Hacking The Definitive vWii Hacking Guide!

Cyan · Aug 31, 2016

Waveracer said:
About USB Loader GX... There is a horizontal visual artifact in the middle part of the screen when I play Mario Kart Wii (PAL) using USB Loader GX but that doesn't appear at all when using the disc (PAL) in vWii Menu. Does anybody know why or have you heard about it? It doesn't occur with other Wii games.

CJB100 said:
Not sure. Doesn't happen in the NTSC version, I know that much. Very odd. @Cyan any ideas?

I already had this report on vWii and it's usually when launched from the forwarder.
but someone reported that video glitch also when launched from HBC.
I really don't know what is causing this, and rebooting could usually fix it. It seems it's random, so it's really hard to fix (I never encountered it myself).

I think OriginalHamster is the one who reported that "screen tearing".
(it should look like this, except only the middle is "tearing", both top and bottom are still aligned)

ctkxtreme · Aug 31, 2016

Kind of a dumb question, but I'll ask it.

So I decided to try again to get the drive to be recognized on vWii, it turns out it was the cable I had. It wasn't powerful enough for Wii U, so I swapped it out with another USB cable I have from my previous capture card. It works now, Wii and Gamecube games show up on USB Loader GX. However when I try to load up a Wii game, it goes into a black screen and then back to the menu. What IOS am I supposed to use, or the loader settings I need to have? Currently it's on 58 and 249.

Cyan · Aug 31, 2016

58 is fine in the loader.
249 is ... probably fine. depends what's installed there.
if you have d2x v10 (r52) with base 56 then it's fine. r53 is fine too, but can have game issues (music games or emuNAND).

your issue is maybe that your drive is not compatible with d2x, so while inside the loader it's using IOS58 but when launching a game it's rebooting to slot249 (to get USB access while in game) but then the drive is disconnected.

Did you try to set 249 to both loader and game settings? it will tell you if the drive works with 249.
if it doesn't work, try connecting the drive when you see the 20sec count down screen.

CJB100 · Aug 31, 2016

ctkxtreme said:
Kind of a dumb question, but I'll ask it.

So I decided to try again to get the drive to be recognized on vWii, it turns out it was the cable I had. It wasn't powerful enough for Wii U, so I swapped it out with another USB cable I have from my previous capture card. It works now, Wii and Gamecube games show up on USB Loader GX. However when I try to load up a Wii game, it goes into a black screen and then back to the menu. What IOS am I supposed to use, or the loader settings I need to have? Currently it's on 58 and 249.

On top of what Cyan said, let me ask, does you USB cable have the Y-Split in it? 2 USB ends that go into the Wii U and another that goes into the HDD?

ctkxtreme · Sep 1, 2016

Cyan said:
58 is fine in the loader.
249 is ... probably fine. depends what's installed there.
if you have d2x v10 (r52) with base 56 then it's fine. r53 is fine too, but can have game issues (music games or emuNAND).

your issue is maybe that your drive is not compatible with d2x, so while inside the loader it's using IOS58 but when launching a game it's rebooting to slot249 (to get USB access while in game) but then the drive is disconnected.

Did you try to set 249 to both loader and game settings? it will tell you if the drive works with 249.
if it doesn't work, try connecting the drive when you see the 20sec count down screen.

Yeah I tried on 249 for both, it disconnected the drive. I checked which d2x it was, it was the r53 one. I tried it on a Just Dance game and some regular wii games, same thing kept happening. That would be confusing that it doesn't work, as it worked fine on Wii, but that's different. Should I try with r52?

CJB100 said:
On top of what Cyan said, let me ask, does you USB cable have the Y-Split in it? 2 USB ends that go into the Wii U and another that goes into the HDD?

My external hard drive has it's own power source, I tried with a Y cable and this single cable and it recognized the games, it didn't with the USB cable I normally used for it. Even with the Y cable, the black screen issue still occurred. For the single cable, I used it on the bottom port.

owek1 · Sep 1, 2016

ctkxtreme said:
Yeah I tried on 249 for both, it disconnected the drive. I checked which d2x it was, it was the r53 one. I tried it on a Just Dance game and some regular wii games, same thing kept happening. That would be confusing that it doesn't work, as it worked fine on Wii, but that's different. Should I try with r52?

My external hard drive has it's own power source, I tried with a Y cable and this single cable and it recognized the games, it didn't with the USB cable I normally used for it. Even with the Y cable, the black screen issue still occurred. For the single cable, I used it on the bottom port.

as for my own experience, i followed the vwii guide here on wiiU down to the last letter. i didnt change anything or install anything else except probably just the usbloadergx forwarder.. any chance your Y Cable is faulty? could you try that Y cable to your regular actual Wii (not vWii on WiiU)? not that it needed extra power but for us to see whether the Wii would boot games using that cable..

keepitoriginal · Sep 1, 2016

all I'm saying is why do you need a 2gb card, i honestly can't find one anywhere smh

ctkxtreme · Sep 1, 2016

owek1 said:
as for my own experience, i followed the vwii guide here on wiiU down to the last letter. i didnt change anything or install anything else except probably just the usbloadergx forwarder.. any chance your Y Cable is faulty? could you try that Y cable to your regular actual Wii (not vWii on WiiU)? not that it needed extra power but for us to see whether the Wii would boot games using that cable..

I just did it now, it works on Wii, loaded up the games fine, even booted one up just to make sure. That's weird, because I did follow everything exactly as well, I wonder why it didn't work.

keepitoriginal said:
all I'm saying is why do you need a 2gb card, i honestly can't find one anywhere smh

I lost my 2GB card I had, so I used a 128MB card from one of my drawers, I was able to do it that way. As long as it's a card under 2GB, you should be good. Once you install Homebrew channel, then you can use anything above that.

owek1 · Sep 1, 2016

keepitoriginal said:
all I'm saying is why do you need a 2gb card, i honestly can't find one anywhere smh

i was so lucky my old blackberry that i found in one of our garage boxes has a 1GB micro SD card, i used it to hack the vWii on WiiU.. the 2GB SD card i ordered from ebay still hasnt arrived in the mail.. :/ but yeah, i wish we could use something like 4GB but anyway im done with that so im good..but on my regular actual Wii, i used a 4GB micro SD card (with micro SD-SD adapter of course) to hack it and it worked..

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

@ctkxtreme have you tried a different hard drive? perhaps the WiiU was picky with the drive model even tho the actual Wii has no issues with it.. i actually used different hard drives for Wii and vWiiWiiU.. they are both USB 2.0, the 500GB WD drive for my Wii is connected via micro usb no Y cable, while my Toshiba (salvaged from old macbook and enclosed in Kingston drive enclosure) is using mini USB Y splitter connected to my WiiU.. i don't mean to confuse you but my point is, perhaps the WiiU is not "liking" your current drive for some weird reason?

ctkxtreme · Sep 1, 2016

I'm thinking that could be it. It's an old Fantom drive from 2009, when 2TB drives needed that external power source, so maybe that's why it won't read it right. I could get another hard drive in the future and see if that's the case.

owek1 · Sep 1, 2016

ctkxtreme said:
I'm thinking that could be it. It's an old Fantom drive from 2009, when 2TB drives needed that external power source, so maybe that's why it won't read it right. I could get another hard drive in the future and see if that's the case.

i hope so too..but since you followed everything then for now we could conclude it's the hard drive..

Cyan · Sep 1, 2016

keepitoriginal said:
all I'm saying is why do you need a 2gb card, i honestly can't find one anywhere smh

You don't need one.
That's a requirement from 2008 and Zelda exploit!
since then, the hackmii installer is now compatible with SDHC.
Use whatever size you have, and see if it works or not.

ctkxtreme said:
Yeah I tried on 249 for both, it disconnected the drive. I checked which d2x it was, it was the r53 one. I tried it on a Just Dance game and some regular wii games, same thing kept happening. That would be confusing that it doesn't work, as it worked fine on Wii, but that's different. Should I try with r52?

r53 has issue with just dance 2016, but it's compatibility issue, not a detection issue.
You can try r52, but I don't think it will fix your detection issue. try it anyway, I don't like r53 myself, that's always good to have other users confirm r52 is better.

what you can try is using slot251 (if you installed it with base 58), it should use the official USB module with better hdd compatibility, but some games will not work.

ctkxtreme · Sep 1, 2016

Cyan said:
what you can try is using slot251 (if you installed it with base 58), it should use the official USB module with better hdd compatibility, but some games will not work.

Looks like it finally worked with that test of settings. I tried with regular Wii games and some music games and they all worked for me.

CJB100 · Sep 1, 2016

Cyan said:
You don't need one.
That's a requirement from 2008 and Zelda exploit!
since then, the hackmii installer is now compatible with SDHC.
Use whatever size you have, and see if it works or not.

Actually it IS required by all exploits used in this guide. Anything that requires a game requires a non-SDHC card, otherwise the game and therefore the exploit does not work as intended. You don't need an SDHC for Wii though, because of Banner Bomb and Letter Bomb, although I'd still recommend it since some SDHC can still have issues with those exploits on Wii.

owek1 · Sep 1, 2016

CJB100 said:
Actually it IS required by all exploits used in this guide. Anything that requires a game requires a non-SDHC card, otherwise the game and therefore the exploit does not work as intended. You don't need an SDHC for Wii though, because of Banner Bomb and Letter Bomb, although I'd still recommend it since some SDHC can still have issues with those exploits on Wii.

it might be true that hacks on vWii (no problem on actual Wii) may not need a non-SDHC anymore but why waste time and money on trial and error when you could just go straight and use a 2GB or less non-SDHC card..no hassles, full compatibility..less issues in the long run..so im agreeing on what you said..

Cyan · Sep 1, 2016

CJB100 said:
Actually it IS required by all exploits used in this guide. Anything that requires a game requires a non-SDHC card, otherwise the game and therefore the exploit does not work as intended. You don't need an SDHC for Wii though, because of Banner Bomb and Letter Bomb, although I'd still recommend it since some SDHC can still have issues with those exploits on Wii.

oh, I see.
But users could try SDHC if they don't have a low SD (non HC) before trying to find one.
at worst, it will not detect the SD card and the exploit will not launch hackmii installer. That's only a fallback if they don't have one, they "can" try another one.

keepitoriginal · Sep 1, 2016

Cyan said:
oh, I see.
But users could try SDHC if they don't have a low SD (non HC) before trying to find one.
at worst, it will not detect the SD card and the exploit will not launch hackmii installer. That's only a fallback if they don't have one, they "can" try another one.

CJB100 said:
Actually it IS required by all exploits used in this guide. Anything that requires a game requires a non-SDHC card, otherwise the game and therefore the exploit does not work as intended. You don't need an SDHC for Wii though, because of Banner Bomb and Letter Bomb, although I'd still recommend it since some SDHC can still have issues with those exploits on Wii.

i thought i would try it, but I'm just going to get a cheap one online or ask a cousin or something! thanks for your guys responses though i appreciate it

ill see how this goes and give you guys feedback! also thanks @CJB100 for this good guide

CJB100 · Sep 1, 2016

Cyan said:
oh, I see.
But users could try SDHC if they don't have a low SD (non HC) before trying to find one.
at worst, it will not detect the SD card and the exploit will not launch hackmii installer. That's only a fallback if they don't have one, they "can" try another one.

Of course! Worst that would happen is the need for a hard reboot, which is certainly not the end of the world. If by some miracle it does work, then there is no point in spending more money. But anything above 4GB definitely won't work, at least for vWii as it currently stands.

keepitoriginal said:
i thought i would try it, but I'm just going to get a cheap one online or ask a cousin or something! thanks for your guys responses though i appreciate it ill see how this goes and give you guys feedback! also thanks @CJB100 for this good guide

Not a problem, if you have any further issues, just post here and we can try and help out!

pumpkinpies · Sep 10, 2016

Hi all - finally decided to hack my vWii and I am already stuck at the beginning.

I followed the guide exactly and got to the point of removing the stages onto the SD card, putting the downloaded files onto the SD card, putting in back into the WiiU and going back to the stage builder.

But this is the error that I get:
Cleaning up environment...Eventhook release failed with code 0
OK.
SD card not detected (-1)
USBGecko not found
No code found to load, hanging.

If anyone could help that would be great !

CJB100 · Sep 10, 2016

pumpkinpies said:
Hi all - finally decided to hack my vWii and I am already stuck at the beginning.

I followed the guide exactly and got to the point of removing the stages onto the SD card, putting the downloaded files onto the SD card, putting in back into the WiiU and going back to the stage builder.

But this is the error that I get:
Cleaning up environment...Eventhook release failed with code 0
OK.
SD card not detected (-1)
USBGecko not found
No code found to load, hanging.

If anyone could help that would be great !

Your SD Card is not detected. You need one 2GB or under, preferably as small as you can find. The size doesn't actually matter but SDHC and SDXC will not work, and most 4GB cards and all cards over 4GB are SDHC or SDXC. Some 2GB cards have been shown to actually be SDHC for some reason, but most 2GB cards will work. Afaik, all 1GB and below work.

Hacking The Definitive vWii Hacking Guide!

GBATemp's lurking knight

Well-Known Member

GBATemp's lurking knight

Programmer, Media Producer, Hardware Repair

Well-Known Member

Master Sword Wielder

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Master Sword Wielder

Well-Known Member

Master Sword Wielder

GBATemp's lurking knight

Well-Known Member

Programmer, Media Producer, Hardware Repair

Master Sword Wielder

GBATemp's lurking knight

Well-Known Member

Programmer, Media Producer, Hardware Repair

Well-Known Member

Programmer, Media Producer, Hardware Repair

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum