Hacking Bricked a Wii. Where did I go wrong?

[Hammyface]

Before calling me a total noob, I've helped like 6 friends already with modding their Wii's. Of course now it came to bite me in the ass. I was doing a friend's Wii, USA with 3.2U firmware. I followed a guide here (don't remember which one) and everything worked fine. I used the firmware updater to get my system up to 4.1.

I messed something up trying to get preloader installed.

Preloader wouldn't install because it said IOS36 had the fakesign bug fixed so I searched and came up with a solution for that and installed an alternate IOS36 wad. PreLoader then installed just fine, and I got USBLoader GX running fine. However, PreLoader wouldn't accept the hacks.ini file I supplied saying my systemmenu was not meant for it. I found this odd because it was definitely the right hacks.ini file for 4.1. Sure enough, I go into the Wii system menu and when I click on Wii, then settings to see what firmware I'm on, the console goes black. I reopen Firmware Updater 4.1, install it, and my system never booted again.

I'm fairly certain the system is toast so I won't bore anyone with trying to help me fix it. I'm now out $200 for trying to help a friend and I just want to know what happened/what I did wrong so I don't do it again in the future. I really, really wanted to get PreLoader working because I want all the games to skip update checks (I don't need my friends coming to me with their Wii's every 2 months when a game asks to update). So if anyone can help me understand, I'd appreciate it. (Yes I did also try holding reset while pressing power but preloader will not boot up. I only get a black screen from my Wii now).

 

[Deleted-171178]

Sounds to me like when you updated to 4.1 the second time it installed the stub IOS.

 

[Hammyface]

I'm not sure what a stub IOS is, but I'm fairly certain Firmware Updater 4.1 never worked the first time I did it. I came to this conclusion because when I accessed my Wii menu (even though it blacked out when going to settings), I was able to tell it wasn't at 4.1 because the SD card icon wasn't on the main screen.

Are we not supposed to use Wainkoko's updater any more or something? Should we just be doing Nintendo's official updates then modding accordingly?

 

[illinialex24]

Jesus, no. You got a stub IOS. In short, its an IOS that is installed with only formatting code on it and can't run anything, it takes no space because I believe it is put in shared so only the ticket itself takes up space on the Wii, and it can't run any code whatsoever.

In short, without bootmii, your Wii is bricked.

 

[Daco]

(5:02:54 PM) llrcombs: /!\ USER ERROR | REPLACE USER /!\

 

[chillyloop]

If he had got preloader installed and then bricked the wii, could he unbrick it at all?

 

[Daco]

If he had got preloader installed and then bricked the wii, could he unbrick it at all?

system menu installation overwrites preloader. and if the system menu ios is pooped so is preloader

 

[illinialex24]

If he had got preloader installed and then bricked the wii, could he unbrick it at all?

system menu installation overwrites preloader. and if the system menu ios is pooped so is preloader

Exactly, for preloader you need the system menu IOS.

If its stubbed, preloader is dead. Which is really the only issue with preloader..... Which is why you don't use any compiled application unless its proven safe with the current upgrades. Normally just don't use compiled IOS/System Menu upgrade applications in general.

 

[Hammyface]

Ok so essentially my mistake was using Wainkoko's Firmware Updater? I used it without issue quite a few times. The only solution is to leave the system at whatever firmware it is? Even if it's an old one that can't read SDHC cards? Or is the installation of the IOS36 wad that I found what ruined the console? If that's the case, how the hell does anyone install PreLoader any more?

 

[Deleted-171178]

Its actually Waninkoko's fault, as he made it download the latest IOS instead of a set version number, meaning that if Nintendo stubbed it, the stub would be downloaded.

 

[Hammyface]

Oh wow, here I was thinking I screwed up trying to get preloader to work and I just never should have used his updater.

So how do people update the Wii system menu now-a-day's? (It's been like a month or two since I modded a Wii and the updater was fine then). And how do people install PreLoader?

 

[Dmon84]

Its actually Waninkoko's fault, as he made it download the latest IOS instead of a set version number, meaning that if Nintendo stubbed it, the stub would be downloaded.

Thats Bullshit!!! I used it 2 weeks after System Menu 4.2 came out and my Wii is not bricked. I think your problem is somewhere else.

 

[FenrirWolf]

Its actually Waninkoko's fault, as he made it download the latest IOS instead of a set version number, meaning that if Nintendo stubbed it, the stub would be downloaded.

Thats Bullshit!!! I used it 2 weeks after System Menu 4.2 came out and my Wii is not bricked. I think your problem is somewhere else.

Do your research before calling BS. It does indeed download a stubbed IOS60, but only if there isn't already a copy of IOS60 installed. So let's say you manually installed a good IOS60 or there already was a good one installed to the console before you ran the updater. Then the IOS60 install is skipped and all is well.

But if there's no IOS60 it'll happily download and install the stub version.

 

[ravagetalon]

This is why if you must update the firmware, do it through Nintendo. These firmware updaters are risky. There is nothing you can do on 4.1 that you can't do on 4.2.

 

[xzxero]

my guide has a section that will update any 3.x wii to 4.2

it also has a secion to get from 4.2 to 4.1

 

[xzxero]

This is why if you must update the firmware, do it through Nintendo. These firmware updaters are risky. There is nothing you can do on 4.1 that you can't do on 4.2.

the 4.2 safe updater is totally legit
the only 1 i think.

 

[illinialex24]

This is why if you must update the firmware, do it through Nintendo. These firmware updaters are risky. There is nothing you can do on 4.1 that you can't do on 4.2.

the 4.2 safe updater is totally legit
the only 1 i think.

Yeah, it grabs current versions, but also, updating through Nintendo can be risky.

And lmao at you can do everything on 4.2U, region protection was greatly increased.

 

[olliepop2000]

if you use 4.2 safe updater you will need to update shop channel seperately.

 

[xzxero]

aha yea i had to make a table to explain the system menu differences

[url=http://sites.google.com/site/completesg/ot...uff/system-menu]http://sites.google.com/site/completesg/ot...uff/system-menu[/url]

Posts merged

if you use 4.2 safe updater you will need to update shop channel seperately.

my guide does both

offline

 

[FenrirWolf]

Region protection was increased on 4.2, but GeckoOS still works just fine.