Hacking NOOB PARADISE - ask away

HalfScoper · May 7, 2021

Yesterday I received a Wii console which was actually mine from Christmas 2008, my mother kept it until now.
Now I obviously want to mod the heck out of this lovely console, but I never had anything to do with modding Wiis and I am really lost now where to start.
Do I need like a modchip or alike?
Do I need a specific FW? If yes how to check?
Generally how do I hack my Wii then and what can I do with it?

Really just consider me the biggest noob you ever seen for Wiis, all and any help is much appreciated

XFlak · May 7, 2021

Download ModMii for windows (link in my signature). Run the main wizard and answer the questions, they're really easy. The most complicated question is what's your system menu version, and on the same screen you are directed as to where to find this information.

Based on your answers, it will generate a custom guide for u to follow, and grab all the necessary files needed for you to mod your console, no modchip necessary.

Edit: oh, and the ModMii developer is super awesome and helpful and still active on gbatemp to this day

HalfScoper · May 7, 2021

XFlak said:
Download ModMii for windows (link in my signature). Run the main wizard and answer the questions, they're really easy. The most complicated question is what's your system menu version, and on the same screen you are directed as to where to find this information.

Based on your answers, it will generate a custom guide for u to follow, and grab all the necessary files needed for you to mod your console, no modchip necessary.

Edit: oh, and the ModMii developer is super awesome and helpful and still active on gbatemp to this day

Holy shit man, if it‘s as you described this might be the easiest console to mod besides PSP imo. Will let you know how everything worked out and many thanks in advance already.

PS: yeah that guy really seems awesome

edit: one more question: If I would want to update my FW if it‘s like the original FW from release, how would I do so? And is this even recommended?

XFlak · May 7, 2021

Modmii will help you upgrade/downgrade to 4.1, 4.2, or 4.3. There are no main differences between them besides additional failed attempts to prevent homebrew. You can block updates using priiloader system menu hacks as well, which should also be covered in your custom guide

Edit: if you are lower than 4.1, it is recommended to update to at least 4.1. Official nintendo updates to 4.3 are safe 99.9% of the time, but if the wii was ever originally Korean and region changed using an inferior method it could result in 003 brick. Using modmii to update or region change carries zero risk of 003 bricking

HalfScoper · May 7, 2021

HM well I figure everything related to basic setup worked out, also got my NAND backup etc.
But where I struggle right now setting up an emuNAND. I used the SNEEK+DI option inside your installer and went through the whole process, reformatted my SD and placed all needed files, then try to boot BootMii but the screen stays black for longer than 5 minutes.
Did I do something wrong by removing previous files from SD before placing new files from the SNEEK setup?

XFlak · May 7, 2021

No you did nothing wrong. Sneek can be finicky to get working the first time, especially with a fresh emunand.

A typical problem is getting launchers like switch2uneek or switch2uneek or nswitch to actually work seamlessly. So for booting the first time I suggest manually renaming your bootmiineek folder (or similar) to "bootmii" using your PC or Wiixplorer, then manually launching "bootmii". In fact, if when you inspect your sd card these files haven't already been renamed automatically as described then this would be 100% the cause of your issue.

There are also a few different ways of constructing an emunand. You could for example extract your own nand.bin into a working emunand file structure using showmiiwads or nandextract, or you can dump it directly using usbloader gx, or build a fresh one similar to modmii using showmiiwads or NUS downloader. Fresh NANDs do take 5-15 minutes over the course of sometimes 2 separate black screens to fully expand the emunand files for its first launch and load the system menu.

Generally if someone has trouble with fresh emunands the next thing I would suggest to try would be your own extracted nand dump. You can always modify it using modmii's emunand modifier function to add a couple minor things that you probably don't even need.

If all that doesn't work, then it's likely a hdd or sd compatibility issue. But you could try alternate versions of neek2o, or even the original neek. But be sure to read modmii's notes after building it, they will change based on your selection, and some are really important, for example if building the original neek, not neek2o, the emunands I think need to saved to the root of the device instead of a nands folder, and if building the original neek+di, you must have a Wii game in extracted format saved to your GAMES folder in order to even load the system menu. So yeah, hopefully you can get neek2o working.

Final thought, you don't really need to boot into neek for most things. You can still launch most content off an emunand from within usbloader gx without booting into neek. Same goes for game saves and mii's. But depending on what you're trying to accomplish, booting into neek may not always be the ideal solution.

Edit: oh, and this next part may or may not be accurate, but the odd time I have forced a hard reset in this middle of booting an emunand for the first time, I've been concerned that the files were partially expanded and may cause issues if I try to boot into it a second time. So I would always erase it and copy over the original un-expanded files for subsequent attempts. This may be an unnecessary precaution, but I'm not certain loading an partially expanded emunand would successfully pick up where it left off and eventually load the emulated system menu

HalfScoper · May 7, 2021

Well my problem is for a noob even your simple installer is too overwhelming with information, I can't really look through what I really need and what not, for example the note about PriiLoader is very confusing and on the SNEEK guide here Booting SNEEK - Complete Softmod Guide (google.com) it says that PriiLoader is the issue for not booting, although I already did everything according to their instructions on site.

EDIT: Didn't see your edit before I posted. Nevertheless it only adds more confusion to it sorry to say.
Especially this part:
"Final thought, you don't really need to boot into neek for most things. You can still launch most content off an emunand from within usbloader gx without booting into neek. Same goes for game saves and mii's. But depending on what you're trying to accomplish, booting into neek may not always be the ideal solution."

So what you are saying is I don't need an emuNAND at all? And how would I boot an emuNAND if not with SNEEK??

This all really does not make any sense to me and I modded a lot of consoles until now, everything related to the Wii is pure gibberish to me and if I follow instructions I fail.

XFlak · May 7, 2021

You can play the vast majority of wii games and GC games from a usb loader without neek or an emulated nand. There are maybe a handful of wii games that require neek. People often use an emunand to be able to install wiiware/VC games without using up all their real nand memory.

So, it depends what are you trying to accomplish? Just wii games and GC games or emulators? Then no need to go barking up the neek tree.

So yeah, what's your end goal?

Edit: If you haven't already, I suggest using modmii's main wizard + usb-loader setup wizard, boot into a USB-loader, rip/load up some game backups, play around, see all that you can do without neek. Neek and emunands add some bells and whistles but for most things it's not really needed. You can also look into emulators, etc. But yeah, still tell me if there's a particular goal you have in mind and I'll tell you if neek is really even needed to accomplish it

Edit2: an emunand is just your emulated nand really, it's content can be accessed from GX without requiring neek. Neek itself is the ability to launch into an emulated nands system menu, so instead of just running a game off the emunand, the entire console and system menu is running off the emunand

Edit3: priiloader is not a problem for emunands anymore (I don't think it ever was TBH, but definitely not any longer). In fact, neek2o rev 93-96 bypasses priiloader entirely if detected on an emunand (you probably installed the latest rev 96)

HalfScoper · May 7, 2021

I see what you mean, but nevertheless I just like to do everything I can on a seperate NAND besides the sysNAND, maybe I am too cautious because of much it matters on Switch for example.
In the end I (for now) don't plan to do much besides playing some games (which also seem to work on sysNAND with CFG USB loader from SD) and maybe trying the SWF WiiWare I did read of here on GBAtemp (although I am not sure if it's only for the vWii or whatever you wanna call it from the Wii U).

PS: Talking back and forth through forum posts (and editing them) isn't really helping me aswell. I would be thankful if you could write me a PM here so I can add you on Discord to talk this out in private, maybe sharing my screen to ensure the setup is right etc.

XFlak · May 7, 2021

If u still need help just tell us what you're trying to accomplish, and exactly what you've done until now.

Like, did you try manually renaming sd:/bootmiineek to sd:/bootmii? What options did you choose when building neek and your emunand?

I'm going to bed soon, but if not me then I'm sure someone else will chime in to help if you need it.

HalfScoper · May 8, 2021

XFlak said:
If u still need help just tell us what you're trying to accomplish, and exactly what you've done until now.

Like, did you try manually renaming sd:/bootmiineek to sd:/bootmii? What options did you choose when building neek and your emunand?

I'm going to bed soon, but if not me then I'm sure someone else will chime in to help if you need it.

Well I already told you what I am trying to achieve above, I don't plan to risk a brick or alike.

It's really hard to recall every single step I have done, but I am the last person that gives up after just one try and I can assure you I tried various "compilations" of a SNEEK installer based on my inputs (I noticed a different amount of WADs everytime so I am pretty sure I did something different than the time before).
And yes, I also did rename the mentioned folder because while the process of NAND backup etc went on, I did read various topics and sources and watched videos to get an idea of what I am doing, sadly I couldn't find any proper help for SNEEK related stuff.

And honestly just waiting for a black screen to maybe disappear doesn't help me at all without knowing what could be the issue, I doubt it's my SD because it is brandnew and I generally trust SanDisk SD cards, I don't use any external drive because I don't have spare ones and don't want to rearrange my setup just to hook my external HDD to my Wii.

XFlak · May 8, 2021

If u run a usb-loader (without neek) using an SD card or USB to play backups, you don't need to worry about a brick. Common bricks are from installing custom system menu themes or untested wiiware or vc wads to real nand without priiloader installed. As long as you have priiloader installed, and u dont uninstall it by accident by updating the system menu (if u do, just reinstall it), then u can recover from just about anything (except uninstalling a system menu or system menu IOS, or overwriting them with a bad version). If you have bootmii installed as boot2 (only capable on very old model wii's) and a nand backup, u can recover from just about everything short of intentionally uninstalling bootmii boot2 and bricking some other way.

Back to neek, it very well could be your sd card. Are you using a microsd with adapter? What size?

HalfScoper · May 8, 2021

XFlak said:
If u run a usb-loader (without neek) using an SD card or USB to play backups, you don't need to worry about a brick. Common bricks are from installing custom system menu themes or untested wiiware or vc wads to real nand without priiloader installed. As long as you have priiloader installed, and u dont uninstall it by accident by updating the system menu (if u do, just reinstall it), then u can recover from just about anything (except uninstalling a system menu or system menu IOS, or overwriting them with a bad version). If you have bootmii installed as boot2 (only capable on very old model wii's) and a nand backup, u can recover from just about everything short of intentionally uninstalling bootmii boot2 and bricking some other way.

Back to neek, it very well could be your sd card. Are you using a microsd with adapter? What size?

Yeah I am using a SDHC with Adapter, 64 GB and even a so called "Ultimate Edition" with even better read/write speeds. I did read somewhere that Wii doesn't really like SDHC if I recall that correctly.
I mean considering todays's standards, where would I get myself a capable SD card? I would just buy myself a "small" external for the games, so I believe 32GB for emuNAND and all that would be enough for the SD?

XFlak · May 9, 2021

An emunand doesn't take up a lot of space generally but it depends on how much content you install to it, maybe try uneek with that small usb HDD your gonna get for wii games

HalfScoper · May 9, 2021

XFlak said:
An emunand doesn't take up a lot of space generally but it depends on how much content you install to it, maybe try uneek with that small usb HDD your gonna get for wii games

Care to enlighten me quickly about what would differ from SNEEK? Or just that it runs from USB? And just UNEEK or + DI?

XFlak · May 9, 2021

Mainly just that it runs from usb. By default sd access is disabled when running sneek from sd, but not uneek from usb. You can toggle sd access for sneek in the options but it carries some risk of corruption.

If running neek2o, I think the +di version is ideal, but only really needed if you are booting into neek and loading disc titles via HDD using the DI menu (not necessary if using a usbloader)

When selecting what version to build, modmii will describe each and some pros and cons.

HalfScoper · May 9, 2021

XFlak said:
Mainly just that it runs from usb. By default sd access is disabled when running sneek from sd, but not uneek from usb. You can toggle sd access for sneek in the options but it carries some risk of corruption.

If running neek2o, I think the +di version is ideal, but only really needed if you are booting into neek and loading disc titles via HDD using the DI menu (not necessary if using a usbloader)

When selecting what version to build, modmii will describe each and some pros and cons.

Yeah well the problem is I have the same results with UNEEK, black screen and nothing happens. As I said before, I appreciate your attempts to help me but this is just useless with talking back and forth, again, because as it seems I am not able to boot into emuNAND and I really don't want to try out just all the possible combinations, there has to be an other issue I am overlooking.

For example when I rename the bootmii folder nothing happens at all when try to start BootMii, when I leave it named to bootmiineek at least the DVD drive blinks blue as indicatior that something is happening at all, yet I bet this is only the signal that BootMii can't find the files.

Again no offense (I can't stress this enough because I appreciated the attempt) but I slowly get really frustrated with this, and in my opinion (as someone who helps others on forums or Discord servers regarding Switch consoles) this help here isn't enough for me, really I try and try and am absolutely sure that I don't forget something like the usual person that claims something doesn't work out of the box, and it just won't get in my head why the f this damn emuNAND is not working and how I could make it work. I mean according to you and your tool it's just drag and drop, but apparently it is not.

EDIT: Maybe your program's output helps.

===============================
4.3E Emulated NAND created by ModMii on 09.05.2021
==================================================
setting.txt built using this serial: LEH133789940
Priiloader v0.9.1 Installed
nSwitch Channel Installed
Post Loader Forwarder Channel Installed
cIOS249 rev14 Installed
Photo Channel Installed
Internet Channel Installed
Weather Channel Installed
News Channel Installed
Mii Channel Installed
Shopping Channel Installed
Wii Speak Channel Installed
NMM (No More Memory-Cards) Installed

CUSTOMIZED NOTES FOR YOUR BUILD OF NEEK:

* When launching any form of SNEEK for the first time, it could take a long time
to load the System Menu, but it will be much quicker the second time around.

* If you have problems loading your Emulated NAND, copy cert.sys
from an original nand dump to your emulated nand's sys folder.

* You can manually override Bootmii to launch neek by renaming
your BootmiiNeek folder to SD:\Bootmii and launching "Bootmii"

* You can launch uneek (or uneek+DI) without requiring an SD Card
using USB-Loader GX. USB-Loader GX also has an option to copy
a console's SYSCONF into your current emuNAND (channel) path,
so if you add new controllers or a balance board to your NAND,
use the copy SYSCONF feature to also put it into neek's emuNAND.

* SD:\Bootmii is not required to launch neek from USB-Loader GX.
If you use USB-Loader GX's EmuNAND neek feature, you can have both SNEEK and
UNEEK at the same time (with or without DI). ModMii will detect SNEEK when
installing UNEEK and vice versa and ask if you want to overwrite SD files.
For dual boot you will want only SNEEK files on SD and only UNEEK files on USB.
The version of SNEEK\UNEEK that will be loaded is based on your EmuNAND
location in USB-Loader GX's settings: Sneek if on SD, and Uneek if on USB.

* Install the neek2o channel using YAWMM then launch the channel in order to
start NEEK. You can also use this channel to return to your real NAND.

* To add Games to the Game/DI Menu, you can use ModMii, WiiBackupManager
or wit.exe to extract Wii Games in neek format to your FAT32 USB Hard Drive.
neek2o is also able to load standard game file formats from USB:\WBFS.

* When using SNEEK+DI or UNEEK+DI, you can access the Game/DI Menu
by pressing "1" on the Wiimote. To access other settings
(including Region Options), you must press "+" from within the DI Menu.

* ShowMiiWads can be used to decrypt your real Wii's Bootmii NAND
dump (nand.bin) to use as an emulated NAND, and it can add custom
channels/WADs to an emulated NAND. See ModMii's Download Page 2.

* For more SNEEK info, like formatting a USB Hard Drive for SNEEK,
or installing the HBC to an emulated NAND, visit: tinyurl.com/SNEEK-DI

XFlak · May 9, 2021

Blackscreen is normal, if u have a usb with an activity light it would help identify if neek is expanding system files.

Have u tried your own personal nand dump?

Neek is finicky, I said this before. U don't need to worry about bricking your real nand without it so long as you don't try anything stupid. If u have bootmii boot2 this is neigh impossible, do you? This is the core/typical setup. Neek/emunand is more of a extra/fringe mod. At this stage I'm thinking it could very well be you and I are doing the exact same thing, and it works for me and not u based on slight differences in hardware. Have you tried other devices? Testing different configurations will get you nowhere if it's hardware compatibility related.

I totally get your frustration, I feel it too. I'm too busy IRL to give much more attention here, so I'm hoping some other ppl chime in to lend a hand

HalfScoper · May 9, 2021

As a quick update, I at least managed to boot with SNEEK without DI. But when I use my own NAND dump it freezes when I try to launch the homebrew channel. Then I did build one more emuNAND with ModMii and it finally worked, didn't even take a minute to get to the first screen. Too bad I was dumb and forgot how to sync my WiiMote, so I force shut it down and used USBLoader-GX to export my SYSCONF, after that the NAND booted but I couldn't get past the health screen.

Now, I am currently trying it one last time to put the clean NAND by ModMii on the SD and configure it from start and completely this time. Wish me luck.

Thanks again for your help (or the attempt), I really didn't wanna blame you or anything, as you said you feel my frustration aswell and that the cause was DI in the end makes me even more confused, but for now I intend to load my games from HDD anyway so I think I am finally good to go. As last question, can I just reinstall all the WADs which I did on sysNAND at the very beginning or did ModMii already take care of that?

XFlak · May 9, 2021

No need to install any additional ios's or cios's to emunand. HBC may have issues when running off emunand, this is mentioned in modmii when constructing a nand, either use homebrew filter, or even better manually install the open homebrew channel wad

Hacking NOOB PARADISE - ask away

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Well-Known Member

Wiitired but still kicking

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum