Hardware Wii disc drive swappable?

Kavas · Jul 9, 2019

Hello,

I have recently sent my Wii in for the HDMI mod install. After 3 months! I have received it back and while it runs and looks great, for whatever reason the guy didn't bother to check if the disc drive would work. I pop in a disc and it accepts and rejects it just fine. It just doesn't spin. I have already pooled over the interwebs researching this apparently common problem. My disc drive DID work. I am in need of some suggestions aside from the usual suspects of "check the cables".

I do have another Wii in my possession but it is a launch edition and this is a later revision so I am unsure if the disc drives are swappable. I also already homebrew and installed the CIOS stuff. The games ran before off the HDD no problem. Now, apparently, if I don't have a working disc drive the WII games will not run (gamecube games do run off nintendont though!).

Is there anything else I am missing to check before I open this pain in the ass up? I have heard about black tape, or cleaning the laser lens.

leseratte · Jul 9, 2019

If the disc doesn't even start spinning, I doubt the laser is the issue.

Also, for Wii games to run successfully, you only need to have the drive logic board working, the drive itself doesn't matter. So if no Wii games boot due to the faulty drive, it's most likely the circuit board of the drive.

You can swap drives between all Wiis (except for the Wii Mini), just be aware that drives taken from a Wii Family Edition won't read gamecube discs if I remember correctly.

39ster · Jul 23, 2019

I've changed the Wii drive on my Wii a few years ago on my launch Wii after the laser started to fail (initially dual layer discs stopped, then read errors became frequent on other discs) and it's not difficult to replace the drive. But as Leseratte said watch out for drives that don't support GC discs. I learned that the hard way and sent it back and replaced the laser instead; a bit more involved but successful and still works with GC discs. The drive is quite easy to get at.

The one on the left does not read GC discs, the one on the right does (and swapping the lids of the drives over doesn't work, I tried that) the metal tab on the long top hole of the left drive makes the drive reject 8cm discs, and even without the tab the discs physically mount into the drive but still won't read, as if there's hardware missing or different drive firmware to read them

vree · Jan 31, 2020

39ster said:
I've changed the Wii drive on my Wii a few years ago on my launch Wii after the laser started to fail (initially dual layer discs stopped, then read errors became frequent on other discs) and it's not difficult to replace the drive. But as Leseratte said watch out for drives that don't support GC discs. I learned that the hard way and sent it back and replaced the laser instead; a bit more involved but successful and still works with GC discs. The drive is quite easy to get at.

The one on the left does not read GC discs, the one on the right does (and swapping the lids of the drives over doesn't work, I tried that) the metal tab on the long top hole of the left drive makes the drive reject 8cm discs, and even without the tab the discs physically mount into the drive but still won't read, as if there's hardware missing or different drive firmware to read them

View attachment 173936

thanks very interesting to know if or when my laser ever stops working.

Hardware Wii disc drive swappable?

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