Hacking Nintendo's Wii HDD Loader

[toasterhead219]

They beat us to the hdd loader! a very very sick loader.

http://gizmodo.com/5067078/the-wii-looks-f...th-a-hard-drive

 

[djdynamite123]

smart like, doubt it could hold the amount of game i have though hehe

 

[turkish_punch]

I don't mean to nuke your thread or your fun, the video is very interesting ,but has been seen before. http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=3348

Would be amazing if we could get this capability. In the video you submitted it is very obvious that the wii is a standard wii while the older video could have alternative hardware. It would be nice if the Team Tweezer team could get a hold of a display console to ensure that the software and hardware is the same as the ones consumers purchase. If everything is the same, then every wii as the capability to run an external HDD. However, the external HDD could be modified itself ,but I personally doubt it.

 

[KirovAir]

It would be (very) cool, yes. But it can NOT be achieved without a hardware mod. (Which I dislike, I'd rather have USB support (which is impossible due to slow read speeds).

EDIT: Didn't read the store part. I agree with ^, a display Wii should be analyzed by a hacking team. We'll see what's possible with the normal Wii then.

 

[djdynamite123]

mind you ive not seen any videos of it loading games but its deffinately not fake, maybe noones bothered to record any videos while at hospital lol, poor blighters must be bad lol

 

[night_chrono]

It would be (very) cool, yes. But it can NOT be achieved without a hardware mod. (Which I dislike, I'd rather have USB support (which is impossible due to slow read speeds).

Anyway, don't believe it (yet) since I did NOT saw any GAME booted. Could be fake homebrew.
EDIT: Didn't read the store part. I agree with ^, a display Wii should be analyzed by a hacking team. We'll see what's possible with the normal Wii then.

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 2.0 is faster then a drive speed of 6x

 

[KirovAir]

It would be (very) cool, yes. But it can NOT be achieved without a hardware mod. (Which I dislike, I'd rather have USB support (which is impossible due to slow read speeds).

Anyway, don't believe it (yet) since I did NOT saw any GAME booted. Could be fake homebrew.
EDIT: Didn't read the store part. I agree with ^, a display Wii should be analyzed by a hacking team. We'll see what's possible with the normal Wii then.

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 2.0 is faster then a drive speed of 6x

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 1.1 is slower then a drive speed of 6x. (or even 3x!)

3x is already achieved.
Wii has 1.1 USB slots, not 2.0 so the drive speed would be even slower.

 

[turkish_punch]

It would be (very) cool, yes. But it can NOT be achieved without a hardware mod. (Which I dislike, I'd rather have USB support (which is impossible due to slow read speeds).

Anyway, don't believe it (yet) since I did NOT saw any GAME booted. Could be fake homebrew.
EDIT: Didn't read the store part. I agree with ^, a display Wii should be analyzed by a hacking team.

I don't see any reason to suggest a fake, we already have one source from the Children's Hopital (the like I already supplied) and the newer video which has some game variations. ie Updated Madden and no Hannah Montana on the store console.

Loading a game from USB is far from inconceivable. First of all since the Wii has no HDD it must already have an appropriate caching system for running games from DVD without have to swap memory or do any kind of writing and reading to the non-existent HDD. Then the wii has USB 2.0 which has transfer speeds far exceeding a 6x read rate from a DVD compare 480Mbps to 6x10.5Mbps. Then if you had a HDD loader, the game 'images' would not be stored in 4.4-8.7GB isos like they are on game disks. Rather they would more than likely be stored like PC video games or at the very least an extraction of the ISO. A HDD loader that is not intended for comsumer use would also likely negate the need of encryption and other security features. All of this is speculation of course.

My problem with the new video is at the end. The person recording the video shows us the back of the console and doesn't even go any where near the USB ports. Presumably there may have been nothing there so there may well have been some modification.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd

 

[turkish_punch]

...previous quote deleted....

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 1.1 is slower then a drive speed of 6x. (or even 3x!)

3x is already achieved.
Wii has 1.1 USB slots, not 2.0 so the drive speed would be even slower.

All sources I have seen indicate USB 2.0 so I put the burden of proof that it uses USB1.1 on you.

 

[djdynamite123]

I know yeah, its either 1.1 or 2.0 make up your mind.

 

[KirovAir]

It would be (very) cool, yes. But it can NOT be achieved without a hardware mod. (Which I dislike, I'd rather have USB support (which is impossible due to slow read speeds).

Anyway, don't believe it (yet) since I did NOT saw any GAME booted. Could be fake homebrew.
EDIT: Didn't read the store part. I agree with ^, a display Wii should be analyzed by a hacking team.

I don't see any reason to suggest a fake, we already have one source from the Children's Hopital (the like I already supplied) and the newer video which has some game variations. ie Updated Madden and no Hannah Montana on the store console.


I just delete the cross-line text of my reply, since I DO believe it's real but I just saw it in a wrong way and ppl are understanding me wrong.

I thought the guy had created the menu himself, but he didn't. I seemed (Seemed, not seems) odd to me that a HDD loader could already have such an awesome menu so that's why I thought it was a fake vid.

QUOTE(Jesse Sander @ Oct 22 2008, 04:18 PM)

...previous quote deleted....

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 1.1 is slower then a drive speed of 6x. (or even 3x!)

3x is already achieved.
Wii has 1.1 USB slots, not 2.0 so the drive speed would be even slower.

All sources I have seen indicate USB 2.0 so I put the burden of proof that it uses USB1.1 on you.

I'm 100% sure the wiki is wrong (at least about the speed, could be 2.0 porsts with 1.1 speed). Because I readed here that the 1.1 speed was the only limit from creating a HDD backup loader.

 

[FGOD]

It would be (very) cool, yes. But it can NOT be achieved without a hardware mod. (Which I dislike, I'd rather have USB support (which is impossible due to slow read speeds).

Anyway, don't believe it (yet) since I did NOT saw any GAME booted. Could be fake homebrew.
EDIT: Didn't read the store part. I agree with ^, a display Wii should be analyzed by a hacking team. We'll see what's possible with the normal Wii then.

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 2.0 is faster then a drive speed of 6x

for the 80 BILLIONTH TIME. USB 1.1 is slower then a drive speed of 6x. (or even 3x!)

3x is already achieved.
Wii has 1.1 USB slots, not 2.0 so the drive speed would be even slower.

you are right about that, but the speed i software limited, cause the USB ports are in fact 2.0 working on 1.1

 

[turkish_punch]

...removed quote....

I just delete the cross-line text of my reply, since I DO believe it's real but I just saw it in a wrong way and ppl are understanding me wrong.

I thought the guy had created the menu himself, but he didn't. I seemed (Seemed, not seems) odd to me that a HDD loader could already have such an awesome menu so that's why I thought it was a fake vid.

Sorry, I did not see that until after posting my reply.

QUOTE(FGOD @ Oct 22 2008, 04:26 PM) ...removed quote....
...removed quote....

you are right about that, but the speed i software limited, cause the USB ports are in fact 2.0 working on 1.1

Who is software limiting? Nintendo or Homebrew developers... I will have to do a Internet Speed test through the datel ethernet adaptor; I don't use nor trust wifi. Anything over 100KB\s would indicate that USB2.0 is software and hardware enabled through the Opera Channel.

 

[Scha]

Who is software limiting? Nintendo or Homebrew developers... I will have to do a Internet Speed test through the datel ethernet adaptor; I don't use nor trust wifi. Anything over 100KB\s would indicate that USB2.0 is software and hardware enabled through the Opera Channel.

USB 1.1 is 10 MBit.. right? so that would be what.. 1100kbyte/sec or something

 

[toasterhead219]

i'm gonna put my money on its 2.0. thats what the wiki said a while back and it just makes sense. if they wanted to use it for some crazy new feature or add on, which the wii has quite a few of, then they wouldn't limit themselves with speed.

 

[linuxares]

so anyone setup a Paypal donate account and then buy a Children Hospital Wii, let some team check it out and then donate it to a Hospital.

A Win - Win situation.

 

[HowardC]

The stock wii running a hdd menu is in the Nintendo Store in NYC and it's sister store in Japan. That is the ONLY two that exist. The others are another (crappier) proprietary system.

So get the idea of someone dumping the software/hardware to this device out of your head. It ain't gonna happen in the lifespan of the wii.

 

[toasterhead219]

The stock wii running a hdd menu is in the Nintendo Store in NYC and it's sister store in Japan. That is the ONLY two that exist. The others are another (crappier) proprietary system.

So get the idea of someone dumping the software/hardware to this device out of your head. It ain't gonna happen in the lifespan of the wii.

someone getting their hands on it is indeed highly unlikely, but its a really cool interface and would be awesome to have some unknown amount of time down the road.

 

[jam3972]

isn't an HDD loader not too far away?

there's already plenty of homebrew that can use usb HDDs such as vmplayer

add WiiGator's new launcher code to that and to me seems like a logical step? maybe not as pretty a menu as this official one, but I would think the code isn't too far away.

this is, of course, wild speculation and I would love for someone to point out where I'm thinking wrong.

(is the problem that all the current homebrew usb apps run it at 1.1 speeds?)

 

[Screemer]

right now the usb sppeds a way to slow for a hdd loader. the first thing what had to be done would be coding a working usb 2.0 driver. it seems like nintendo already did that, but i doubt it will be released with a update. there was a guy, with some experience in low level driver coding, here looking for help. but a couple of people, including well known sceners like markan, started to flame and kicked him out of the #wiidev irc channel. there point was, that there is no reason for a 2.0 driver except of piracy and they don't support piracy and don't wanna be related to piracy. i think he just dropped the idea of working for the community. thats pretty sad, because i think a good working usb 2.0 driver would be great for wiili and other projects too.