Hacking Broken SD Card Slot

[sekondairyblog]

New to your forum here guys, and not sure if I'm in the right place for this question but here goes....

My 5 year old decided to take out the SD card and stick it back in backwards and has bent back one of the leads. This wii has been homebrewed for the better of 3 years now and kind of miss the album art and the homebrew channel greatly. Homebrew shows up but no apps .....

Took it apart and tried to straighten pin, assembled it back to no avail. Am I better off buying a replacement sd card slot and attempt to solder or would the Wii memory card sd adapter work as a replacement.

Thanks for help in advance ...... !!!

 

[M1r0]

So, he broke the wii sd card slot, not the sd? You can always just load your homebrew off of the USB, I lost my SD card, just use my USB. If it becomes an actual problem, you can probably have it replaced.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

I do SD card slot repairs if you want to send me your wii. PM me if interested.

 

[M1r0]

Is there an option for you inserting those awesome led sd card lights? lol, I saw that video, it was awesome.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Is there an option for you inserting those awesome led sd card lights? lol, I saw that video, it was awesome.

Yes. Everything comes with a price, but it is reasonable.

 

[M1r0]

And the NAND hotswitching? That may be useful as some good brick protection.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

And the NAND hotswitching? That may be useful as some good brick protection.

Yeah I can do it, but you'd need to get any extra nand chips on your own. Funny, I have 2 more of those tsop48 clips kicking around.

 

[zizer]

And the NAND hotswitching? That may be useful as some good brick protection.

lol NAND hotswitching + HD module = wii Grendizer

 

[DeadlyFoez]

And the NAND hotswitching? That may be useful as some good brick protection.

lol NAND hotswitching + HD module = wii Grendizer

In case you did not see it
Wii NAND Hot Swapping
Wii NAND and SD activity LED mod.

Sorry for the thread jacking.

 

[Binxy]

LOL! I had the same problem.

For a temporary fix, take a paper clip and put it in behind the sd card (opposite sie of where the card reads) to hold in the sd card.
Do this when the wii is on so you can hear the little chime to confirm the sd card it in.

 

[sekondairyblog]

Hey, thanks for all the input!

The spring is not broke in the SD card Slot and it's not a matter of it staying in. After taking it apart, he has actually managed to lift and bend back the last copper lead on the right up. I tried placing it back down, but since they are shaped a certain way at manufacture, I was unsuccessful in getting it to make contact. After fidgeting with it more today, I managed to break it off.

Now, since rigging it won't work anymore.....

Would a product like this work?

Wii Key

Or, am I stuck with actually ordering this?

Wii SD Card Slot

Again, thanks!

 

[M1r0]

Two things, No a wiikey would not work... Also, you can always just use deadlyfoez repair service. But yes, I think besides that, you are actually stuck ordering that.

 

[dronesplitter]

Two things, No a wiikey would not work...

I own that wiikey sd adapter and it works great for me (my official SD slot isn't broken, though).
The HBC has an option where you can tell it to look for an SD Gecko, which is what this adapter works like.

I ordered it from dealextreme too. One caveat is that mine had some issues working, but I put a tiny slip of paper inside to buffer the board connector and that fixed it like a charm. That's just a shortcoming of this cheap device, though

 

[M1r0]

Sorry, I didn't look at the page, thought he was talking about wiikey modchip. I don't know about it working, but the other two I listed most definitely will. (probably)

 

[sekondairyblog]

Thanks for the quick responses .....

So if I buy the adapter and just place it in the Memory card slot with the SD in, will HBC be able to read it automatically?

I'm only asking b/c my HBC is still there but I have no access to any of the apps unless the SD card is in.

I probably should just buy the slot replacement and repair it, only b/c every time I've taken a shortcut in the past, I've usually ended up wasting time and money.

^ Unless anybody has gotten it to work, I'm open for suggestions.

Again, you guys have been helpful and I appreciate it greatly

 

[dronesplitter]

Thanks for the quick responses .....

So if I buy the adapter and just place it in the Memory card slot with the SD in, will HBC be able to read it automatically?

I'm only asking b/c my HBC is still there but I have no access to any of the apps unless the SD card is in.

I probably should just buy the slot replacement and repair it, only b/c every time I've taken a shortcut in the past, I've usually ended up wasting time and money.

^ Unless anybody has gotten it to work, I'm open for suggestions.

Again, you guys have been helpful and I appreciate it greatly

I'll test right now.
...Yep. I ejected my main slot card, turned on the Wii, chose HBC icon, and it loaded the card in the SD Gecko immediately.
Like I said, this is a cheap version of the SD Gecko and might not seem to work at first due to the manufacturing not making the card contact quite sturdy enough. My wii key adapter has a piece of paper that I put inside to remedy this contact issue.
Oh, and I have v1.0.8 HBC.

 

[M1r0]

Now I understand what this product is. Note to OP, without using any other homebrew, this will only work for homebrew that can read the sd gecko (not all can). ALso, this will not work for loading sd saves (at least in wii menu, maybe save manager), and for channels either (unless using wad manager)

 

[dronesplitter]

I believe it will work to launch any homebrew, but if that homebrew doesn't support saving to an SD Gecko as you say (for configuration files, save files for games if it's an emu homebrew, etc.) then, yeah, unfortunately you may run into problems. Again, switching to a USB flash drive may be the best way to go since you can launch homebrew from it in HBC and all homebrew I've used have been updated for USB. I mainly wanted to confirm that this works as a cheap way to continue loading from SD cards for homebrew.