Hacking Noob Starter Guide

[nabster92]

i recently softmodded my wii using the stickied guide by deviyl, and everything is working fine, and i really appreciate both because in tandem, i was able to preform the softmod and understand it a little better (though i'm still about as far from pro as you can get

). I stuck to deviyl's guide word for word, so i have no further modifications.

one area that i am still a little confused on is how the IOS files are affected during system updates. I have bootmii installed to boot2, so i shouldn't have any major issues (based on what i've read) and i am really not interested in playing backed up games on dvd's or a flash drive. from here on out, should i be safe getting official firmware updates from nintendo, without the fear of being bricked?

Nobody knows what updates Nintendo can do next. If there is ever any new update that comes out, you should come back here and read up on what it does and what it breaks, and how you could safely update if you need to at all. You shouldn't update from discs at all anyways and if you installed preloader, you can use the hacks.ini with that to block disc update checks, or you can use startpatch to do it if you don't have/want preloader.

I've looked everywhere, but all the applications I download are WAD files. Is it possible to convert them to DOL or something?

No, you are clearly downloading the wrong things. If they are wad's, they are channels of whatever applications you are looking for, not HBC apps. Every application in my guide has a link to it in the subject title for whatever application it is. You should be able to get them from those links.

QUOTE(pizzaman2893 @ Aug 18 2009, 09:00 AM)

ok I haven't installed preloader should I? and I still get stuck with dop ios. After its done downloading everything it just freezes. Edit: also the only time it freezes is when I install it with the sig hash check

Depends on what you want. Do you want the system menu hacks, and the extra bit of brick protection, and ability to autoboot files directly? If so go for it.

As for dop-IOS...not sure why it's freezing, but you could try posting in the thread for dop-IOS itself.

 

[Smash Br0]

*bump*

This topic needs to be stickied IMO. Thanks for the guide, Nabster --- and for helping me on the IRC a week or two ago!

 

[john1010_ma]

Nabster92, thanks a lot for this guide. It's like well brewed wine. I keep coming back to it when I'm stuck somewhere.

 

[xzxero]

about time this got stickied.

 

[lazyone]

Really great guide, I like the brief explanations of everything - it's very informative. I was able to follow it on my system and everything went clean.

 

[marclare]

i did everything right but the wii i just modded never ever been on wifi and i things its even lower then 3.1 or w/e and i installed the backuploaders and i keep getting error 249 or something and on the gamma one i keep getting error 1020 can some 1 plz help i burned the games on the dvd-r disc and they worked perfectly on my old wii ( i used the twlight hack) but that one got stolen

 

[nabster92]

i did everything right but the wii i just modded never ever been on wifi and i things its even lower then 3.1 or w/e and i installed the backuploaders and i keep getting error 249 or something and on the gamma one i keep getting error 1020 can some 1 plz help i burned the games on the dvd-r disc and they worked perfectly on my old wii ( i used the twlight hack) but that one got stolen

What have you installed on the Wii so far? You clearly have not done everything right if you don't know what system menu you are on and are possibly even lower than 3.1. I clearly said in the guide to update to at least 3.1 via Brawl, or Galaxy if you weren't already and can't do an official update.

I suggest reading through everything here again and then updating via one of those 3.1 games and then following the simplistic mod guide linked to at the end skipping the trucha bug restorer step (if you are actually on 3.2 or lower) and just having cIOS rev14 use like IOS36 or something anyways. DO NOT DELETE/UNINSTALL ANYTHING.

If you want to know what system menu version you are on you click on the wii icon in the bottom left of the system menu then click on wii settings and it should say what version it is at the top right.

 

[BedtimeGuy]

certainly NOT a n00b guide, but after reading the other guide, this helped me to UNDERSTAND what was going on! thanks!

 

[pepxl]

excellent what should i call it "Encyclopedia" of wii hacking, the ins and outs of each aspect explained in good detail, noobs should be made to read this before they can sign up to the forums then you wouldnt here about as many bricks as you do lol

excelent work nabster92

 

[senkun]

nabster92,

Thank you for taking the time to write and explaing all there is to modding a Wii. Your work is truly excellent and reading all you wrote has really helped me understand better.

There is just one thing that I can't really find the definitive answer to, I know all the tutorials and guides are US/EU-centric, given that this and other forums are in english. So, they really never talk about specific Wii expecting them to be either US or EU versions.

I am currently living in Taiwan, and the Wiis here are NTSC-J Taiwan versions (Japanese System Menu). I have a new machine which is 3.4J. If I were to follow the guides, they tell you to upgrade to 4.1U or 4.1E, in my case it should be 4.1J right?

And for Preloader, the hacks.ini which can be found are either for US or EU. Is there a specific hacks.ini for JP machines?

Those are the 2 questions I am stumped on, I am sure there are other things which have to be obtained/done differently to mod a NTSC-J machine?

 

[Guild McCommunist]

nabster92,

Thank you for taking the time to write and explaing all there is to modding a Wii. Your work is truly excellent and reading all you wrote has really helped me understand better.

There is just one thing that I can't really find the definitive answer to, I know all the tutorials and guides are US/EU-centric, given that this and other forums are in english. So, they really never talk about specific Wii expecting them to be either US or EU versions.

I am currently living in Taiwan, and the Wiis here are NTSC-J Taiwan versions (Japanese System Menu). I have a new machine which is 3.4J. If I were to follow the guides, they tell you to upgrade to 4.1U or 4.1E, in my case it should be 4.1J right?

And for Preloader, the hacks.ini which can be found are either for US or EU. Is there a specific hacks.ini for JP machines?

Those are the 2 questions I am stumped on, I am sure there are other things which have to be obtained/done differently to mod a NTSC-J machine?

Yes, upgrade to NTSC-J. Changing your system menu to a different version that's not yours is risky and not worth it, especially since most games can be forced to your region's mode in backup launchers like NeoGamma.

IDK about the hacks.ini thing, though. I don't have it on my SD card at all and never needed it in softmodding my Wii.

 

[brento]

this is freaking amazing!!

 

[melodical]

I have had lots of brilliant assistance and guidance from nabster92 in the past. Nice to see him cram lots of his knowledge and experience into a guide. Just what GBAtemp needed!!!

Havn't had a chance to read the guide in full yet, but i don't believe I really need to as nabster probably explained a good percentage of his wisdom to me whilst i was fumbling and f'ing around trying to get my wii softmodded in the first place.

Will read it though, when i get a chance!

Thanks again nabster! Much props to you sir!!

 

[azakea]

I just used your guide to softmod two different wiis (3.1u and 3.3u) with zero problems.

I backed up both nands and later managed to brick one of them. I booted into bootmii and tried to restore the nand backup. Thats when I got an error "Dump is from a different Wii" I know it was the correct nand so I googled and I found the solution on two websites:

http://forum.wiibrew.org/read.php?25,29860
http://bugs.hackmii.com/index.php?do=details&task_id=199

Anyway, I think if you were to update your guide somewhere it would really help someone.

Hex editor I used was HHD Software Free Hex Editor Neo. I picked that one by looking at wikipedia's list of hex editors and it was free.

 

[nabster92]

I just used your guide to softmod two different wiis (3.1u and 3.3u) with zero problems.

I backed up both nands and later managed to brick one of them. I booted into bootmii and tried to restore the nand backup. Thats when I got an error "Dump is from a different Wii" I know it was the correct nand so I googled and I found the solution on two websites:

http://forum.wiibrew.org/read.php?25,29860
http://bugs.hackmii.com/index.php?do=details&task_id=199

Anyway, I think if you were to update your guide somewhere it would really help someone.

Hex editor I used was HHD Software Free Hex Editor Neo. I picked that one by looking at wikipedia's list of hex editors and it was free.

Yea I guess I will...was kinda hoping Team Twiizers released a beta 0.3 bug fix edition/beta 0.4 soon so I wouldn't have to bother. I think they already posted on beta 0.4 test file in the last comment on some release topic or something. I'll just tell people to either try to find the beta 0.2 installer try using the beta 0.4 test hackmii installer HERE and make a new nand backup or try using the hex editor to fix it if they must.

 

[bobdigi84]

does anyone know what i need to make a gamecube back up launcher work?
i used some kind of cmios and it might be outdated or something but it just goes to green screen then reboots
-thanks

 

[xzxero]

does anyone know what i need to make a gamecube back up launcher work?
i used some kind of cmios and it might be outdated or something but it just goes to green screen then reboots
-thanks

install cmios using the miospatcher program
then use neogamma to boot you gamecube games.

 

[Frubio]

I've done it. It's totally working here and updated to 4.1

Thank you very much for explaining everything that was done nabster92 ;D

At least I almost understand everything I did to hack my Wii ;D LoL!

 

[orion2001]

I just wanted to drop in and say a big THANK YOU for this very informative thread. I had previously hacked my 3.2U wii many months ago but it looks like the wii hacking scene has progressed leaps and bounds in the time I have been away. Your guide helped a lot in getting me up to speed with all the terminology and the latest happenings in the wii hacking world. After reading this and going through with xzxero's simplistic mod, I am now a very happy wii owner basking in the glow of the awesome USB GX Loader and all the other wholesome homebrew goodness

 

[_Zephyr]

I have read your guide a few times.. but I'm not really good at English, so there are stuffs I still don't understand and still need a lot of reading at other guides

anyway, I just got a wii, and it's modded by the store owner, it's 4.0U, with neo gamma loader 6 and usb loader gx, so after I read your guide, I thought I'm gonna need bootmii, preloader and wad manager, I installed bootmii, then I install preloader, and then my system menu (IOS60) is corrupt, I read that I have to re-install preloader to fix the IOS60, but I got this problem as soon as I install preloader, does it help if I reinstall preloader? I tried and no luck, IOS60 still corrupt? any idea what is the cause? thanks in advance