Hacking Is my Wii U useless now?

freshgoatmilk · Mar 5, 2020

I think I have royally *ucked up my Wii U tonight. It was working fine, I had CHBC running with Homebrew Channel and everything. I got my hands on a 2nd Wii U and thought I would mod it too. So I went ahead and did the system transfer from the modded Wii U to the Virgin Wii U thinking I had downloaded a moddable game previously (Brainage) and thought I could re-use the same Nintendo account on the virgin Wii U to repeat the hack. The system transfer went fine as the virgin Wii U now has the Nintendo account from the CFW Wii U, but the CFW Wii U is now stuck in a loop like this

I tried unplugging the power for a few minutes, took out the coin battery in hope that it would reset and boot back to the normal screen, but no luck. So now, whenever I turn it on, the CHBC loads and I tap the home button on the gamepad and it gives me these options

Is there anything I can do to save my Wii U? I think I have the NAND backup somewhere when I was modding it before.

wolf-snake · Mar 5, 2020

-snip- should have uninstalled Coldboot Haxchi before doing this.

zeroultima6 · Mar 5, 2020

From the way i read, that Wii U is kinda dead dude (unless you have a nand backup, could be wrong)

Dust2dust · Mar 5, 2020

Hmm, yeah, it looks like a CBHC brick. If you have NAND backup like you said, you can try to recover, but it's nowhere as easy as it is on the Switch. Have a look at this.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/guide-kaflukes-hardmod-cbhc-unbrick-guide.476725/

freshgoatmilk · Mar 5, 2020

wolf-snake said:
-snip- should have uninstalled Coldboot Haxchi before doing this.

Yep wasn't thinking too much.

Dust2dust said:
Hmm, yeah, it looks like a CBHC brick. If you have NAND backup like you said, you can try to recover, but it's nowhere as easy as it is on the Switch. Have a look at this.

Whoa definitely not for the faint of heart. I'm not the greatest soldering person around. And for the cost of the materials, I can probably get me a replacement unit instead.

Bladexdsl said:
-snip-

LMAO hey I still get some entertainment out of it.

KleinesSinchen · Mar 5, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
Whoa definitely not for the faint of heart. I'm not the greatest soldering person around. And for the cost of the materials, I can probably get me a replacement unit instead.

It's softbricked. Can only get better. I would try saving it if I had a Wii U with messed up CBHC.

There are not that many Wii U consoles. Wasting one is not good.

Maybe you can sell it (with the backup) to somebody who is good at soldering.

freshgoatmilk · Mar 5, 2020

KleinesSinchen said:
It's softbricked. Can only get better. I would try saving it if I had a Wii U with messed up CBHC.

There are not that many Wii U consoles. Wasting one is not good.

Maybe you can sell it (with the backup) to somebody who is good at soldering.

Do you know of anyone who can fix this for a fee? I can mail in the console then upload and send them the link to the NAND back up. I'd hate to waste it as you said, we have a limited amount of Wii Us.

Nomado · Mar 5, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
Do you know of anyone who can fix this for a fee? I can mail in the console then upload and send them the link to the NAND back up. I'd hate to waste it as you said, we have a limited amount of Wii Us.

Daymn. That's a shame. Hope you find solution and unbrick it. It is seriously the best Nintendo system besides 3DS for me. I am able to play all the previous generation Nintendo games I want on it and 3DS combined.
No one plays Nintendo games in my country so WiiU is really rare thing here. To date I have only seen 3 WiiU in my country being on sale since last year. For this reason, I was wary of installing CBHC and still load up haxchi on everyboot.

eyeliner · Mar 5, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
Do you know of anyone who can fix this for a fee? I can mail in the console then upload and send them the link to the NAND back up. I'd hate to waste it as you said, we have a limited amount of Wii Us.

Well, I'd try to fix it, as there's nothing to loose. The materials aren't that expensive for what you can recuperate.

dojafoja · Mar 5, 2020

I have a theory you could try but I could be WAY off, I'm not sure. After you performed the system transfer, the old CFW console is attempting to delete all user data. This would include the DS game that was used to install CBHC. At this point you are already booted into CFW and it is known that CBHC prevents itself from being deleted in data management while in CFW and is really only susceptible to a system format. There's a very small chance that the error is being thrown when the DS VC game is trying to be uninstalled because you're in CFW. This is what I think you should try before giving up all hope: When the system is booting, press the home button to bring up the CBHC menu and select to boot the Homebrew Launcher. Run the CBHC installer, only this time select to UNINSTALL CBHC. Once finished and complete, reboot and see if the same error is thrown with CBHC being removed.
It's just an idea and probably won't work but I would at least give it a try. I understand that this leaves you with no access to the HBL if it doesn't work but it seems like your only other options are to chuck the console or perform the hardmod with a NAND backup anyway.

freshgoatmilk · Mar 5, 2020

dojafoja said:
I have a theory you could try but I could be WAY off, I'm not sure. After you performed the system transfer, the old CFW console is attempting to delete all user data. This would include the DS game that was used to install CBHC. At this point you are already booted into CFW and it is known that CBHC prevents itself from being deleted in data management while in CFW and is really only susceptible to a system format. There's a very small chance that the error is being thrown when the DS VC game is trying to be uninstalled because you're in CFW. This is what I think you should try before giving up all hope: When the system is booting, press the home button to bring up the CBHC menu and select to boot the Homebrew Launcher. Run the CBHC installer, only this time select to UNINSTALL CBHC. Once finished and complete, reboot and see if the same error is thrown with CBHC being removed.
It's just an idea and probably won't work but I would at least give it a try. I understand that this leaves you with no access to the HBL if it doesn't work but it seems like your only other options are to chuck the console or perform the hardmod with a NAND backup anyway.

That's a great idea, I'll give it a go when I get off work. I'll try anything at this point honestly, it's a paper weight in my head right now.

EDIT: Well gave it a shot but no luck. Booting HBC just gives me this "-5" error.

I can boot into the vWii menu though that's not going to do me any good.

SuperDan · Mar 6, 2020

Just read all this... Sh*t seems Fukt the Nand... But still you might get some way back somehow... & I hope you do..

dojafoja · Mar 6, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
That's a great idea, I'll give it a go when I get off work. I'll try anything at this point honestly, it's a paper weight in my head right now.

EDIT: Well gave it a shot but no luck. Booting HBC just gives me this "-5" error.

View attachment 198628

I can boot into the vWii menu though that's not going to do me any good.
View attachment 198629

Error -5 just means that it couldn't find the HBL on your SD card. Make sure it's there in the proper path.

freshgoatmilk · Mar 6, 2020

dojafoja said:
Error -5 just means that it couldn't find the HBL on your SD card. Make sure it's there in the proper path.

HOOOOOOLY MONKEY IT WORKED!!!!
You are legendary my friend :bow:

dojafoja · Mar 6, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
HOOOOOOLY MONKEY IT WORKED!!!!
You are legendary my friend

Legendary is actually my middle name!
Not really but I am glad it worked for you. The more and more I thought about it, the more confident I was that it would work.
BTW... How did you know that my real name is Monkey?

freshgoatmilk · Mar 6, 2020

dojafoja said:
Legendary is actually my middle name!
Not really but I am glad it worked for you. The more and more I thought about it, the more confident I was that it would work.
BTW... How did you know that my real name is Monkey?

Haha man thanks again for saving my Wii U, I had lost all hope. And I'm not the type to think outside the box either. I was pretty sure I had a paper weight, so in my haste I went and bought a replacement unit for $40

So I have 3 and now am a hoarder LOL. Oh well they'll become rare one day.

KleinesSinchen · Mar 6, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
Haha man thanks again for saving my Wii U, I had lost all hope. And I'm not the type to think outside the box either. I was pretty sure I had a paper weight, so in my haste I went and bought a replacement unit for $40 So I have 3 and now am a hoarder LOL. Oh well they'll become rare one day.

Only $40? Sounds good.
I'm glad this could be repaired with software methods. Good work @dojafoja !!

HRudyPlayZ · Mar 6, 2020

Glad this worked.
One thing for anyone coming by:

The only times a soft brick really happens is when you install it on the wrong location (aka not following instructions) or you delete the "DO NOT TOUCH!" game, in which case it should be blocked by the CFW, like this case. So, if you can see "Autobooting" or can access the menu of CBHC, it isn't a brick and is always recoverable with homebrew access...

One way to tell if you're perma-bricked (unless you do some hardmod) is if you can't access anything other than the WiiU boot logo, meaning you wouldn't even see CBHC happening, this is because CBHC and all his menu code and things like that is in the app, if the app isn't present anymore, you won't be able to display "Autobooting" or other things.

brandon916 · Mar 8, 2020

freshgoatmilk said:
Haha man thanks again for saving my Wii U, I had lost all hope. And I'm not the type to think outside the box either. I was pretty sure I had a paper weight, so in my haste I went and bought a replacement unit for $40 So I have 3 and now am a hoarder LOL. Oh well they'll become rare one day.

Nothing wrong w that meantality. I just picked up my 2nd wii u just for back up sake. Never know 5-10 yrs from now.

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

freshgoatmilk said:
Haha man thanks again for saving my Wii U, I had lost all hope. And I'm not the type to think outside the box either. I was pretty sure I had a paper weight, so in my haste I went and bought a replacement unit for $40 So I have 3 and now am a hoarder LOL. Oh well they'll become rare one day.

$40? Dude, where? Crazy deal. I got one for $80.

freshgoatmilk · Mar 8, 2020

brandon916 said:
$40? Dude, where? Crazy deal. I got one for $80.

I use this app called Mercari, can find real good deals on there. For $40 I just got the unit and the power cord though, nothing else. If you paid $80 I hope it came with the gamepad as well.

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