Got a free bricked Wii U

[ojolla]

Hello,

I got a non functioning Wii U (without gamepad) for free from a friend that got it in a job lot of consoles. It came without any explanation about what is wrong with it. My friend hooked it up to a tv and confirmed it didn't work and then gave it to me since he isn't interested. There is no video on any of the video outs in this state. It would blink once (blue led) and the dvd-drive would try to read a disc twice (no disc inserted), then nothing on screen.

I tried to make it boot UDPIH, but it wouldn't work no matter how many times I tried, I tried to plug it in at different times but it just wouldn't take.
The Wii U has been opened before and there was solder on all the same pads as the de_fuse uses, so I soldered in a new de_fuse and installed ISFShax just in case. (and I now have video out when running minute)

I am able to dump otp.bin, seeprom.bin, seeprom_decrypted.bin, slc.raw and slccmpt.raw. (And I did a rednand backup that took hours to another 128GB SD-card, but it won't restore because of an error saying the first block do not match)

The only mention of errors in the logs that I could find is:
FSA: ### DATA CORRUPTION ERROR ###, dev:odd04, err:-2949147, cmd:2, pathnull)
so it might be DRAM?

I have downloaded all titles with MLCRestorerDownloader (MLC and SLC) and copied it to the 2GB SD-card I run minute from.
Since the Wii U has a hynix mlc I cut the R26 trace on the main board and soldered in a NAND-AID v4.1 bought from V10lator and installed a 64GB Samsung Pro Endurance microSDXC (the only one available to me locally).

When trying to run "Patch (sd) and boot IOS (slc) I get the error: (serial connection)
"FSA open attempt 2422 8403B
iosPanic(): Thread 91, owned by IOS-FS(5), has corrupted stack 0x115e9d08 of size 2048!"
when searching for this error I found a thread on tzirf.com saying it indicates that the SLC has corruption, and it can be fixed by using JNUSTool to download the title 000500101000400A and renaming the fw.img to ios_orig.img and putting it on the root of the SD and running the "Patch (sd) and boot sdmc:/ios_orig.img", but I get almost the same error message:
"FSA open attempt 2421 8303A
iosPanic(): Thread 91, owned by IOS-FS(5), has corrupted stack 0x115e9d08 of size 2048!"

Any pointers what to try next? If the Wii U is toast, it is toast. Have I made it worse? Maybe, but it didn't work when I got it. I just think it is interesting to see if it can be brought back to life.
I have a Wii U gamepad that I picked up at a flea market and fixed a couple of months ago (broken screen), but it naturally isn't synced with this Wii U. I'm new to modding and repairing nintendo consoles released after the snes, so I want to say thanks for any help in advance

 

[SDIO]

FSA: ### DATA CORRUPTION ERROR ###, dev:odd04, err:-2949147, cmd:2, pathnull)

This was likely just a scratched or dirty Disc, anyway it's not the problem.

Just booting with the debug plugin would have shown where it crashed. But since you already messed with the mlc, that is no longer an option.

Can you just show the complete log, from when you try to run the setup?

 

[ojolla]

Here you go SDIO, both logs, thanks for replying and helping

 

[SDIO]

add the debug plugin and also try running without the setup to see if that behaves as expected.

 

[ojolla]

Do you want me to add the wafel_debug_exts.ipx and remove wafel_setup_mlc.ipx and then run it again? Sorry, I'm a little confused, it's all new to me

 

[SDIO]

yes

 

[ojolla]

Alright, here are the new files. Ran with wafel_debug_exts.ipx and removed wafel_setup_mlc.ipx.

 

[SDIO]

If you have ISFShax installed, you also need the isfshax patch plugin

 

[ojolla]

Alright, I uninstalled isfshax and unsoldered and resoldered the nand-aid completely, because I wasn't happy about how the circuit board was seated at a slight angle compared to the motherboard and how the sd-card felt when being inserted and ejected from the slot. It feels much better now.

I then ran Patch (sd) and boot IOS (slc) and it completed the mlc setup, but with a warning:
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
Dir /vol/sdcard/wafel_install open failed: FFFCFFE9 Aborting...

I get the same message if I try to run Patch (sd) and boot sdmc:/ios_orig.img as well.

I added the log from Patch (sd) and boot IOS (slc) as I wasn't able to copy the complete log from putty when running ios_orig

 

[SDIO]

Looks like you don't have the wafel_install folder on the SD

 

[ojolla]

Hmm, but I always had the wafel_install folder on the SD. I'll try to reflash the SD later with the boot1.img and copy all the files and folders back and see if it helps. I used balena etcher the last time if I remember correctly. Maybe I'll use Win32DiskImager this time

Post automatically merged: Apr 8, 2025

It worked! Thank you for helping me SDIO! I'm now up and running and it had no problem syncing with the gamepad. Looking forward to trying the Wii U for almost the first time. I played Mario Kart at a friends house way back when the Wii U was new, but never since then.

Thank you again!