Hacking Need help getting neek2o to work (stuck on Reloading bootmii IOS)

[KaySteR]

EDIT: Fixed!!! Read my reply below!

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to set up Neek2o to finish modding my Wii, because I want games like Castlevania Rebirth to work via Wiiflow. I just want to say that I spent at least 1 hour looking for a solution and browsing the forums for similar issues. While I did find some threads that discussed this exact issue, none of these report the fix to this problem.

Disclaimer: I'm trying to run everything off SD card *only*, so I don't have a USB HDD or pen drive connected in the back, only a Samsung Evo 128gb SD card.

I extracted the NAND using Wiiflow's internal extractor, then installed 2 WiiWare titles using ShowMiiWADs: Adventure Island The Beginning and Castlevania Rebirth. Wiiflow is reading the emuNAND correctly.

Upon booting neek2o via the .wad channel, it tries to mount the USB drive, failing (obv), then mounts the SD card, reads the kernel.bin and its size, and gets stuck on "Reloading bootmii IOS".

Booting neek2o from Wiiflow instead softlocks into a black screen with the disk drive's LED flashing repeatedly.

An important note to make is that I followed @Cyan 's guide for USBLoaderGX and "adapted" it to work on SD card (sneek instead of uneek), so I'm not even sure if I missed a step or mistook something in the process...

and yes, the SD card is formatted to FAT32 default cluster size.

Please help me. The only other people I know from the Wii/Wii U modders FB group that encountered this issue just gave up on neek altogether.

P.S. Naturally, I will provide anything you request me that might help troubleshooting

 

[KaySteR]

Ok so, I can't believe I got this working! I'll leave this here so it can possibly help others

For anyone facing the same issue: you need to compile the files using ModMii. Do not compile them manually, you'll miss the "bootmiineek" folder (it's essential). If you're stuck on "No Internet Connection" in ModMii like I was, try running it on another computer. ModMii will refuse to connect to the Internet unless it can establish a direct connection. If you're using external antennas or hw such as a WiFi dongle, it won't work. I just used my laptop instead. Once you place all the required files in the appropriate partition/s (bootmiineek folder included) start neek2o through its channel. This time, when "Reloading bootmii iOS!" prompts, the disk drive will flash after a couple of seconds, and the screen soon turns black. Now you have to wait anywhere from 1 to 30 minutes and hopefully you'll boot into the emuNAND successfully. In my case it only took half a minute, but it may differ substantially depending on the installed .WADs on the emuNAND. I recommend starting fresh for a first-time boot. Consequent boots take very little time, but I've heard it can get pretty nasty if you fill it with .WADs. Also, use WiiFlow to extract the NAND, it copies the .sysconf for you and places the emuNAND in the correct subfolder automatically. If you still can't get it working, try s/uneek without +di. Actually, try it without first regardless, some Wiis are incompatible with neek+di. If it works, then you can try starting over with the di module. Remember that, for neek+di to boot, you need to have at least 1 .wbsf in the appropriate folder on the root of the SD card/HDD. Hope this helps! This sure was an...adventure.

Oh, by the way, if you've done everything correctly, you should now be able to play Castlevania Rebirth and other incompatible WiiWare games. You should also be able to boot to neek2o from Wiiflow. Have fun testing custom .WADs, themes etc. with no fear of bricking your Wii

 

[Exidous]

Glad you figured it out. Setting up neek2o is one of the more challenging tasks, and difficult to troubleshoot items around here.

For my own edification: is your Wii bootmii boot2 or IOS? (or both?)

 

[KaySteR]

Glad you figured it out. Setting up neek2o is one of the more challenging tasks, and difficult to troubleshoot items around here.

Yes, yes it is

For my own edification: is your Wii bootmii boot2 or IOS? (or both?)

Bootmii as IOS

 

[Exidous]

For my own edification: is your Wii bootmii boot2 or IOS? (or both?)

Bootmii as IOS

That's very interesting. It sounds like you have a "bootmiineek" folder that's being correctly found by launcher/Wiiflow for purposes of neek2o. I thought I had to rename mine to "bootmii" for it to work on a bootmii IOS (non-boot2) Wii. Do you also have a bootmii folder or is it definitely the 'bootmiineek' folder that it's using?

 

[XFlak]

If u are loading it via a channel like nswitch or switch2uneek, in theory these tools look for bootmiineek (or similar) and rename it to bootmii before launching bootmii ios. But often these tools fail to rename folders properly and when bootmii ios is reloaded the bootmii folder is still named something different so it fails to load properly.

To boot into neek manually, you would rename the bootmiineek folder to bootmii, then launch bootmii ios directly, and neek will load.

Both methods should work for everyone, but the latter has less moving parts so I recommend doing this first to make sure you can at least launch into a bootmii environment before attempting to use a launcher. Usbloader GX's neek booter function is also good as it doesn't require a bootmii folder at all (just a sneek folder and emunand)

 

[KaySteR]

That's very interesting. It sounds like you have a "bootmiineek" folder that's being correctly found by launcher/Wiiflow for purposes of neek2o. I thought I had to rename mine to "bootmii" for it to work on a bootmii IOS (non-boot2) Wii. Do you also have a bootmii folder or is it definitely the 'bootmiineek' folder that it's using?

Correct, I also have a bootmii folder to go with bootmiineek

If u are loading it via a channel like nswitch or switch2uneek, in theory these tools look for bootmiineek (or similar) and rename it to bootmii before launching bootmii ios. But often these tools fail to rename folders properly and when bootmii ios is reloaded the bootmii folder is still named something different so it fails to load properly.

To boot into neek manually, you would rename the bootmiineek folder to bootmii, then launch bootmii ios directly, and neek will load.

Both methods should work for everyone, but the latter has less moving parts so I recommend doing this first to make sure you can at least launch into a bootmii environment before attempting to use a launcher. Usbloader GX's neek booter function is also good as it doesn't require a bootmii folder at all (just a sneek folder and emunand)

I don't know about USBLoaderGX because I've always used Wiiflow which I find much superior and indeed I can also load into neek2o directly from its menu. By the way, thanks for that last tip! I should definitely tinker with it a bit more. Oh, also, what does the "di" version of neek do exactly? Is it just used for loading .wbsf games onto the disc channel? Can it read games only and exclusively from one device? e.g. have sneek on the SD card and also load games from SD card instead of loading from HDD

I ask because, supposedly, I'm missing out on something using the regular sneek...but then again, I wasn't able to get sneek+di to work, sooo...

I still wish I could create WiiWare forwarders on my real NAND that point to those games on the emuNAND

I really don't know if that's possible though...maybe I'm just dreaming. I've only ever seen that work with .ISOs and .wbsf games, not .WADs. I just want to fill up the empty space in the sysMenu and make it look a bit fancier.

 

[Exidous]

Correct, I also have a bootmii folder to go with bootmiineek

The reason I asked is because I'm not sure if the bootmiineek folder is being used. I suspect it's using your regular bootmii folder. One of the frustrations with setting this up is that the first boot is not like subsequent boots with neek2o, sometimes problems just clear up, so there's not always a control for testing when people try to add other things to fix something that wasn't actually broken.

I still wish I could create WiiWare forwarders on my real NAND that point to those games on the emuNAND

I really don't know if that's possible though...maybe I'm just dreaming. I've only ever seen that work with .ISOs and .wbsf games, not .WADs. I just want to fill up the empty space in the sysMenu and make it look a bit fancier.

I think it is technically possible, but there's an easier way. I recommend instead that you use Wiiflow's Source Menu. Using Priiloader, you can set your Wii to automatically boot and return to Wiiflow, bypassing the System Menu entirely. The Source Menu organizes items by launcher/type. So after turning on your Wii, the first thing you see is: a tile for Wii, Gamecube, (realnand) Wiiware, (emunand) Wiiware, emulators by system, etc. When you select the tile, the coverflow of just those items display and can be launched.

The source menu files aren't included in the regular build of Wiiflow, but are included in various plugin packs, the best and most recent of which is https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-great-quest-for-wiiflow-plugins-a-call-for-adventurers.563575/

 

[LavishMite93241]

I have tried doing all that, but I can't get neek2o to open, is there anything else I can do?