Hacking Hardware Need help with fixing bricked Wii U with Raspberry Pi Pico

[Infragno]

Hi!

I’m trying to fixed a bricked Wii U. I got it from someone else. Apparently it was put away working and not used for 7 years.

The Wii U freezes at the Wii U logo, gamepad not connected.

This is what I tried:

UDPIH on Raspberry Pi Pico: Can’t get it to boot into minute. Tried many times.

Soldered Raspberry Pi Pico to the motherboard and got into minute with de_Fuse.

Backed up OTP and stuff.

Tried rebuilding the MLC, everything seems to be going smooth until booting to IOS Go Go Go, but the LED just stays solid and does not start blinking.

I noticed that the firmware is NOT 5.5.x on this screen. (Probably because it wasn’t used for so long).

So should I try NAND-aid or is it ducked?

I also read about RedNand, but I don’t completely understand. Do I need extra files on my SD card or just an ini? And I can’t get minute to boot with a formatted Samsung 32GB SD with pico defuse.

Hope to get help! Thanks in advance.

 

[neverendsDull]

Try this method

 

[Captain_N]

I fixed a friends faulty nand issue using rednand. i used a 128gb samsung pro endurance card. This does not require soldering. After everything was setup i imaged the entire sd card so i dont have to go through the process again. I have my friend 2 sd cards to use. If one fails then the other one will boot the system.

 

[Infragno]

Try this

Thank you. I’ll try. I’m guessing this works without nand-aid unless the nand is completely borked? Anyway, I also ordered a nand-aid.

Post automatically merged: Jun 29, 2025

Thank you. I’ll try. I’m guessing this works without nand-aid unless the nand is completely borked? Anyway, I also ordered a nand-aid.

Same problem. LED stays solid. I don’t think it’s doing anything. I’m guessing the NAND is just gone.

I’ll update when nand-aid arrives.

 

[SDIO]

Dump the logs.
Make sure to use the latest version of minute and stroopwafel.
Die redNAND you don't need nand-aid (or MLC2SD)

 

[Infragno]

NAND-aid installed.
Erasing MLC works
This is the error I get when trying to rebuild the MLC

 

[SDIO]

Ok so the NAND-AID installation was completely unnecessary, since the corruption is on the SLC. That would probably have been in the logs.

So erase scfm.img, since it is corrupted and needs to be deleted for the rebuild anyway and then boot the setup again. And hope the corruption was just a one time event.

Also make sure to use the 5.5.5 IOSU from the SD until up installed the SLC titles

 

[Infragno]

Im getting an error when trying to delete scfm.img. I’ve erased it once before without an error.

Post automatically merged: Jul 2, 2025

Im getting an error when trying to delete scfm.img. I’ve erased it once before without an error.

Also the fan of my Wii U just died, wth

 

[SDIO]

then maybe it fails to crate a new one. run the nandBinCheck on the slc.raw and post the output here

 

[Infragno]

then maybe it fails to crate a new one. run the nandBinCheck on the slc.raw and post the output here

Ill try soon. I have to go to work tomorrow. I’ll also have to see what I can do about the fan.

 

[Infragno]

Ill try soon. I have to go to work tomorrow. I’ll also have to see what I can do about the fan.

I used this guide by the way.

then maybe it fails to crate a new one. run the nandBinCheck on the slc.raw and post the output here

** nandBinCheck : Wii nand info tool **
from giantpune
built: Mar 24 2017 23:49:06
NAND Type: SLC (WiiU)
checking boot1...
Boot1 hash: "3806d41a5c5f139f5b09bbe5b74a5ec45e0f5507"
Boot1 OK!
checking for lost clusters...
total used clusters 2e05 of 0x8000
found 0 lost clusters
UNK ( 0xffff ) 3b (387, 4302, 4303, 4304, 4305, 4306, 4307, 4348, 4349, 434a, 434b, 434c, 434d, 434e, 434f, 48a8, 48a9, 48aa, 48ab, 48ac, 48ad, 48ae, 48af, 48b0, 48b1, 48b2, 48b3, 48b4, 48b5, 48b6, 48b7, 48b8, 48b9, 48ba, 48bb, 48bc, 48bd, 48be, 48bf, 48d8, 48d9, 48da, 48db, 48dc, 48dd, 48de, 48df, 48e0, 48e1, 48e2, 48e3, 48e4, 48e5, 48e6, 48e7, 48f4, 48f5, 48f6, 48f7)
free 4ab0
verifying ecc...
0 out of 871936 pages had incorrect ecc.
they were spread through 0 clusters in 0 blocks:
()
0 of those clusters are non-special (they belong to the fs)
verifying hmac...
verifying hmac for 278 files
hmac bad (1)
"scfm.img" is 8004000 bytes ( 2001 ) clusters

00000000 ff000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000020 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 ff000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000020 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 b90ab90a be0d4102 ..............A.

00000000 a34b5b67 e8e9a704 47e83ef6 a40a827e .K[g....G.>....~
00000010 fe405f2f .@_/
bad HMAC for "/scfm.img"
1 files had bad HMAC data
checking HMAC for superclusters...
hmac bad (1)
supercluster 7ec0

00000000 ffdfdacd 4e462168 e23657f5 c98c0160 ....NF!h.6W....`
00000010 bc941214 c5dfdacd 4e462168 e23657f5 ........NF!h.6W.
00000020 c9000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 ff8c0160 bc941214 c5000000 00000000 ...`............
00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000020 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 780cb515 83130708 9b688b9d 799aed0a x........h..y...
00000010 6ba30ad6 k...
hmac bad (1)
supercluster 7ed0

00000000 ff60dbec 77f53bf7 f3b79552 a7ea1fcf .`..w.;....R....
00000010 92f89593 dc60dbec 77f53bf7 f3b79552 .....`..w.;....R
00000020 a7000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 ffea1fcf 92f89593 dc000000 00000000 ................
00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000020 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 11929708 4fa9cb72 30622cb9 71726a4c ....O..r0b,.qrjL
00000010 05f8c11d ....
hmac bad (1)
supercluster 7ee0

00000000 ffcc5c14 f8383284 d5591f35 8b39b891 ..\..82..Y.5.9..
00000010 06978920 e3cc5c14 f8383284 d5591f35 ... ..\..82..Y.5
00000020 8b000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 ff39b891 06978920 e3000000 00000000 .9..... ........
00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000020 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000030 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................

00000000 0f8439c6 b8a552e3 4b12ee95 c4bb4bc0 ..9...R.K.....K.
00000010 80137c82 ..|.
3 superClusters had bad HMAC data
(32448, 32464, 32480)

 

[SDIO]

can you dump the system crash logs? You can dump them in minute in the Backup and restore menu.

 

[Infragno]

can you dump the system crash logs? You can dump them in minute in the Backup and restore menu.

Sure, here are the logs

 

[SDIO]

Make sure all the wireless modules are connected and set the disc drive to none in the SATA SEEPROM settings

 

[Infragno]

Make sure all the wireless modules are connected and set the disc drive to none in the SATA SEEPROM settings

I’ll check tomorrow! Thanks!

Post automatically merged: Jul 6, 2025

I’ll check tomorrow! Thanks!

Same error still. Updated logs and Putty output

 

[Infragno]

I used the 'Test SLC and Restore SLC.RAW' option, then erased MLC and after that deleted scfm.img again. Now I was able to rebuild the SLC and MLC.

Note: There were '128 pages in 2 blocks failed erase test'. Is there any chance of the SLC of corrupting again?

Putty output

 

[SDIO]

Then the SLC probably got messed up after you created the backup.

Two bad blocks doesn't sound too bad.
You can print the ISFS superblock information and look at the generation number to get an idea how worn out it is.

 

[Infragno]

Then the SLC probably got messed up after you created the backup.

Two bad blocks doesn't sound too bad.
You can print the ISFS superblock information and look at the generation number to get an idea how worn out it is.

Weird thing is that is wasn’t used much. Sat in storage for years. Had to update firmware on the gamepad also when it booted into 5.5. I’ll use it and see what happens. Thanks for the help!

 

[Infragno]

Im trying to fix the fan. I don’t think the fan itself is broken. Q5 is a suspect. Does anyone have a schematic? Or does anyone know what component that is?

Say I would have accidentally left 3,3V connected to the pico and plugged into my laptop. What else could I have damaged that would explain my fan isn’t working

 

[SDIO]

Q stands for transistor. You should be able to measure it like two diodes.

In the worst case you could just feed the fan off of the 5V buck converter directly