So, for context:
I've had a Wii U since 2013, and I had it modded since 2016. Unfortunately, I was 12 in 2016, and even though everything went well, I knew I did some dumb things with it, though I never bricked it at the time. For the past few years, I knew my Wii U had some major signs of corruption, as sometimes games would crash (Mario Kart 8, which I owned physically with the DLC, would crash when loading some stages, though it never seemed to be consistent which ones would load and crash. Nintendo Land, a game I owned digitally, would crash after a few minutes no matter what I was doing), and updates for both games and the system would fail, resulting in my Wii U staying on a lower firmware (I believe 5.5.1, but I could be wrong).
I used Haxchi until January of this year, when I decided to switch to Tiramisu. I knew I had dumped my OTP and Seeprom for Cemu online, but I was smart enough to make a new backup at that time to have the other files, though unfortunately I didn't backup my MLC, as my Wii U had a 32GB SD card inside, which obviously would not be enough for the dump with all the other files in there. Cut to a month later, where I decided to install WarioWare Smooth Moves, where I kept getting download errors when trying NUSspli, so I downloaded it on my computer, moved it to my SD Card, and used some old homebrew to try to install it, in which my Wii U crashed while trying to install it to the NAND, and then proceeded to not be able to boot up (blue light, fans spinning, no output on TV or GamePad).
I didn't set up autobooting to Tiramisu because I thought it would have been safer,but now I'm wondering if setting it up would have made it a little different. Regardless, after I bricked the Wii U, I searched desperately to see if there was anything I could do to try and fix it. I decided to buy a Pico W to try UDPIH (I got the W because I thought it would be futureproofing for something else I wanted to do with it, and I still don't know if it has any impact on UDPIH or de_fuse, although de_fuse wasn't even a thing at the time), but that didn't do anything (obviously because of how the exploit works, but I didn't know better at the time). Since then, I've been browsing this forum for a while, seeing if there were any new developments, which is where I found out about Voultar's Wii U NAND-Aid and de_Fuse. The only problem is that I have no soldering experience. I still think there's a chance I could at least learn with the NAND-Aid, as that doesn't seem too complicated, but I know I have no chance trying to de_Fuse myself. I've yet to order anything for the NAND-Aid as I'm deciding to wait for the final product to be made, but even then I would have to buy the PCB and other components myself as I live in Canada and Voultar's shop does not do shipping outside the US (I'm not sure if there would be a chance if some other place could sell a pre-made one, but we'll just have to see when that comes out).
So then, what's the point of this thread? Honestly, I just figure I should get some words from people who are more knowledgeable than me on this situation so I can figure out what to do next. Is there perhaps a chance that I can still get a dump of my Wii U's eMMC in the state it is in and see what I can do with that and the NAND-Aid? Do I have to go to de_Fuse and figure out how to get that all set up (obviously, it's up to me to find some place that offers repairs like that, unless someone here has a recommendation for a place that can do it in the Greater Toronto Area)? Also, I'm going to attach the logs from the SLC that I dumped in January so that at least more can be figured out about the condition my Wii U was in at that time. I've yet to even open my Wii U, so I don't even know if I have a Hynix chip or not (I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case).
I apologise for the long post. I thought I should give as much detail as I could about the situation. Any help is very much appreciated, as well for taking the time to read this.
I've had a Wii U since 2013, and I had it modded since 2016. Unfortunately, I was 12 in 2016, and even though everything went well, I knew I did some dumb things with it, though I never bricked it at the time. For the past few years, I knew my Wii U had some major signs of corruption, as sometimes games would crash (Mario Kart 8, which I owned physically with the DLC, would crash when loading some stages, though it never seemed to be consistent which ones would load and crash. Nintendo Land, a game I owned digitally, would crash after a few minutes no matter what I was doing), and updates for both games and the system would fail, resulting in my Wii U staying on a lower firmware (I believe 5.5.1, but I could be wrong).
I used Haxchi until January of this year, when I decided to switch to Tiramisu. I knew I had dumped my OTP and Seeprom for Cemu online, but I was smart enough to make a new backup at that time to have the other files, though unfortunately I didn't backup my MLC, as my Wii U had a 32GB SD card inside, which obviously would not be enough for the dump with all the other files in there. Cut to a month later, where I decided to install WarioWare Smooth Moves, where I kept getting download errors when trying NUSspli, so I downloaded it on my computer, moved it to my SD Card, and used some old homebrew to try to install it, in which my Wii U crashed while trying to install it to the NAND, and then proceeded to not be able to boot up (blue light, fans spinning, no output on TV or GamePad).
I didn't set up autobooting to Tiramisu because I thought it would have been safer,but now I'm wondering if setting it up would have made it a little different. Regardless, after I bricked the Wii U, I searched desperately to see if there was anything I could do to try and fix it. I decided to buy a Pico W to try UDPIH (I got the W because I thought it would be futureproofing for something else I wanted to do with it, and I still don't know if it has any impact on UDPIH or de_fuse, although de_fuse wasn't even a thing at the time), but that didn't do anything (obviously because of how the exploit works, but I didn't know better at the time). Since then, I've been browsing this forum for a while, seeing if there were any new developments, which is where I found out about Voultar's Wii U NAND-Aid and de_Fuse. The only problem is that I have no soldering experience. I still think there's a chance I could at least learn with the NAND-Aid, as that doesn't seem too complicated, but I know I have no chance trying to de_Fuse myself. I've yet to order anything for the NAND-Aid as I'm deciding to wait for the final product to be made, but even then I would have to buy the PCB and other components myself as I live in Canada and Voultar's shop does not do shipping outside the US (I'm not sure if there would be a chance if some other place could sell a pre-made one, but we'll just have to see when that comes out).
So then, what's the point of this thread? Honestly, I just figure I should get some words from people who are more knowledgeable than me on this situation so I can figure out what to do next. Is there perhaps a chance that I can still get a dump of my Wii U's eMMC in the state it is in and see what I can do with that and the NAND-Aid? Do I have to go to de_Fuse and figure out how to get that all set up (obviously, it's up to me to find some place that offers repairs like that, unless someone here has a recommendation for a place that can do it in the Greater Toronto Area)? Also, I'm going to attach the logs from the SLC that I dumped in January so that at least more can be figured out about the condition my Wii U was in at that time. I've yet to even open my Wii U, so I don't even know if I have a Hynix chip or not (I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case).
I apologise for the long post. I thought I should give as much detail as I could about the situation. Any help is very much appreciated, as well for taking the time to read this.
