Madrigal said:
Why do you need an SD card? It seems like something that should be able to be done via USB. There's got to be a way to do it that works.
Your lack of knowledge is the issue... no offense meant.
To create a USB stack requires a LOT more code than the simple hardware defined SD code. Space is rather limited and the amount of time to create the code compared to how much it is needed for something for something so simple that everyone can find $10 for...... USB bootmii NAND.BIN is not an option. Just get money and buy an SD card and be thankful that the gods have already given you the ability to do even that.
I know Tuiedj can give more details about the reasoning of why it is not possible... easily... to make bootmii compatible with USB devices. He knows more about USB stacks and stuff than anyone else here on gbatemp.
Edit. To add on to this thought. And SD card is rather simple.
read this.
Now, USB is not only meant for data storage like how SD cards are meant to be, but USB is capable of so much more. Now those people that write USB stack code need to code in for device identifiers, shit loads of other logic that I have not researched, and to determine down if it is a data storage device and if it is USB 1.1 or 2.0 capable.
When going with the SD option it become so much simpler for the programmers. SD is strictly meant for data storage, it's not meant to be a UNIVERSAL Serial Bus. SD has the specific purpose of data storage. USB has the ability to do nearly anything, but it requires more code to command everything to work correctly.
Also, there is not enough space in the boot2 space of the wii's nand to make it able to run bootmii from boot2. They possibly could make bootmii for USB run for an IOS, but why waste the time when most everyone else has a working and capable SD card?
If it was EASILY capable to make bootmii do USB nand.bin dumps, then they would have done it. But it is not worth their time or effort when the option of just using an SD card is so freaking simple.