Hacking Updating a softmodded Wii from 2009 to 2019

Puremin0rez · Nov 1, 2019

Believe it or not, out of all the consoles in our household, our Wii probably has / had the most use. It was the primary Netflix machine, and now it's the go to device for the kids wanting to play games and have fun.

I soft modded this Wii with the original bannerbomb quite some time ago, probably 2009~, and I haven't touched it since. It has homebrew channel, random homebrew inside of it, priiloader installed, all the cIOS for usb loading / gamecube backups?, USB Loader GX and pretty much everything you could want.

Call me foolish, but I want to go back and do a final update of the Wii to modern homebrew and throw more games on my WBFS drive I haven't touched since.

I am unsure of where to begin. While going online with my Wii was possible back then, I cannot get my Wii online any longer. I'm guessing it's because of my WiFi settings, but I am unwillingly to reduce or change them. Hopefully this is a non issue.

The most important thing is I don't want to lose anything in this process. I have a lot of installed WADs for virtual console on both the console and SD card, and i'd be devastated to lose anything on the Wii.

Does anyone know of the best practice to take for updating my quite outdated Wii to the latest, modern homebrew setup? I can see plenty of guides for users who have vanilla consoles, but I am weary of following those as I worry about bricking the console.

My console is running 4.2U and has basically everything you'd ever want / expect from a 2009 - 2010 setup. I can provide more information if that would be helpful if I am guided in the right direction on how to gather such information.

XFlak · Nov 1, 2019

Use modmii, if you were to mod the console as if it were a virgin you won't lose anything (and there's no harm in repeating steps). Lots of effort went into making modmii a user friendly solution that is customized to meet your needs

Note that today people use fat32 hard drives with wbfs files instead of wbfs partitions, you can use wbfs2fat to directly convert it without losing your games but it's safer to just backup your games to a different drive, format the wii hard drive as fat32, then transfer the games back to the wii hard drive. Modmii will help you with this too (make sure to use wii backup manager to transfer your games off the drive before formatting it!). Lots of benefits to using fat32, you can use 1 drive to store your games, homebrew, emulated nands, etc.

Getting online is a bit trickier. Nintendo servers for the wii have shut down. If you're using USB loader gx you can quickly adjust the settings to get back online with wiimmfi. This method does the bare minimum and may have mixed results. For even better results you can modify each game backup using instructions from here https://wiimmfi.de/

Puremin0rez · Nov 2, 2019

XFlak said:
Use modmii, if you were to mod the console as if it were a virgin you won't lose anything (and there's no harm in repeating steps). Lots of effort went into making modmii a user friendly solution that is customized to meet your needs

Note that today people use fat32 hard drives with wbfs files instead of wbfs partitions, you can use wbfs2fat to directly convert it without losing your games but it's safer to just backup your games to a different drive, format the wii hard drive as fat32, then transfer the games back to the wii hard drive. Modmii will help you with this too (make sure to use wii backup manager to transfer your games off the drive before formatting it!). Lots of benefits to using fat32, you can use 1 drive to store your games, homebrew, emulated nands, etc.

Getting online is a bit trickier. Nintendo servers for the wii have shut down. If you're using USB loader gx you can quickly adjust the settings to get back online with wiimmfi. This method does the bare minimum and may have mixed results. For even better results you can modify each game backup using instructions from here https://wiimmfi.de/

Wow thanks a lot, ModMii is great. I remember how annoying it was back in the day grabbing everything manually! This program is GREAT!

Yeah, the drive is currently WBFS. I will actually probably upgrade the drive anyways and move everything over to FAT32 - which is a lot better than some proprietary format.

I went ahead and ran a SysCheck scan on my Wii just to get a current look at things. I'm actually on 4.1U and not 4.2U like I thought, but it doesn't matter.

Code:

SysCheck HDE v2.4.0 HacksDen Edition by JoostinOnline, Double_A, R2-D2199, and Nano
...runs on IOS58 (rev 6175).
Region: NTSC-U
System Menu 4.1U (v449)
Priiloader installed
Drive date: 02.13.2007
Homebrew Channel 1.1.0 running on IOS58
Hollywood v0x11
Console ID: 119862720
Console Type: Wii
Shop Channel Country: United States (49)
Boot2 v4
Found 93 titles.
Found 30 IOS on this console. 1 of them are stubs.
IOS3 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS9 (rev 778): No Patches
IOS12 (rev 269): No Patches
IOS13 (rev 273): No Patches
IOS14 (rev 520): No Patches
IOS15 (rev 523): No Patches
IOS16 (rev 257): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, Flash Access, NAND Access
IOS17 (rev 775): No Patches
IOS21 (rev 782): No Patches
IOS22 (rev 1037): No Patches
IOS28 (rev 1550): No Patches
IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS33 (rev 3091): No Patches
IOS34 (rev 3348): No Patches
IOS35 (rev 3349): No Patches
IOS36 (rev 3351): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access
IOS37 (rev 3869): No Patches
IOS38 (rev 3867): No Patches
IOS53 (rev 5406): No Patches
IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS57 (rev 5661): No Patches
IOS58 (rev 6175): USB 2.0
IOS60 (rev 6174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS61 (rev 5661): No Patches
IOS224[57] (rev 65535, Info: hermes-5.1): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS236 (rev 54321): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, Beer Ticket
IOS249[38] (rev 17): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS250[57] (rev 20, Info: rev 20): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS254 (rev 65281): BootMii
BC v6
MIOS v10
Report generated on 11/02/2019.

Does everything look okay with my system? I noticed I'm missing a lot of stubs - I can't remember if I may have did something that removed these back in the day or if that's normal. I realize stubs are pointless, but don't want to cause any issues of course.

FancyNintendoGamer567 · Nov 2, 2019

Everything seems ok, also dat classical cIOS236

jeannotte · Nov 2, 2019

Hello,

@ Puremin0rez

update your hack with Modmii, as XFlak suggests.

Then update usb loader gx ==>https://sourceforge.net/projects/usbloadergx/

then repost a new syscheck report, for control. And everything will go just fine .

Alexander1970 · Nov 2, 2019

Puremin0rez said:
Wow thanks a lot, ModMii is great. I remember how annoying it was back in the day grabbing everything manually! This program is GREAT!

Yeah, the drive is currently WBFS. I will actually probably upgrade the drive anyways and move everything over to FAT32 - which is a lot better than some proprietary format.

I went ahead and ran a SysCheck scan on my Wii just to get a current look at things. I'm actually on 4.1U and not 4.2U like I thought, but it doesn't matter.

Code:

SysCheck HDE v2.4.0 HacksDen Edition by JoostinOnline, Double_A, R2-D2199, and Nano ...runs on IOS58 (rev 6175). Region: NTSC-U System Menu 4.1U (v449) Priiloader installed Drive date: 02.13.2007 Homebrew Channel 1.1.0 running on IOS58 Hollywood v0x11 Console ID: 119862720 Console Type: Wii Shop Channel Country: United States (49) Boot2 v4 Found 93 titles. Found 30 IOS on this console. 1 of them are stubs. IOS3 (rev 65280): Stub IOS9 (rev 778): No Patches IOS12 (rev 269): No Patches IOS13 (rev 273): No Patches IOS14 (rev 520): No Patches IOS15 (rev 523): No Patches IOS16 (rev 257): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, Flash Access, NAND Access IOS17 (rev 775): No Patches IOS21 (rev 782): No Patches IOS22 (rev 1037): No Patches IOS28 (rev 1550): No Patches IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches IOS33 (rev 3091): No Patches IOS34 (rev 3348): No Patches IOS35 (rev 3349): No Patches IOS36 (rev 3351): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access IOS37 (rev 3869): No Patches IOS38 (rev 3867): No Patches IOS53 (rev 5406): No Patches IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches IOS57 (rev 5661): No Patches IOS58 (rev 6175): USB 2.0 IOS60 (rev 6174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access IOS61 (rev 5661): No Patches IOS224[57] (rev 65535, Info: hermes-5.1): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0 IOS236 (rev 54321): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, Beer Ticket IOS249[38] (rev 17): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, USB 2.0 IOS250[57] (rev 20, Info: rev 20): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0 IOS254 (rev 65281): BootMii BC v6 MIOS v10 Report generated on 11/02/2019.

Does everything look okay with my system? I noticed I'm missing a lot of stubs - I can't remember if I may have did something that removed these back in the day or if that's normal. I realize stubs are pointless, but don't want to cause any issues of course.

Hello.

Thank you for your sysCheck.

I noticed I'm missing a lot of stubs

I think ModMii has a lot of work to do - for You.

IOS249[38] (rev 17): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS250[57] (rev 20, Info: rev 20): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0

I do not think that this Constellation will be suitable for the USBLoader GX or for playing you Game Backups in generell.

Please use the UPDATE with your sysCheck Option from ModMii (SU) to bring your SoftMod up to Date.
You have to use the ModMii Classic Version and not the ModMiiSkin Version to find this Option.

And I also think you will stay on Version 4.1U and not update it ?

Thank you.

Puremin0rez · Nov 2, 2019

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I appreciate it! It's really weird to be doing Wii modding again. It was 10 years ago and I was in High School when I touched any of this last. Since then I've moved onto 3DS and now Switch haha.

I will be making a NAND backup and performing a full update to 4.3U (I figure may as well?) and updating everything else using ModMii tonight. I've gone ahead and explored the entire program and I love all the options. I much prefer the Classic Version and found the Skin version to be limiting, although I can see why novice users might prefer Skinned.

Will also convert my WBFS drive to FAT32. That will make is much easier to manage in the future and add more games.

I'll post a syscheck when I'm done and hopefully I can get some feedback on how everything looks on the system when I'm done.

Thanks again all

XFlak · Nov 2, 2019

An official update is unnecessary, ModMii will take care of that for you. In some cases an official update can lead to brick (e.g. If the wii was originally Korean and region changed an official update would lead to 003 brick.... If u use modmii to update then it's safe even in this scenario, and if you use Modmii and choose not to update to 4.3, ModMii will install 'extra brick protection' that would save even these wii's from a 003 brick if an official update is done at some point in the future).

Edit: you can drag and drop a Syscheck onto modmii or modmii skin or a shortcut to either and it will analyze it for you. Or you can right click a Syscheck and choose to open it with Modmii and it will do the same thing. And the 3rd option is to just launch modmii classic and select syscheck updater from the main menu and load it that way

Puremin0rez · Nov 3, 2019

Just got done installing the full ModMii setup and everything went well

Now running 4.3U and everything is up to date.

Homebrew works, Forwarders work, Backup Discs via NeoGamma work (with cMIOS), USB Loader GX works with loading Wii and Gamecube games! (Now using FAT32 on the HDD)

The only issue that I have is that the "Photos Channel" is missing from my home screen. It's installed, and I can load it via USB Loader GX and it works, but it won't show up on the home screen. Is that normal?

Here's my final syscheck, everything should be up to date and correct now?

Code:

SysCheck HDE v2.4.0 HacksDen Edition by JoostinOnline, Double_A, R2-D2199, and Nano
...runs on IOS58 (rev 6176).
Region: NTSC-U
System Menu 4.3U (v513)
Priiloader installed
Drive date: 02.13.2007
Homebrew Channel 1.1.2 running on IOS58
Hollywood v0x11
Console ID: 119862720
Console Type: Wii
Shop Channel Country: United States (49)
Boot2 v4
Found 117 titles.
Found 46 IOS on this console. 0 of them are stubs.
IOS9 (rev 1034): No Patches
IOS11 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS12 (rev 526): No Patches
IOS13 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS14 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS15 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS16 (rev 257): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, Flash Access, NAND Access
IOS17 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS20 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS21 (rev 1039): No Patches
IOS22 (rev 1294): No Patches
IOS28 (rev 1807): No Patches
IOS30 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS33 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS34 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS35 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS36 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS37 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS38 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS40 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS41 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS43 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS45 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS46 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS48 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS50 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS52 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS53 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS57 (rev 5919): No Patches
IOS58 (rev 6176): USB 2.0
IOS60 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS61 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS62 (rev 6430): No Patches
IOS70 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS80 (rev 16174): Trucha Bug, NAND Access
IOS202[60] (rev 65535, Info: hermesrodries-v6): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS222[38] (rev 4, Info: hermes-v4): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS223[38+37] (rev 4, Info: hermes-v4): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS224[57] (rev 65535, Info: hermesrodries-v6): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS236[36] (rev 65535, Info: rev 3351): Trucha Bug, ES Identify, NAND Access
IOS249[57] (rev 21008, Info: d2x-v8final): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS250[56] (rev 21008, Info: d2x-v8final): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS254 (rev 65281): BootMii
BC v6
MIOS v65535
Report generated on 11/03/2019.

XFlak · Nov 3, 2019

Everything looks good.

You could try installing the photo channel again, but the older 1.0 version first then the latest vetsion. If doesn't work, you can try uninstalling the same wads, then reinstalling them.

Puremin0rez · Nov 3, 2019

XFlak said:
Everything looks good.

You could try installing the photo channel again, but the older 1.0 version first then the latest vetsion. If doesn't work, you can try uninstalling the same wads, then reinstalling them.

Yup that worked perfectly! Installed 1.0 and then 1.1 and now it shows up properly.

My Wii is now perfect, I am very happy with everything

Thanks everyone for your feedback and support. <3

FancyNintendoGamer567 · Nov 3, 2019

We are welcome!

Hacking Updating a softmodded Wii from 2009 to 2019

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