Hacking Homebrew Help - how to identify legacy CFW to install Tiramisu?

[Lock_Key_Doctor]

Happy new year everyone!

I recent got a used Wii U to mod with Tiramisu. When I turned it on, I found out it was previously modded. It has "the homebrew launcher" and "WUP installer GX2" channels . Both give me a 199-999 error, so I'm not sure what to do next? Is there a way to find out what CFW mod was installed previously? I would like to have a clean install based on the instructions from https://wiiu.hacks.guide/

If you have an existing legacy CFW setup:

• For CBHC users: go to the Uninstall CBHC page to uninstall CBHC.
• For Haxchi users: uninstall the Haxchi app from Data Management in the System Settings app.
• For Mocha CFW (Indexiine) users: go to the Uninstall Indexiine page to uninstall Indexiine.
• For Mocha CFW (Online Exploit) users: you do not need to do anything before following this guide

Some information:

• System settings shows 5.5.6 U
• Currently not connected to the internet
• It does not have the "DO NOT USE" channel
• Mii maker doesn't do anything special
• Health and Safety (holding X or Y) doesn't prompt anything
• Brower last tab was "u.wiidb.de"
• Settings>Data Management:
  • Homebrew launcher 5376KB
  • WUP Installer GX2 5376KB
• Daily Logs (software records)
  • Webhax 1.0 first used May 2020
  • WUP Installer GX2 first used November 2020

Googled "Webhax" as I wasn't familiar with this method and found this youtube video

Interesting enough they use some browser exploit (screenshot 1) and IOSUHAX based on the image at the beginning of the video (a guess as I don't speak Spanish).

I'm concerned about bricking the Wii U by uninstalling the Homebrew launcher/WUP Installer GX2, or installing Tiramisu if it causes conflicts with a legacy CFW.
I don't think I have Tiramisu and would like to have a proper install with Bloopair and Homebrew Appstore. What's the best next steps?

Much appreciated!

 

[Deleted member 571007]

but when it go to MLC (I know it's optional but thought it would be nice to backup the games), i think the process got stuck half way because the Wii U restarted

First off, if you don't wanna bother backing up the actual games themselves, you can just use SaveMii to back up your SAVES which you can then re-inject into titles you re-download at a later date. Imo it's easier if you don't want a MLC Backup headache.

Secondly, backing up the MLC depending on how much data there is can be extremely resource demanding. One such problem that can occur when handling large amounts of data and writes like that is either it gets written to the memory device wrong, or the Wii U fills it's RAM with the current data - which iirc would cause a restart in the situation you were in; this would likely result in what you stated below.

When I took out the SD card to copy on to my computer, I noticed it was full and got an error on mlc.bin.part14. I assume the file SD card became full and it stopped the process?

You mentioned that you had a 128gb SD Card, correct? If so, then that should be enough for your SLC and MLC (dependent on how much data you have installed), otherwise it's just possible that the card was damaged during the process. May I ask, what brand is it? Is it reputable? Because sometimes random cards will purposely mislabel the size, and in addition to that - they aren't very durable.

I found a 128gb microSD card, used GUIformatter to format it as FAT32. Copied the basic files over to try to do another NAND backup. This time when entering the payloader, I got an error saying the SD card wasn't formatted correctly.

In my experience, Micro SD Cards cause nothing but a headache with formatting and using through an adapter. That might not be the issue; but it's what I assume as many of my other friends had the same issue only for it to be resolved by using a normal SD Card. You could also try formatting it again using a different program to see if it yields any other results. Your choice.

I wasn't able to power off the Wii using the gamepad, so I used the power button on the machine.

When a payload / data stack fails to process, it hard-crashes the Wii U. It can only be reset by the power button on the console itself. What you experienced was normal.

Would there be another option to format the 128gb? is the NAND just to big for a 32gb?

Not sure what you mean here. 128gb should suffice, but my memory is always fuzzy when it comes down to the exact size of SLC and average MLC data.

Anyways formatting a card to FAT32 doesn't restrict it to 32gb if that's what you were thinking. Simply put, it's just a different type of data structure. Example being EXFAT or FAT32, etc. So in short a FAT32 128gb SD Card is still 128gb. Same with EXFAT and so on.

 

[V10lator]

MLC (what we normally call NAND to simplify) alone is 32 GB, the SD card is a bit smaller cause of the SDs firmware and formatting overhead... With SLC, OTP and stuff it is too small for sure.

For the 128 GB card: Format it to FAT32 with 32kb cluster size (as described on the Tiramisu guide. They even suggest a formatting tool for this). SD card bigger than 64 GB are formatted with exFAT by the manufacturer. I even tried a 1 TB card on the Wii U and it worked, so trust me: The ploblem isn't the size of the card but the filesystem.

//EDIT: @Korozin aren't around 7 GB of MLC occupied by firmware? So you want to back it up for more reasons than just games.

 

[Deleted member 571007]

//EDIT: @Korozin aren't around 7 GB of MLC occupied by firmware? So you want to back it up for more reasons than just games.

True, but I assumed they took the option of backing up full MLC rather than just essentials. Either way, thanks for the correction; it's been literal years since I last did a NAND dump.

 

[godreborn]

True, but I assumed they took the option of backing up full MLC rather than just essentials. Either way, thanks for the correction; it's been literal years since I last did a NAND dump.

It backed up around 30gb iirc, when I dumped the mlc. I decrypted it to find I had only used 1gb somehow. No errors during decryption, but the mlc for 32gb will be either 29.1 or 29.7gb iirc, depending on which chip was used.

 

[Lock_Key_Doctor]

You mentioned that you had a 128gb SD Card, correct? If so, then that should be enough for your SLC and MLC (dependent on how much data you have installed), otherwise it's just possible that the card was damaged during the process. May I ask, what brand is it? Is it reputable? Because sometimes random cards will purposely mislabel the size, and in addition to that - they aren't very durable.

In my experience, Micro SD Cards cause nothing but a headache with formatting and using through an adapter. That might not be the issue; but it's what I assume as many of my other friends had the same issue only for it to be resolved by using a normal SD Card. You could also try formatting it again using a different program to see if it yields any other results. Your choice.

When a payload / data stack fails to process, it hard-crashes the Wii U. It can only be reset by the power button on the console itself. What you experienced was normal.

Thank you for the information! The 128gb card was Kingston, I used it on my dashcam before so i think it's reputable because i was able to pull 128gb of videos off it. I do agree it seems like SD cards are generally more stable than microSD. I tried again last night formatting the SD card with another card reader (found a post somewhere that another user had similar issue with the SD card reader). I was able to NAND dumper everything including MLC on to the 128gb card. It was just over 32gb, which would explain which the 32gb became full. Now I have all 15 parts of MLC without any errors much appreciated!!

Good to know about force shutdown on the Wii U. I received a prompt after restart that holding the button down for 4 seconds forces the Wii U to shutdown.

My Y cable is coming tomorrow!

*Update*

I was able to remove the old legacy hbc and WUP channels, factory reset, and install tirmasu!

I can access the homebrew channel via Mii Maker but it was blank (gave me a bit of scare). Silly question but do I need to load apps manually?. I know I need to do it manually for SaveMii but I couldn't find one for the homebrew channel even though there was a folder for it in the SD card.

Also what would be the proper method to install WUP installer? The one in the Homebrew app store said it was for Aroma. I found one in the Haxchi achieve in wiiu.hacks.guide but not sure it that was the proper method.

I managed to install NUSspli - WOW what a great system!!! absolutely unbelievable! and managed to download super mario bros back