Hacking (Avoid bricking again) USB LOADER GX WAD PRIILOADER

[mike.leb140]

Hi guys, I'm new to these forums. I just bought a Wii the other week and followed MicrowaveSam's YouTube tutorial on softmodding the console and installing homebrew apps. I am sure I installed priiloader, and I tested it out and made sure it was working. Well a couple of weeks pass by and I am overwhelmed by the amount of joy I felt being able to play dozens of old school Nintendo games. I installed a couple of emulators such as wii64 and sega, nes, SNES, wiisx etc. I made a couple forwarder channels using MultiMod Manager, and everything was going well. One day I felt like playing some Skyward Sword, so I booted up USB Loader GX, and the console froze in a black screen after starting the wbfs. Well I had to shut off the console by holding the power button. When I came back to turn it on, my Wii was bricked. I tried booting priiloader, but it wouldn't work. After doing some online forum research, I found out that USB Loader GX is notorious for bricking consoles. Giving up hope, I was able to exchange my Wii for a replacement from the store I bought it (that $5 warranty came in real handy) and now I'm back to square one having to soft mod the Wii all over again. I wanted to know what I did wrong and what to do to avoid this happening to me again. I'd like to know if using WiiFlow instead of USB Loader GX will solve my type of dilemma from repeating itself. Also if anyone has any idea as to why priiloader did not boot; could it be because I may have used the WAD Manager in MultiMod Manager to install all the forwarder channels at once and that somehow overwrote priiloader's installation? I read somewhere about priiloader not working anymore after some kind of update...not sure.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my situation. I am grateful to anyone trying to resolve my problems. Helpful advice is appreciated.

 

[Cyan]

USBLoaderGX never broke a console
It's not notorious for that at all. if you found any info about it bricking console it's all wrong.


if you install a system menu wad file, it will replace Priiloader (which is installed at the place of the system menu, and the real system menu is renamed to another location)

Boot -> system menu

if you have priiloader
Boot -> system menu (which is priiloader) -> real system menu

-----------------^ if you install system menu wad this will be replaced priiloader with the real system menu
boot -> real system menu > copy of the real system menu never launched



USBLoaderGX or Wiiflow, or CFG Loader are all working the same way and are not bricking consoles.
All it does is tell the console to launch a game located on USB.
what can brick the console is priiloader itself (if wrongly installed, nothing will boot anymore), or installing random IOS by following random and wrong youtube guide.

 

[mike.leb140]

Thank you for the reply. Very informative and helpful. So to be on the safe side, I shouldn't install any WAD files except priiloader? The first time I soft modded, I only had the homebrew channel, USB Loader GX, neo gamma and boot mii forwarder channels. That was when prii loader was working fine. After installing the other forwarder channels, and then booting up USB loader from the forwarder, I was able to select a game, however the screen froze and then I couldn't boot prii loader. All I'm asking is, to be extra safe, I could just put the apps like wii64 etc in the apps folder of the SD card, and not install any WAD forwarder channels to ensure priiloader will work properly next time I need it, right?

 

[Cyan]

I wouldn't recommend to install batch of wads without understand what they are, and why you do it.
Softmoding a Wii only involves installing 2 wads (if you use wads!).
You can softmod without installing wad files at all, and using proper installer which will download files from nintendo server and patch them on the fly.


The steps you should do :
- install The Homebrew Channel (HBC) using your previous method. (game or system menu message bug).
- install bootmii at boot2 if possible while using hackmii installer (if you have a recent console, it's not possible) and bootmii as IOS.
- install Priiloader if you don't have bootmii installed at boot2 (I don't like this, but almost everyone is doing it, it's better than a brick) and setup the standard options (block updates from disc, from all, autopress A, region free for channels maybe, and that's all I think)

From here you have a clean install, but no custom IOS used to play Wii games from USBLoaders.
Be sure your network is setup correctly and you can access online first, as the next step will use online download.


Download and install d2x installer :
http://www.mediafire.com/download/5ggh53tj9hhp1tr/d2x-cios-installer-3.1-v6-v7-v8-v10-wii.7z
Extract on your SD card, in the apps/ folder so you can launch it from HBC.

Launch it, and select :
d2x, v8, slot 249, base56, version 21008
press A to install, return to the selection screen and select:
d2x, v8, slot 250, base57, version 21008
press A to install, return to the selection screen, then press Home to exit.

DONE

that's ALL
you fully softmoded your console.
NO WAD install in batch, no poor youtube tutorial made by wanabee hacker.


install USBLoaderGX (or another one) on your SD card, and test it.
everything will work fine.

after everything is tested and working fine, you might want to install a forwarder.
now you can use a WAD manager to install the forwarder WAD.
the forwarder will install a channel on system menu, and is used to either :
- launch the loader located on SD
- automatically Return to the loader when exiting a game instead of returning to system menu.

edit:
This "mini guide" doesn't make you install additional IOS (like IOS236) which are often used by different/old homebrew.
I explained only the minimum requirement for playing Wii games from USBLoaders.
You don't need other IOS, other patches, other softmod. Homebrew are not relying on IOS236 anymore. you don't need it.


Edit:
be sure the game you are testing is good dump. Not found on suspicious ISO website.
The game you launched could be what broke your console if it contains malicious code instead of the real game.
the best way to test if everything is working is to dump your own game discs : launch USBLoaderGX, insert the disc, select install.
test launching installed games now.

 

[mike.leb140]

Thanks a lot Cyan. I really appreciate the time you took to explain how to properly soft mod the Wii. I will be testing this out soon.

 

[mike.leb140]

Cyan,

Just an update: I followed your advice and the Wii is softmodded again.

Everything seems to work perfectly. I tested out Wii64, WiiSX, Fceugx, Snes9xgx and they work fine.

However, after following a tutorial to play gamecube games off of the USB HDD, (installing RVL-cMIOS, the RVL-BC-v6 and the DIOSMIOS_v.2.10 wads) which is the same tutorial I used to play GC games on my last Wii, Wiiflow just freezes on a black screen and the DIOSMIOS Splash screen doesn't show up at all.

I followed another forum thread where you were helping someone else with a similar issue

https://gbatemp.net/threads/please-help-dios-mios-usb-loader.342799/

And I followed the instructions to install BC v6, MIOS v10, and DIOS MIOS 2.6, however it still will not work.

Thanks

 

[Cyan]

yeah, you just revived an old thread while you could just ask your question here.

You installed cMIOS (which replace the MIOS slot) and DIOS MIOS (which ALSO replace the MIOS Slot), and MIOS v10 (which replace MIOS too). At the end, you don't have all of them, but only the last one you installed.
If you don't know what you are doing and which order you did it, it's normal it won't work like you expect.


Like I said in the other thread, don't use DIOS MIOS. Don't follow old guide and tutorial.
There are now other way to play gamecube ISO, and you should use that method : Nintendont.
There's a thread on the WiiU>hacking section of this forum, but it works on Wii too.
Read, understand and Follow the first post of nintendont thread to install it correctly.

 

[mike.leb140]

Great, I'll check it out. Thanks man!

 

[mike.leb140]

Nintendont works perfectly!