Hacking Old wii. Whats the safest?

[Tom191]

I have an older softmodded wii back in the days of the zelda hack. I haven't used it in a while. I was trying to find the best way to get in line with whats new. I've seen about 40 different guides and I'm not sure which one to trust. Could someone just point me to the safest direction? Thank you.

 

[Riley]

This guide.

 

[Tom191]

Whats the differences in all these different guides? Why are there so many?

 

[pm_41]

Firstly, what firmware are you on?

 

[Lexip;]

If its an old wii then you're most likely to install bootmii as boot2. If you haven't already, do it now.

 

[Taleweaver]

Whats the differences in all these different guides? Why are there so many?

Well...there's the fact that nintendo makes changes with every firmware they release. Then there are (some slight, some major) differences with every region. And of course a wii isn't hacked within the first day, month or even year of release. As a result, guides need to be updated every so often to reflect later improvements and innovations. Oh, and of course, hacking is a somewhat complex task, so guides have to strike some sort of balance between letting the reader know what all the instructions mean and snowing them under all sorts of technical jibberish.

Add to that the fact that there is no official way to hack a wii. As such, every hacker, cracker, pirate, ... can pretty much write whatever works for them. If you happen to have the exact same wii, it may work. But if you've got a different region or firmware...things can become quite nasty.


Now...I agree with Riley about using this guide. Why? Because of the following reasons:

-it is updated often (you really don't want to know how many people try to use outdated hacks like the twilight hack on a recent firmware)
-it is complete and doesn't make (much) assumptions (guides that state things like "update to the latest firmware version" without mentioning what the latest firmware was at the moment the guide was written can be downright dangerous)
-IMO, it strikes a nice balance between telling what should be done and telling what it is you're actually doing (lots of other guides state things like "install this cIOS"...this one has a glossary within two clicks)
-and, not unimportant: everyone can give feedback. If steps don't work or are unclear, you can mention it and get a response (and who knows...the guide may even be adapted

).

 

[Tom191]

OH NO!!! Did I just break my wii? Before going and trying the guide that you linked to I decided I should format my wii and get rid of all my stuff that was on there before. After the format was done my wii turned off. So I turn it back on and now I get a message saying that the system files are corrupt. What went wrong here?

 

[burritoboy9984]

When do you get the error? Right when you turn it on? Can you access anything?

-Erik

 

[DunkrWunkah]

Maybe you should have checked the web to see if formatting it would be safe first.

 

[techboy]

Formatting is prone to bricking (as you learned). It's the one function on a Wii you should avoid. I've even had it brick unmodded consoles.

Do you have preloader by any chance (if you don't know, turn the console on, and immediately hold RESET...if you have it, it will appear)?

 

[Midna]

Yow.

 

[Slowking]

Hmm maybe you do have preloader on there? Try holding reset while your Wii starts up.

If that doesnt work it's bricked.

On what System Menu is your Wii? If it's low enough we might be able to save it...

 

[Tom191]

holding reset didn't get me anywhere. IIRC I think when I when I did the zelda hack my wii was on 3. something. Is there any chance to fix this? I was planning on giving it to my niece before it broke. The message shows up about 4 seconds after I try to power up my wii.

 

[Krestent]

holding reset didn't get me anywhere. IIRC I think when I when I did the zelda hack my wii was on 3. something. Is there any chance to fix this? I was planning on giving it to my niece before it broke. The message shows up about 4 seconds after I try to power up my wii.

Try updating it to 4.1 or something with a newer game (something like Wii Sports Resort, etc) using SaveMiiFrii. There are guides on it, look around.

 

[Slowking]

Bad advise. First he should look if he is on 3.2 or below. If so he can just use a fakesigned disc. That has a bigger probability to work than the game update.

 

[Tom191]

i looked into the savemefree thingie, luckily i have an old gamecube remote. reading around some more i found some things about there being issues with updates and modchips. so should i have my modchip removed before trying a game disk with the savemefree thingie. i'm going to try to rent a game tonight. what are some other games that will work to update?

 

[techboy]

Chip shouldn't be an issue. If for some reason savemiifrii won't read a disc with it, you can always remove it later.

As for games, any game released in the past 6 months will have at least 4.1 (if not 4.2) on it. I know New Super Mario Bros Wii has 4.1+boot2v4.

 

[Slowking]

Well first of all boot into the rescue menu with savemii free and look what system menu version it displays. If you are on 3.2 or below just burn a rescue disc. (there are some with wadmanager and crap)
If you are above try the update method.