will be overwritten by cBoot2 and you won't be able to load the regular BootMii menu again until you put the old files back.

Once you have MMM or DOP-Mii successfully loaded try reinstalling the system menu (remember, v4.2 not any other version), IOS70, and IOS58. If the System Menu successfully loads after that but HBC still fails, reinstall that as well, so it will use the IOS58 you just installed. Note that if there is extensive corruption on the NAND this may not help and if it does you may still have issues with certain games not booting because the IOS they use is corrupted.

If there is a hardware fault on your Wii none of this is likely to help, but if you are able to run MMM/DOP-Mii at all with cBoot2 then the hardware isn't at fault.

 

[mrhomiec]

The chip to SD card thing was a nand backup, if you're already bricked then there's no point in having it, (unless you're are generating a new nand)
As for your wii, do you have priiloader installed? Remove the sdcard (since bootmii will appear) and hold the reset button on the wii. It should go into priiloader within 5-10 seconds but if nothing happens then i guess you're screwed.
I think you could try making a new nand using the nand generator. I don't remember the exact name but im sure a search here will find it.

not sure if i was doing this right, i tried a few different ways.

from a powered off state, i held the reset button down, nothing happened.
after it powered on, i held the reset button down, nothing happened.
and pressed the power and reset buttons at the same time, but continued to hold the reset button, still nothing.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

not sure if i was doing this right, i tried a few different ways.

from a powered off state, i held the reset button down, nothing happened.
after it powered on, i held the reset button down, nothing happened.
and pressed the power and reset buttons at the same time, but continued to hold the reset button, still nothing.

Either it's not loading Priiloader correctly or you don't have Priiloader installed at all. But it's not important to fixing your Wii as you have BootMii as boot2. Priiloader is pointless when you have that, unless you want to use the System Menu hacks.

 

[mrhomiec]

It sounds like your NAND is pretty badly bricked if you can't load HBC or the system menu. You can make a fresh NAND with ohneswanzenegger (will wipe everything), this would probably be the best course of action seeing as we don't know the extent of the damage.

i couldn't find a pre-installed package of cBoot2, so i went with this method. i'm using the nand i accidentally created yesterday and following the instructions from this site:

http://www.hacksden.com/showthread.php/5574-Format-Wii-Nand-Using-ohneswanzenegger-Guide

but when i get to the part to select my existing nand.bin file, i get the following error:

Nand object Error: entry is above 0x17ff mmmmkay [ 0xffef ]

Error creating new content.map

so now i have no idea what to do.

EDIT: from finding that tutorial, i also found this topic, it sounds like it does the same thing:
http://www.hacksden.com/showthread.php/324-Format-Wii-NAND-Using-Comex-NAND-Formatter

 

[icebrg5]

What files would be needed for a preinstalled version of cboot2?

I have a working wii with bootmii as boot2. I could run the cboot installer and then once its done upload the files so the OP can use them.

It's been a long time since i messed with cboot2 though so i need to know what's needed first ext...

 

[icebrg5]

I think i found a preinstalled copy of cboot2 that loads a wad manager.

PM me for the link

 

[Luigi2012SM64DS]

Good luck!!!

 

[icebrg5]

Just sent you the link.

Your going to need some wad files to go with it through since i'm assuming your trying to reinstall your system menu ext...

 

[mrhomiec]

alright, so i'm going to be using an extra SD card i have. can i just copy these files to the new SD card and it should work? or do i have to put files into specific directories?

there's a load.dol file, but not a boot.dol file.

 

[icebrg5]

alright, so i'm going to be using an extra SD card i have. can i just copy these files to the new SD card and it should work? or do i have to put files into specific directories?

there's a load.dol file, but not a boot.dol file.

I didn't notice that but you can just copy all the files to your sd card and try it out.
Since its replacing bootmii the sd card with all the files on it needs to be in the wii before you turn the wii on.

If it still doesn't work then try renaming the load.dol file to boot.dol and then try it again.

If it doesn't work after that then you should be able to use any boot.dol file you want so you can find
another boot.dol file from a different wad manager type program and try it out.

 

[mrhomiec]

so i tried a few things, and none of them worked.

* with a new SD card, i only put the contents of the ZIP file on there.
* with only the ZIP file contents, i renamed "load.dol" to "boot.dol"
* i copied my original SD card to the new SD card, and then copied the ZIP file contents over

i also noticed that my original SD card does not have a "boot.dol" at the root. but instead a "boot.elf" file. to which i deleted that one, and renamed the "load.dol" file to "boot.elf", and still nothing worked.

and just for noting, my original SD card still works and BootMii starts up fine.

 

[icebrg5]

so i tried a few things, and none of them worked.

* with a new SD card, i only put the contents of the ZIP file on there.
* with only the ZIP file contents, i renamed "load.dol" to "boot.dol"
* i copied my original SD card to the new SD card, and then copied the ZIP file contents over

i also noticed that my original SD card does not have a "boot.dol" at the root. but instead a "boot.elf" file. to which i deleted that one, and renamed the "load.dol" file to "boot.elf", and still nothing worked.

and just for noting, my original SD card still works and BootMii starts up fine.

I just tried the cboot2 files i sent you and i didn't change anything at all on the sd card. I just extracted the zip file to the sd card and then put it in the wii and then booted it up.

It loaded a black screen and then after 30 seconds to 1 minute it loaded wii mod 3.2 which has a wad manager ext.. and a hole lot of other options.

When it did boot up there was a very quick message on the screen at the top left corner and then it went to the black screen. It blacked screened to quick to read what it said though but if i was you i would try it again and just let the wii sit for a minute or two after booting it. It probably depends on the read/write speed of the sd card your using to determine how long before it boots into wii mod so just give it a minute or two after turning the wii on.

 

[mrhomiec]

i didn't notice the quick message on mine. but i'll try that later today. with just the ZIP file contents.

EDIT, and update:
i updated my SD card to only contain the files from the ZIP file, and tried starting up the Wii again. i let it sit for a good while but nothing happened. my TV ended up auto shutting off because it didn't detect a signal. i still didn't see a quick message, nor a screen flicker.

 

[icebrg5]

try a different sd card if you can.

 

[mrhomiec]

yea, i tried 3 different SD cards. none of them worked. but if i make an exact copy of my original SD card with BootMii, they each work.

 

[icebrg5]

maybe the download got corrupted that you said you original had issues with?


I'll send you a link to the files i used but i will upload them to another host.


You sd card should look like this after putting the files on it.

SD:\bootmii\armboot.bin
SD:\bootmii\ppcboot.elf
SD:\load.dol
SD:\startup.elf

 

[mrhomiec]

maybe the download got corrupted that you said you original had issues with?
I'll send you a link to the files i used but i will upload them to another host.
You sd card should look like this after putting the files on it.
SD:\bootmii\armboot.bin
SD:\bootmii\ppcboot.elf
SD:\load.dol
SD:\startup.elf

i tried as you suggested with the new download you sent over and still nothing happens when i start up the Wii.