Hacking IOS35/249, Bootmii and Bricking Questions

[Schubdogg]

First, I'd like to come right out and state that I am completely aware some (if not all) of these questions are considered "noob" questions so I apologize profusely right now for doing this, and I have made this post in the sticky noob thread, but I feel some of these may clear up questions for other people and will get more exposure out here and not in there... I've been at this for about 2 weeks now and maybe it's just the constant bombardment of info I'm reading, but these are the questions that I can't seem to clear up...

Original Post (modified a bit):

Ok so I have just finished hacking my 3rd Wii for friends and I have about 10 more lined up that want theirs done. I realized I need to clear some questions up of my own before I start getting angry phone calls from friends that I busted their system

1. I have been following this guide and so far it has been working great:
http://mikeandheth.com/games/109-store-and...tem-menu-4.html

Is this a good one to following? Is it smart to take a system and update it to 4.0u first?

2. I just bought a gamecube controller so I could access the bootmii menu and do a full NAND backup prior to doing any future wii's, but the 3 I have done so far, all I can do is go to them and back them up as they are NOW, which they are currently modified. I know this is better than nothing but is this the best way to go or can I get them back to a "virgin" state, then do a bootmii backup and go at it again?

3. According the to guide in #1, I run the IOS35 downgrade and then I installed the cIOS rev10, but on one of the wii's I accidentally chose to install it on the IOS35 and not the custom IOS249 or whatever it is, does this matter? I don't seem to be seeing any issues...

4. Here is my biggest fear/issue. All these forums and sites talking about "bricking" their wii, is that all related to hardware modded wii's and wi-fi updates? Are those issues related to previous hacks like the twilight hack? Is this newest one pretty brick proof? I know using the boot1/2 method is supposed to be brick proof but what if the wii only allows the IOS?

Lastly (I know this is a lot of friggin' questions, sorry!), once a wii is all modded and it's all said and done, what, if anything, can brick it? A system update? A game update? I'd like to know so I can warn people what to avoid when I hand them back their system.

I guess my biggest fear is screwing up a wii for a buddy and having to shell out $250 for a dumb mistake

Any and all answers and comments would be GREATLY appreciated!!

 

[techboy]

I'm surprised that guide has been working for you. There's a post on here with boatloads of complaints about that guide. I recently helped a guy who bricked his wii with it.

If you can avoid it, you should not update, especially if the wii is on 3.3 or lower. It's easier to softmod a 3.3 or lower wii than a 3.4 or 4.0 wii.

Just back the wii's up as they are. You'll risk bricking them trying to re-virginate them.

Not sure, have been steering clear of that guide.

Bricking your wii means to render it inoperable. It can be done in many ways. The most common bricks come from people who install wads of channels with bad banners ("Banner brick", which can be fixed easily on most systems with anti-brick software such as bootmii or preloader) and people who are stupid and uninstall the system menu or its IOS. (not repairable without bootmii installed as boot2).

All current in-region updates (disc or wifi) should be safe, but may break the softmod. Future updates may or may not pose a brick risk, but that depends. Out of region updates will semi-brick it (settings menu stops working), and fully brick (error message on boot) if formatted afterwards, regardless of if the wii is modded or not.

As for paying $$$ for bricking one, yeah, that sucks. Friend did that. Take your time and check what you're doing. Just remember: Carelessness + Wii Hacking = brick

 

[Schubdogg]

Thank you for answering some of those questions. I didn't realize that guide was getting bad reviews. Yes, amazingly enough I've had success with 3 wii's so far, but then again, time will only tell if they truly did work or if there are issues. The only "bug" I've notice with my Wii is that sometime it'll freeze up at random points, like loading the usb loader coverflow, or after I try to exit out of bootmii, and I have to unplug the entire wii and plug it back in and everything is back to normal. I don't know if this is a bad sign or just the nature of beta software?

Good to know on the system update. Most of my buddies have their systems at pre-4.0u (4.0u is the latest I believe), so I'll see what their version is and follow an appropriate guide for that.

Basically this is what I am supplying to my friends:

1. Bootmii w/ backup, whether on the boot or the IOS (or both)
2. HBC, DVDx
3. Snes, NES, Sega emulators with all the roms I have backed up
4. USB Loader w/ coverflow

That is about it, no other custom WADS or WiiWare or VC stuff, just the barebones ability to backup their games and run emulators on the SD card

I figure doing this and only this is going to make it pretty hard to brick a Wii

 

[nabster92]

1. Yea that guide is REEAAAALLY long and a lot people seem to have been complaining about it.

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=144835

I think this guide works really well (though you won't be able to use the online guide for virgin Wii's, the offline guide should work for ANY firmware, just make sure it's not an LU64+ Wii.) I would suggest using bannerbomb + hackmii installer like you normally would to install the new hbc and bootmii and make a NAND backup at that point and copy that nand.bin file to their pc, then do steps 1-3, A-B, and 9-10 from the offline part of that guide.

Edit: At this point you can technically use the usb loader and all fine, but continuing to upgrade to 4.0 properly should save future headaches.

Then if you're at 3.4 or lower to begin with, you should be able to follow the online portion of the guide from there (you can skip the preloader stuff). You may also be able to just do that from a 4.0 system as well, but I'm not positive on that (though if it's on a Wii that has a boot2 bootmii and NAND backup you have nothing to lose trying). After you do that, make ANOTHER NAND backup and back that one up as well, so they will basically have two restore points. One with basically nothing done to their Wii and another at a working fully softmodded point. After doing that you can get whatever usb loader they want or just follow the part of that guide dealing with the usb loader installing if you want.

2.) That being said, those NAND backups you have of them after doing stuff to it is fine as is. As long as you have a backup of a working state of the Wii you're fine.

3.) You used the cIOS rev10 installer through the network and installed to IOS35? I feel like you may have just misread something along the way. I don't think it could've done that much less work properly if it did.

4.) Bricking generally comes from installing bad .wad's of things causing banner bricks or being stupid and deleting IOS's or system menus or pulling power plugs during updates/downgrades. If you have a boot2 bootmii it doesn't really matter in the first place.

Just tell your friends not to do any official updates after you do that, and if a game asks them to update (which anything up to date shouldn't if you do all that) tell them to just try running it through a usb loader, and if it doesn't work through that you're gonna have to look up what game they're talking about and look it up here to see what it needs to run. And if they do accidentally start updating it or something tell them not to panic and do something stupid like unplugging it to stop it as a result, just let it finish. It most likely won't brick them, but could possibly stop some homebrew stuff from working. And if something does stop working the easiest thing to do to fix it would be to backup all of their save files that they've made progress on since you hacked it for them and then just do a nand restore with the nand.bin from after softmodding it and then put the save files back.

 

[Schubdogg]

Thanks nabster! That is exactly what I have been telling them to do, to avoid doing ANY updates until they talk to me and tell me what it is and I research it.

What if the Wii doesn't allow a NAND backup on the boot2 but only the IOS? Still do a backup but it won't be as brick-proof as the boot2 method right?

Man, after reading your responses and a few other threads I really regret using that guide but I mean, it has seemed to work flawlessly for me? I don't know why, go figure.

Either way, I'm the type that just has to have something done the "correct" way and finding out I hastily did this to my wii is going to bug the hell out of me until I either fix it or know for a fact it's fine as is.

Now on my own personal Wii I happen to have a boot2 NAND backup (regrettably done after-the-fact, but at a point of a working state) so I can pretty much muck around with mine and know I can restore it. So, hypothetically speaking, IF I wanted to (and I know it's probably dumb to even suggest it), but if I wanted to bring my Wii back to it's original state pre-any softmod, would a full system erase work or would a downgrade from the current modified 4.0u w/ hbc and all that jazz to a lower system like 3.2u or whatever and THEN running an update from nintendo back up to 4.0 clear out all of the IOS changes and so forth?

 

[ether2802]

Schubdogg

1. I have been following this guide and so far it has been working great:
http://mikeandheth.com/games/109-store-and...tem-menu-4.html
I refuse to read a topic from another site

Is this a good one to following? Is it smart to take a system and update it to 4.0u first?
Well I would install a cIOS over a 3.2 or 3.4 first, and then update, but that is just me

2. I just bought a gamecube controller so I could access the bootmii menu and do a full NAND backup prior to doing any future wii's, but the 3 I have done so far, all I can do is go to them and back them up as they are NOW, which they are currently modified. I know this is better than nothing but is this the best way to go?
Yes, cause you can just restore and don't have to re-install everything again

I can't get them back to a "virgin" state can I?
Yes you can:
downgrade back to 3.2
NAND Cleaner, to delete all the Preloader gifts
Use AnyTitleDeleter to delete cIOS (IOSes 249-250-222) and any homebrew channel you have
Use HackMii installer to uninstall BootMii (not really recomendable)
AnyTitleDeleter to delete HBC
update to 4.0 from Wii's settings
...voilà..!!


3. I have been using cIOS rev10 and the only issue so far on 35 games is that metroid requires a disc in the drive which a blank dvd will do. When I updated to cIOS rev13 punchout gave a BSOD so I went back to using rev10. Is rev10 the most stable at the moment?
That's the one I use, and some fella' in other thread said that r12 is better than r10, but I guess you'll need to do your tests

4. Also, so I run the IOS35 downgrade and then I installed the cIOS rev10, but on one of the wii's I accidentally installed that on the IOS35 and not the custom IOS249 or whatever it is, does this matter? I don't seem to be seeing any issues...
I don't understand well this question, can you explain with apples and oranges

5. Here is my biggest fear/issue. All these forums and sites talking about "bricking" their wii and this and that, is that all related to hardware modded wii's and updates?
No, it is all cause of software:
Banner-Brick = When you install a bad channel (or corrupted) and you will only see the HEALTH screen then "Files are corrupted" message
Solution = Go to HBC (from preloader or bootmii) and use Wad Manager to uninstall that .wad file

Semi-Brick = When you accept the update from an out of region game, so it will install a SysMenu from other region than your Wii, and you wont be able to access to the Wii's Settings
Solution= Install with Wad Manager a SysMenu from your Region and the settings.txt (not sure about this last one but I heard something about it)

Full-Brick = When you "ACCIDENTALY" (meaning stupidly) delete files you should not delete from your Wii: official and usable IOSes, SysMenu, important things, etc etc etc...
Solution = IF you have bootmii installed as boot2, access to restore the NAND, and restore it from a backup YOU ALREADY HAVE WHEN YOU INSTALLED BOOTMII

Are those issues related to previous hacks like the twilight hack?
None of them has to be with the tools, they all have to be with USERS not being capable of reading the readme files, or not even knowing what delete means

Is this newest one pretty brick proof?
Yes

I know using the boot1/2 method is supposed to be brick proof but what if the wii only allows the IOS?
You are screwed, but IF you use your common sense and don't mess with tools and apps you really don't know, I think you'll be fine

I guess my biggest fear is screwing up a wii for a buddy and having to shell out $250 for a dumb mistake

Lastly (I know this is a lot of friggin' questions, sorry!), once a wii is all modded and it's all said and done, what, if anything, can brick it? A system update? A game update? I'd like to know so I can warn people what to avoid.
Do not update having preloader installed
Do not update from out of region games (or in-region games cause that can disable some things in the future, who knows

)
Do not install channels you don't know where it froms
Do not unplug the POWER cord when "ACCIDENTALY" performing an official update
Do not try to insert a hot dog thru the disc slot
nor thru the SD slot
nor thru the GC controller slot (the memory card is OK)
Do not take your Wii out and leave it near a construction
Do not force the Wii to drink beer while it's driving (nor yourself)
Do not charge your friends (if they really are your friends) for hacking their Wiis (or charge as much so you canbuy them one if anything goes wrong

)
Do not use any tool you don't know what really does or what the result can be
Do not turn it ON at all, period.

 

[mtb-bfh]

Do not try to insert a hot dog thru the disc slot
nor thru the SD slot
nor thru the GC controller slot (the memory card is OK)

I've heard cIOS-rev14 is going to support chicken-franks in the USB

 

[nabster92]

Thanks nabster! That is exactly what I have been telling them to do, to avoid doing ANY updates until they talk to me and tell me what it is and I research it.

What if the Wii doesn't allow a NAND backup on the boot2 but only the IOS? Still do a backup but it won't be as brick-proof as the boot2 method right?

Man, after reading your responses and a few other threads I really regret using that guide but I mean, it has seemed to work flawlessly for me? I don't know why, go figure.

Either way, I'm the type that just has to have something done the "correct" way and finding out I hastily did this to my wii is going to bug the hell out of me until I either fix it or know for a fact it's fine as is.

Now on my own personal Wii I happen to have a boot2 NAND backup (regrettably done after-the-fact, but at a point of a working state) so I can pretty much muck around with mine and know I can restore it. So, hypothetically speaking, IF I wanted to (and I know it's probably dumb to even suggest it), but if I wanted to bring my Wii back to it's original state pre-any softmod, would a full system erase work or would a downgrade from the current modified 4.0u w/ hbc and all that jazz to a lower system like 3.2u or whatever and THEN running an update from nintendo back up to 4.0 clear out all of the IOS changes and so forth?

bootmii IOS by itself won't be brick proof at ALL. The definition of a brick is basically a corrupted system menu and if you have a corrupted system menu with nothing else you can't get to bootmii IOS in the first place. Since you do seem like someone willing to do research on stuff before doing things I would suggest looking into preloader for those Wii's that can only do an IOS install. Do be careful with it though as it is possible to cause bricks with it if you don't know what you're doing. I think unless you do something stupid like deleting IOS60 or something you should be able to recover from it anyways, but some people panic when they do a certain step in some guides that involves IOS60 which causes a brick that you're supposed to fix by just reinstalling preloader, but they don't read that far into the guide and do some other stupid crap that makes things worse. I think as long as you read into it enough you should be safe enough with it though. It's unnecessary with boot2 bootmii though as far as brick protection at least, but also with preloader you can install some hacks that will disable the update check in discs and whatnot so you may want to look into it for at least that for the guys that you don't quite trust to not do something stupid hastily.

Edit: Actually for those with boot2 even for the hacks I think you can just use Startpatch on 4.0 for it instead. But if you install preloader for the IOS bootmii people you might as well just use that for hacks instead of startpatch.

As for trying to get your wii back to a normal state, I dont think it's really a dumb suggestion, and may be a good learning experience on how all of this stuff works. I don't suggest trying something involving a format though. What ether said should work to get to that. Downgrade to 3.2, delete any cIOS you installed (should be only stuff above IOS200), delete HBC (the HAXX ticket) and do an official update. Then you can make a second NAND backup of your wii at that virgin state (save for the bootmii install) and then test out other methods of downgrading and getting everything up to snuff.

(If you do do this, if you test out downgrading via the method I said above (getting cIOS installed through that offline guide and then running IOS and cIOS downgrader from the online guide to downgrade) I would like to know for sure if those two apps work from 4.0 to downgrade. Shoot me a PM if you get around to that sometime. (Unless someone else can say if it does?) Actually...if you followed that original guide you posted for yours as well, it should in essence be the same thing...so let me know if IOS and cIOS downgrader works fine from where you're already at now?

 

[Fors78]

3. According the to guide in #1, I run the IOS35 downgrade and then I installed the cIOS rev10, but on one of the wii's I accidentally chose to install it on the IOS35 and not the custom IOS249 or whatever it is, does this matter? I don't seem to be seeing any issues...

I did this as well, except someone told me to install the cIOS rev10 on IOS35. Tonite I tried to upgrade to cIOS rev13a and I installed it on IOS35 as well, didnt like it so I reinstalled cIOS rev10 on IOS35. I have been douing some readon and came across a few posts that say I was suppose to install cIOS rev10 on IOs 249? I think it was. Everything has been working fine since I did this a few weeks back, but after seeing this I am wondering if I need to reinstall cIOS rev10 onto IOS249 or just leave it as it is? And when I upgrade to the next cIOS rev14 whenver it comes out, where should I iinstall it? Thanks.

 

[nabster92]

3. According the to guide in #1, I run the IOS35 downgrade and then I installed the cIOS rev10, but on one of the wii's I accidentally chose to install it on the IOS35 and not the custom IOS249 or whatever it is, does this matter? I don't seem to be seeing any issues...

I did this as well, except someone told me to install the cIOS rev10 on IOS35. Tonite I tried to upgrade to cIOS rev13a and I installed it on IOS35 as well, didnt like it so I reinstalled cIOS rev10 on IOS35. I have been douing some readon and came across a few posts that say I was suppose to install cIOS rev10 on IOs 249? I think it was. Everything has been working fine since I did this a few weeks back, but after seeing this I am wondering if I need to reinstall cIOS rev10 onto IOS249 or just leave it as it is? And when I upgrade to the next cIOS rev14 whenver it comes out, where should I iinstall it? Thanks.

I'm 99% sure you aren't installing it to IOS35 anyways. The only thing I can think of that you're doing is USING IOS35 to install the cIOS which is different than installing to IOS35. The cIOS rev installers should always be installing to IOS249 and as long as it works right it most likely did anyways.

Just use IOS249 in the future since you already have it and that should be the default used to install anything from that point.

 

[Fors78]

That makes sense, just checked and you are correct, I was USING IOS35 to install it, so that shouldnt cause any problems? For now on I will use 249
.

 

[hellotyler]

Hello there, I've run into an awkward problem and through some searching came to this thread in hope of finding an answer.

At some point last year I was attemping to setup Hackmii and (I think) a preloader on a good friends wii that we had modded perhaps a year previously. As far as I remember everything went smoothly until it came to the steps I had to take with Hackmii (at the time the button controls were not working and I did not have a gamecube controller.). The upgrade didn't work to play the new games I was going for, but when it left my house and back to my best buds it was still playing all disks we had before properly.

Fastforward to Sept 2009 -> apparently his dad was trying to get the wii to play a dvd and may have been mucking around in the homebrew channel. Backups no longer work, however legitimate games (ie. Wii Sports) still load fine. I figure since a new version of Hackmii has come out I will simply install it and try another upgrade. I follow this guide. http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=168...t=0&start=0 Installation of hackmii is successful, NAND backup is successful, however when I go to use the Truncha Bug Restorer the only option available to me is IOS35. If I can somehow install IOS36 or if there is some way to completely wipe this thing back to it's original state any input would be MUCH appreciated.

Going on the IRC channel people have been saying IOS35 downgrade = instant brick, so I really don't want to proceed blindly.

The Wii Sports is still working so I hypothesize that it's not completely bricked...

 

[spacedkadet]

you havent said what system menu version you are on. I would recommend going straight to 4.1 and start again installing everything in order over the top regardless what you already have.

Follow nabsters guide http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=173713

the short version is to update to 4.1 either by nintendo like i did (never had a problem doing it via system update) or using waninkokos updaters.
Then get newest hackmii and install bootmii (as boot2 if you can or ios if not) and the hbc (this will put newest version over your old one)
Then get a programme called "trucha bug restorer" use ios36 to downgrade ios15, then use ios15 to patch ios36 then use ios36 to upgradeios15 again.
Install cIOS38rev14 over the top.
Install preloader (you may need to install twice if you get the system files corrupt message but this is fine).

if you do that you cant go wrong, full step are in nabsters guide i linked you too but this is waht you want to be doing!

 

[hellotyler]

Thank you for your response, Space Cadet! I just want to verify that upgrading the system with hacks loaded will NOT brick the wii. If I run a legitimate update it will simply take it to the newest update and not mess with anything ? Sorry to go back over this, but I've been debating it for weeks. I'm thinking that I will just update it to the newest version and give it back to him and let him mod it again himself with the instructions from nabsters guide. Does this sound legitimate ?

 

[nabster92]

Thank you for your response, Space Cadet! I just want to verify that upgrading the system with hacks loaded will NOT brick the wii. If I run a legitimate update it will simply take it to the newest update and not mess with anything ? Sorry to go back over this, but I've been debating it for weeks. I'm thinking that I will just update it to the newest version and give it back to him and let him mod it again himself with the instructions from nabsters guide. Does this sound legitimate ?

That post is over a month old now and 4.2 is the latest update so officially updating now will update you to 4.2 and remove any homebrew you currently have. Read through my guide again now, and follow xzxero's.

 

[hellotyler]

Thanks. So this IS confirmation that simply updating the Wii to 4.2 will not brick it. Thank you! I'm not too concerned about losing homebrew.

As for modding, I'll be sure to print out your guide and xxeroxs and pass it along.