Hacking IOS and cIOS Clarification

[archagon]

1. If I install an official IOS update without the corresponding System Menu update, will updating from the official Wii menu break anything?
2. Does upgrading officially to System Menu 3.4 break the Homebrew Channel?
3. If I install a custom IOS update, will updating from the official Wii menu break anything?
4. If I install a custom IOS update, can I uninstall it?

Thank you!

Also, what's a "banner brick"? The Wiki doesn't have an entry for it.

 

[Deleted User]

1. If I install an official IOS update without the corresponding System Menu update, will updating from the official Wii menu break anything?
2. Does upgrading officially to System Menu 3.4 break the Homebrew Channel?
3. If I install a custom IOS update, will updating from the official Wii menu break anything?
4. If I install a custom IOS update, can I uninstall it?

Thank you!

1. Shouldn't, I think that the IOS's are replaced, so this shouldn't be an issue (unsure though).
2. No, if Homebrew channel was there to start with, it will work fine.
3. It SHOULDN'T. This is actually one of my questions in concern to the IOS patching. I assume that this would have the same result as 1.
4. Only by installing the original IOS.

 

[archagon]

Thank you!

4. Only by installing the original IOS.

Do you mean the same version original IOS, or any original IOS?

Also, is there any way to update the System Menu without going through the official update?

 

[Deleted User]

If you install a cIOS36, then to get rid of it you need to install IOS36.
You could use cIOS downgrader to downgrade yourself, or upgrade yourself to a different system menu

 

[BIG MOE]

just use Cios downgrader and choose the desired System menu , and it all depends on the System menu you are running

 

[ashesburn]

If you install a cIOS36, then to get rid of it you need to install IOS36.

Isn't cIOS36 installed as IOS249 or other IOSes not officially used?

Wouldn't uninstalling IOS249 do the trick?

 

[El Capitaine]

Since nobody answered, a "banner brick" is when you install a bad WAD.

Essentially, it's a WAD with some problem, such having the incorrect dimensions by even 1 pixel. Because Nintendo expected to be able to simply install a WAD on one of their Wiis before releasing it, they didn't build any sort of error correction into the System Menu.

So, if a bad WAD is installed, your system menu will not load (banner brick).

If you have starfall, recovery menu with Y on 1st GC controller, and skip disk check in recovery menu, as well as Wad Manager as boot.dol on your SD card, and the Twilight Hack saved in your Wii, you can fix it.

Simply hold Y on the GC controller in the first slot as the Wii boots. This should show your current firmware version in the lower-right corner. Then, put in Zelda: Twilight Princess. Run the normal steps for the Twilight hack. If Wad Mananger is the boot.dol/boot.elf in the root of your SD (the only step that can be done after bricking), the Twilight Hack will boot it. From there, just find the bad WAD you installed, and delete it. Then find where you downloaded it and post that it caused a banner brick.

 

[archagon]

Thank you for the answers!

Another cIOS question: some games require fixes from more recent IOS versions than the cIOS, right? How is it possible to both have, say, cIOS36 and IOS55 installed at once? Surely, there's only enough room on the Wii for one IOS?

 

[digitydogs]

the wii has over 20 IOS's as this current time, fully feasable as they only run around 6-8 megs a piece
IOS starts at 4 and goes to 55 Officially. Goes all the way to 249 unofficially.

The game/system menu/loader calls the IOS as needed...

 

[archagon]

So what you're saying is that they're all separate and coexist? How is it possible, then, to install a later IOS without installing all the ones inbetween? Isn't it possible that the later IOS might need to call one of the inbetween IOSes? What about running the official Wii update? Will it automatically download all the IOSes you're missing, or just the latest one?

 

[Helsionium]

To clarify, each of the IOSes is a totally separate package, the many different versions of IOSes, both official and unofficial, can be considered separate "operating systems". Each game or application uses only one specific IOS version and all the others are not needed while running that game/app.
This may seem like an enormous waste of space, but it actually makes very much sense, since it ensures complete compatibility, because older IOSes are generally left untouched when updates are installed (the signing bug fix is the only known exception, but it didn't change anything official games would rely on).

 

[archagon]

Ah! Interesting.

So what happens if, for instance, I stay at an old System Menu version, install some (but not all) of the newer IOSes, and then upgrade officially to System Menu 3.4? Will the updater, seeing these later IOSes (which aren't included with the older System Menu version), assume I have all the previous ones as well and only give me the ones after? Or is it smarter than that?

 

[Helsionium]

I think the updater works slightly different. This is pure speculation, but I imagine the updater to work like this:
If a new System Menu version is available, it will be downloaded as well as the IOS used by the new System Menu (if it's not present and current already), not bothering about what other IOSes might be installed. The updater also makes the same checks for the other system titles (the 5 pre-installed channels) and it updates any old IOS if an updated version of it is available (e.g. bugfixes). However, the updater probably does not download IOSes if you don't need them, e.g. if you don't have any game which uses it.

 

[archagon]

Thank you!

 

[archagon]

Another question: can I use online functionality (Virtual Console, Mii channel, etc.) with cIOS?

 

[digitydogs]

Yep the cios doesnt interfere with any normal operations