Hacking Possibility of saving a semi-brick through HBL

[nighttrap]

I have an old Wii U that I was going to attempt to salvage today, but before digging it out and bothering I thought I'd see if anyone has dealt with this scenario.

Long ago I went a bit overzealous with a vWii hack. I believe is patched some IOS files that I shouldn't have. That stopped vWii from working, causing a black screen on boot. Later on this likely stopped updates to the U from installing with an error, effectively breaking all new titles and DLC.

If it's on 5.3.2 or higher, can I use wuphax to steam roll the bad IOS files or some other tool to allow updates, and hence a path to DS game installation and haxchi?

 

[AboodXD]

The title is so misleading...

 

[nighttrap]

I'm open to understanding how it was misleading, or how I should word it, as that wasn't my intention. In any case is this a lost cause?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have an old Wii U that I was going to attempt to salvage today, but before digging it out and bothering I thought I'd see if anyone has dealt with this scenario.

Long ago I went a bit overzealous with a vWii hack. I believe is patched some IOS files that I shouldn't have. That stopped vWii from working, causing a black screen on boot. Later on this likely stopped updates to the U from installing with an error, effectively breaking all new titles and DLC.

If it's on 5.3.2 or higher, can I use wuphax to steam roll the bad IOS files or some other tool to allow updates, and hence a path to DS game installation and haxchi?

You should be able to do that with wupserver or ftpiiu everywhere. You will need a copy of the clean IOS files from a NAND backup, which we can't really provide you with here.
Edit: Alternatively, you can try hbl2hbc and see if you are able to boot HBC with it. If that works, then you can use a WAD manager to reinstall the original IOS WADs from there.

 

[nighttrap]

You should be able to do that with wupserver or ftpiiu everywhere. You will need a copy of the clean IOS files from a NAND backup, which we can't really provide you with here.
Edit: Alternatively, you can try hbl2hbc and see if you are able to boot HBC with it. If that works, then you can use a WAD manager to reinstall the original IOS WADs from there.

Thank you. I have a fully updated working U. Could I dump and use those IOS files on this older, non updated U or do I need files for that version?

 

[AboodXD]

Since IOS files aren't console specific, I think you can.

 

[nexusmtz]

If it's on 5.3.2 or higher, can I use wuphax

Wuphax uses iosuhax code which is for 5.5.1. Why not just tell people what version you're really running? It wouldn't be 5.5.1 if you couldn't update.

 

[nighttrap]

Wuphax uses iosuhax code which is for 5.5.1. Why not just tell people what version you're really running? It wouldn't be 5.5.1 if you couldn't update.

I'm at work and someone else has it at the moment. Before retrieving it I just wanted to know what to expect, provided it has a FW high enough to even browser exploit into. Definitely not on 5.5.1 since it failed to update some time in 2015.

 

[nighttrap]

I now have access to the console. FW version 5.3.2. vWii menu loads, but Wii titles black screen from there. Browser exploits work, I'm able to launch apps from HBL. HBL2HBC did not launch HBC. It looks like it's down to ftpiiu and loading files from my working Wii U. What files should I pull from it and install in particular?

 

[nexusmtz]

I now have access to the console. FW version 5.3.2. vWii menu loads, but Wii titles black screen from there. Browser exploits work, I'm able to launch apps from HBL. HBL2HBC did not launch HBC. It looks like it's down to ftpiiu and loading files from my working Wii U. What files should I pull from it and install in particular?

But you can't see the vWii's NAND from the Wii side in ftpiiu on 5.3.2. Can you? Unless someone backports iosuhax, I don't know how you'd do anything.

 

[nighttrap]

But you can't see the vWii's NAND from the Wii side in ftpiiu on 5.3.2. Can you? Unless someone backports iosuhax, I don't know how you'd do anything.

I'm certainly at a loss. Without iosuhax and likely a broken IOS58, wuphax unsurprisingly didn't work either. Being unable to boot anything in vWii mode, including HBC, seems to put any fix into theoretical territory but I'm willing to follow some abridged steps if someone has some. I appreciate the look into it anyway.