Hacking I need a start in wii hacking.

[kingkonghong]

I am buying a Wii that was purchased in 2007. I tried reading all the guides but I was confused by the variety. Could anyone answer my questions and give me a start on where to look to mod my wii? Usually, I would do this myself, but I have finals coming up next week and I need to study. :[

1) Like the PSP, are there "phat" (Hackable no matter what) Wii's and the latter? Which year's Wii's are better?
2) Does the Wii have a firmware?
3) If so are firmwares necessary for newer games? If so again, are the mods on the Wii able to update to play the newer games?
4) How brickable is a Wii? What will brick it?
5) Can you unbrick a Wii?
6) What do you need to mod a Wii? How do you mod a wii?
7) Is how hard is modding a Wii?

Or you could just point me to a guide. Thank you to all who post here :]

 

[ocdetective]

1) Yes, best ones are the ones without the newer drives
2) Yes
3) No IOSes are needed for newer games not newer firmware
4) Depends on the stupidity of the user but yes
5) Yes in a lot of circumstances
6) The ability to read the correct guide
7) See 6.

Correct guide here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=171901

 

[SherlockHolmeboy]

1) In a way, yes. There are Wiis with a 'vulnerable boot1' (yours being one) which can allow you to install a program named BootMii, which can help you unbrick your Wii if your ever do something bad to it. On the other hand, there are Wiis known as LU64+ (or boot2v4) Wiis (yours not being one), which you cannot "downgrade" otherwise you will permanently brick your Wii. Any launch Wii or Wii from 2007 should be great for softmodding.

2) Yes. This is known as IOS. More info here: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/IOS

3) Again, yes. You can use a program named Dop-IOS to install any IOS if you ever need to. If you are only using USB Loaders or disc loaders like Neogamma, you probably won't need to.

4) If you do something stupid like uninstall the System Menu or its IOS (or install a dodgy or out-of-reigon copy), install a stub System Menu IOS (IOS60 v6400, for example), or corrupt your NAND through a dodgy program, you will brick your Wii. Otherwise, it's somewhat hard to brick.

5) Refer to 1)

6) Here's a REALLY good guide. Follow it to the letter, and you'll be golden! http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=171901&st=0

7) Not very hard, I started out as a noob like yourself, but found it very easy to do once I knew what I was doing.

Hope that helped. Good luck!

 

[kingkonghong]

Thanks guys. You guys are the best :]

 

[WiiPower]

The different Wii versions:
1. The best, allows everything
2. Does not allow BootMii boot2 anymore
3. Will be bricked if you use the wrong(old) IOS
4. Drive can't read DVD-Rs at all(at least not with softmod or with flatcable modchip)

If you bought your Wii somewhen in the last year, it's most likely one from (3), if it's brand new or black, it may be from (4).

Homebrew in general and usb loaders work on all known models.

 

[Taleweaver]

1) see above (nothing further to add)
2) all electronics have firmware (well...aside from basic things like light switches. But something complex like a console simply can never work without it). "Firmware" is basically the code that directly controls the hardware.
3) see SherlockHolmeBoy's reply 2 and 3 for this.
4) hard to tell...if you follow up-to-date guides correctly, it's hard, if not impossible (the bricked wii's I've heard of were all caused by ppl who ignored or missed parts of guides). One of the biggest issues is that with nintendo's latest update of "the firmware" (which is basically a package full of IOS'es), they changed the names of a couple IOS'es that were required for basic stuff (e.g. the system menu). People who had never used hacks never noticed this switch by updating, but the ones who swapped their IOS'es to custom made ones suddenly found their wii bricked on them. This also lead to dangerous situations with incomplete or outdated guides: if you accidentally install the latest versions of some IOS'es, you'll install an IOS without the code to actually run your wii (that's the "stub" Sherlock mentions).
5) this depends on the precautions you take. There's a program that can be used to create complete backups of your wii (bootmii), and another one that can bypass other often-happening sorts of bricks (preloader or priiloader). If you set these up correctly, it'll be pretty hard to even create a brick you can't recover from.
6) here also: +1 on Sherlock's post.
7) I found it a bit confusing at first. I advise to take the time to read and learn things at a pace that fits you. Hacking your wii can be fun (watching divx movies! listen to music! switch games without even having to get up from the couch!), but there is a chance it'll destroy your console (and when that happens, you won't have any guarantee and you can only blame yourself).

 

[kingkonghong]

WiiPower, so older the wii, the better? And since my future Wii was bought in 2007, would it be under number 1?

 

[WiiPower]

WiiPower, so older the wii, the better? And since my future Wii was bought in 2007, would it be under number 1?

It could be. I don't know when the Wiis were updated and i don't really care as i have a launch day Wii, sorry. Up to a certain revision you may encounter problems with DL games, but that's the only advantage i see in a newer Wii.

 

[SifJar]

WiiPower, so older the wii, the better? And since my future Wii was bought in 2007, would it be under number 1?

It could be. I don't know when the Wiis were updated and i don't really care as i have a launch day Wii, sorry. Up to a certain revision you may encounter problems with DL games, but that's the only advantage i see in a newer Wii.

Note: DL = Dual Layer (type of DVD which certain larger games, e.g. Super Smash Bros Brawl and Metroid Prime Trilogy, come on)

 

[kingkonghong]

What kind of problems will the DL games have? And are they problems fixable?

 

[smf]

What kind of problems will the DL games have? And are they problems fixable?

If dual layer games don't work, then you need a new drive.
There are only a couple, if you care then you might want to check it before you do anything to it.