Emulate a Wii NAND to keep your Wii clean

THIS TUTORIAL ONLY WORKS WITH WII's THAT WERE BOUGHT BEFORE 2010. THE NEWER WII's RUN ONLY WITH SNEEK
I read that now, but if you have an old Wii, this tutorial has many advantages. If your Wii was bought in the beginning, you should have no problems. If you have problems with this tutorial, please tell it to me in this thread, and most importantly, when your Wii was created. There is nearly no chance of bricking the Wii in the process (even if you have a new Wii) but I will still tell you: Use this tutorial at your own risk.

Foreword:
First off, this tutorial (at least the Wii Part) will not have any screenshots, as I have no way (except ugly, blurry pictures) to capture from my Wii.
In this tutorial I will show you how to:
Create a virgin NAND and personalize it (Put your save games on it)
Use this NAND as your Wii System and leave your original Wii NAND untouched
Your new NAND is as big as your harddrive. That means you can install many many more channels than on your normal Wii NAND

Advantages:
The best advantage is (in my opinion) that you can mess with your new NAND as much as you want without the fear of destroying your Wii. This leaves the Wii from the point when you installed this, untouched. Also, if you play your backups, you don't need any cIOS or whatever. With the emulated NAND, it is like a normal Wii. I tested many backups, and none of them need a special cIOS or whatever (Guitar Hero for example needs a special kind of cIOS to work with the guitars, but runs flawless with the emulated NAND). The new, emulated NAND will be as big as your Harddrives partition, so you have a lot of free space for VC titles.

What you need
The package from this thread
SD card formatted to FAT32 (NO, I REPEAT, NO SDHC)
NO bootmii folder on the SD
A Harddrive with 2 Partitions:
Partition 1: PRIMARY/ACTIVE, formatted to FAT32
Partition 2: PRIMARY, formatted to NTFS
The SD and the Harddrive connected to the PC
Homebrew Channel installed on the Wii (doesn't matter which Firmware is on the Wii, it only needs the stated requirements



Creation of the WADs for your Virgin NAND
Start the NUS Downloader from the NUS Downloader folder
Go to Extras -> Update Database
After the Update is complete, exit NUS Downloader and re-start it
Check these boxes in the Program:
Pack -> WAD
Delete Contents
Local Files
Go to Extras -> Emulate Wii System Update and Choose Your Region
Go to Extras -> Load NUS Script and choose the most-up-to-date script
Wait until the downloads are finished
When the download is complete, exit the NUS Downloader



Create the Virgin NAND
Start ShowMiiWads from the ShowMiiWads folder
Go to Tools -> Create Common key -> enter "45e" in the box and press the OK button
Go to Options -> Change NAND Backup Path and choose the TO_HDD folder from the pack
Drag all the folders from the NUS Downloader folder to the main window of ShowMiiWads
Press Install shown at the status-bar of ShowMiiWads
Wait until the process is finished
After the installation is complete, exit ShowMiiWads



Personalize your NAND
Start the FreshNANDPersonalizer from the FreshNANDPersonalizer folder
Choose your Region and enter the Serial-Number of your Wii
(Serial Number can be found at the right side of your Wii. Something like LEH12345678[9].
You have to include the number in the brackets as well. But without typing the brackets. So it would be LEH123456789 from the example)
Press the PERSONALIZE button
Choose the FAT32-Partition of your Harddrive to install the generated NAND-folders and wait until it's finished
Choose your SD-Card to install the generated SD-files to it



Install the NAND Emulator on your Wii
Savely remove your SD and your Harddrive from the Computer
Power On your Wii and wait until the System-Menu booted up
Plug in the SD
Start the Homebrew Channel
Install IOS58 with the IOS58 Installer
Start NANDEmu IOS installer and don't press any key until "Press 1/X to..." is shown
Press 1 on the wiimote to install



Setting your "new" Wii up
Connect your Harddrive to your Wii
Start StartNANDEmu from Homebrew Channel or
Install StartNANDEmulator.wad channel with WAD-Manager and use it to start NAND-Emulator
Wait until the first Screen appears (this may take a few minutes, be patient)
Synchronize your wiimote
Follow the standard instructions and set up your new Wii as you like
Go to Wii-Settings->Internet->Connection Settings and setup your internet
( DONT MAKE A NINTENDO UPDATE after connection test is successful)
Activate WiiConnect24 and accept the EULA-rules
Go to Wii-Settings->WiiConnect24->Standby Connection and turn it OFF
Exit the Wii-Settings
Enter the Wii Shop Channel to gather access to your account and restore tickets of bought games/channels/titles
Leave the Wii Shop Channel



Autostart the NAND Emulator

Install Priiloader through HBC (hold B and press + to install it)
Power off your Wii and HOLD the Reset button and power on your Wii
Choose Load/Install File -> select the StartNANDEmu.dol -> press A to install and after that, press B to return
Choose settings -> change Autoboot to Installed File, save the settings and press B to return
If you choose System Menu, you will be on your original NAND, or you start the emulated NAND by choosing 'Installed File
Restart your Wii



Autostart the UniiLoader

Remove the _ from the _launch.sys in the bootmii folder on your FAT32-Partition


Install Channels on your NAND

Connect your Harddrive to your PC
Start ShowMiiWads
Go to Options -> Change NAND Backup Path and choose your first Partition of your Harddrive
Drag any WADs you want to install to main window of ShowMiiWads
Press Install at the status-bar of ShowMiiWads
Wait until the process is finished
After it is finished, exit ShowMiiWads
Savely remove your Harddrive from your PC and connect it to your Wii
Power on your Wii and your new Channels



Start your Wii Backups with the UniiLoader

Create a wbfs folder on your NTFS Partition
Copy your backups into the wbfs folder
Covers can be placed on the FAT32 Partition in the Covers\DVD folder
Connect your Harddrive to your Wii-> Power it on -> Start the NAND Emulator -> start the UniiLoader Channel
Choose Wii DVD Games
Choose a game of your choice, press the A Button and play your backups



Problems

Black Screen When Starting the Wii:
This could be caused by wrong partition format or Harddrive incompatibility
Check the following things:
The NAND Emulator needs a Harddrive in MBR Partition Format. HDD in GPT-format will not work
Look at http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26203...k-mbr-disk.html to learn how to determine which Harddrive type you have and how to convert it to MBR
Even if you have a MBR Harddrive you should try to convert it to GPT and then back to MBR
When you've started the StartNANDEmu watch your Harddrive LED. If your Harddrive is compatible then there should be any activity.
When there is no LED blinking, re-connect your Harddrive while you have black screen
Shut down your Wii and try the above a few times
When nothing of the above works, try to install StartNANDEmu.dol to PriiLoader and repeat the steps above
My NAND-Emulation became much slower:Install ERASER, then right-click on NAND-partition -> Eraser -> Erase unused space
(This will take some time, but it is shorter than a full defragmentation of the drive)

I also want to thank sorg for creating the NAND-Emulator and UniiLoader. I use it for some time now, and never had problems. I checked my package every time and cleaned it, so that it does not contain any illegal files. If you find some wad file you think is forbidden to share, please contact me as soon as portable. I also would be happy about any kind of feedback. As I don't have a filetrip account, I would be very happy if someone could mirror my upload to filetrip and send me the link.
 
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BKWayne

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Any ideas on what to troubleshoot? What information I need to find and provide? This is my first foray into homebrewing and what little I'm finding on this issue on google is all greek to me.

I tried ModMii to get an emulated NAND running so I could follow the rest of the guide. I got SNEEK+DI to boot, but trying to install the homebrew channel, I was stuck at the disclaimer "If you paid for this it's a scam" screen and was never prompted to press 1.

I'm wondering if I should put my efforts into trying to remedy the first attempt through that original guide or into fixing this ModMii SNEEK nand. I seem to be at a dead end with both now.
 

XFlak

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BKWayne

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That worked! Thanks. I had not come across open HBC at all during my search. I don't have anything else on my EmuNAND so I'm not sure if that's all there was to it. In theory should I be able to treat it just like using my real Wii from here on out with installing apps and such? I don't see any of my apps in the HBC so I'm unsure where those are to be stored on the SD card.
 
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BKWayne

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If using sneek, the SD card is treated like the nand, so save your apps to a fat32 USB HDD, or vice versa if using uneek

I believe it's loading off of the USB as it pulls up the "FAT" partition name. I have an "apps" folder on the root of the SD but nothing shows up on HBC. Apps show up when using the real nand.
 

BKWayne

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Tried with an apps folder on the USB. No change. No apps load up. The guide RB3 guide I'm following now that the store is down has the EmuNand on the SD I believe. So I'm not sure if swapping would throw things off.
 

XFlak

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What you telling me for? Obviously I'm going to say it's safe, so either you trust me and the thousands of ppl having used modmii, or you don't.

Here's another answer I gave when I was feeling more patient and generally in a better mood (sorry but today's been rough)

You can whitelist modmii's working directory in your AV if u want, it's safe and completely open source, if your anti-virus is flagging it, it's a false positive. If you upload modmii to virus total and let it analyze it, modmii is reported by the vast majority of AV's as safe, but unfortunately not 100%, as I said, some have false positives.

If you still don't want to use modmii, you can perform some of its functions by following wii.guide, but some features like installing neek or building a virgin emulated nand won't be covered, you could find MANUAL directions for those most probably on the complete softmod guide somewhere or other sites. But yeah, I put a lot of work into ModMii to make it a one stop shop for everything you need for the wii, and making it super user friendly, so any other method won't be as efficient or as easy (in my opinion)
 

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