Hacking PRELOADER v.25 Released

[madtamski]

Once this is installed, does it stay installed or do I need the SD Card?
The settings are saved to the NAND so no SD card config file is needed after this

QUOTEOnce save settings is selected the hacks.ini is copied to the NAND and it's no longer necessary to keep the file on the SD card. The format is very simple and should not require any explanation.

 

[Jizmo]

So has anybody found a .dol that will install and autoboot correctly? If no then I'm gonna reinsatll system menu and start over with it without starfall.

4 attempts and 4 fails. Wad Manager, FTPii, Rebooter, Menu Loader. Menu loader is the only one that will even boot and it won't exit properly.

We need some feedback buys.

 

[stayingarmed]

The settings are saved to the NAND so no SD card config file is needed after this wink.gif

Simply place the supplied hacks.ini in the root of the SD and enter the settings and then the hack settings to select the once you want to use. Once save settings is selected the hacks.ini is copied to the NAND and it's no longer necessary to keep the file on the SD card. The format is very simple and should not require any explanation.

Don't worry, unlike a LOT of n00bs, I actually did read all the info.....I just didn't know if the .dol AND the .ini could be removed after the installation because all it says is "the supplied hacks.ini"

 

[djtaz]

I get this preloader working no problem , but my system menu is now telling me its corrupt
Im waiting on IronMask to sort me out with a proper system menu , hopefully that will fix it for me.

Not sure what happened - homebrew channel still works fine , all games load through that - all apps in that work fine - loading a DOL directly like say backuploader , it loads in all black but i get sounds

loading system menu i get - your system files are corrupt ... please contact nintendo ... blah blah.

Im not too pushed as i have HBC , but its just a minor warning to people

what version is your systemmenu ? Also that error doesn't really mean your systemmenu is corrupted.

It was on 3.3 and was chipped so i think thats what caused it , and every time it went to the system menu it only half displayed that warning.
A few people (thanks a million guys) sent me on the 3.2 system wad and i just installed and its all back to normal again , so i appreciate the quick assistance there.

Im still keeping in line that this is an amazing product - much less worry about bricking now

Thanks again guys - your all great on here - if IronMask wasnt so ugly id kiss him
djdynamite123 gets the award for the most apt description of my new brown underpants.

 

[ether2802]

Anyone DIP7'd managed to have the region free just to powering ON your Wii..???

 

[frostyfrosty]

hmmm...
it seems i get an error when i try to start up starfall after i install the preloader.

ISFS_Seek() failed:-101

anyone else get this?

and is there a way to uninstall the preloader?

 

[WB3000]

I believe I understand how this works. When you run the installer, it takes advantage of the System Menu being in an 'extracted' state, and renames the DOL file which acts as the System Menu. It has it's own DOL which it replaces as the main.dol, and that in turn will boot and decide when to load the old main.dol.

There's not a lot of solid info in the wiki though. So during the installation, you are allowed to toggle the patches on or off that you desire from the hacks.ini, and those are then written to NAND? Also, what exactly is the Boot --> DOL functionality do? Is there some way you control this, and set the DOL you want to use? My first thought would be that if you are holding a certain button during the boot sequence, the PreLoader main.dol would pick up on that and allow you to change the DOL from the regular System Menu one to an SD card one.

 

[frostyfrosty]

also for the hacks.ini, is there supposed to be repeated patches?
like this?

[Replace healthwarning with backmenu]
version=290
offset=0x81626708
value=0x813EADF8
[Region free Wii games]
version=290
offset=0x813798C0
value=0x38600001
[Region free Wii games]
version=290
offset=0x81377B6C
value=0x38000001
[Region free GC games with video mode patch]
version=290
offset=0x813778E0
value=0x900DA5D8
[Region free GC games with video mode patch]
version=290
offset=0x813778E4
value=0x38000032
[Replace healthwarning with backmenu]
version=289
offset=0x81626428
value=0x813EACFC
[Region free Wii games]
version=289
offset=0x81379818
value=0x38600001
[Region free Wii games]
version=289
offset=0x81377AC4
value=0x38000001
[Region free GC games with video mode patch]
version=289
offset=0x81377838
value=0x900DA5D8
[Region free GC games with video mode patch]
version=289
offset=0x8137783C
value=0x38000032


how there are two "Region free Wii games" and two "Region free GC games"?

 

[Arm the Homeless]

If you want to uninstall, just write a app that removes the sysmenu main.dol, moves back over the old main.dol and removes the hacks.ini file.

 

[djtaz]

I set it to boot from the backuploader channel and it did , but i got a black screen - granted my system menu was corrupt at the time , so thats prob why - ill try it again now

 

[stayingarmed]

because notice, the offsets and values are different which tells me they must be for different system menu versions or regions.

 

[frostyfrosty]

If you want to uninstall, just write a app that removes the sysmenu main.dol, moves back over the old main.dol and removes the hacks.ini file.

and how would i go about doing that lol =P
im not much of a coder at all.

 

[BL4Z3D247]

hmmm...
it seems i get an error when i try to start up starfall after i install the preloader.

ISFS_Seek() failed:-101

anyone else get this?

and is there a way to uninstall the preloader?

i thought starfall was implemented into this release?... could of misread something though

 

[IronMask]

As long as you send a swed model my way?

I'm glad things we ok Taz.



I am still trying different combinations myself and am not having any luck as well guys.

 

[WiiCrazy]

also for the hacks.ini, is there supposed to be repeated patches?
like this?

[Replace healthwarning with backmenu]
version=290
offset=0x81626708
value=0x813EADF8
[Region free Wii games]
version=290
offset=0x813798C0
value=0x38600001
[Region free Wii games]
version=290
offset=0x81377B6C
value=0x38000001
... snip...

how there are two "Region free Wii games" and two "Region free GC games"?

If patch contains more than a single value patch then it's specified with those specific addressses more than once... for all the nocopy patches for example you need 8 entries like that...

by the way could someone run this [http://www.tepetaklak.com/data/crazymenunocopy.rar]
and tell me the 5 addresses it print outs?
preferably a ntsc user... weird thing I found the initial two nocopy patches in the exact same place or my crt tv really sucks...

all it does search for the nocopy search strings and prints the addresses where it founds them... after 60 seconds it will boot the wii into recovery mode... (was lazy to comment those parts in the code)

it will say patch code found at [address] 5 times...

 

[Jizmo]

I believe I understand how this works. When you run the installer, it takes advantage of the System Menu being in an 'extracted' state, and renames the DOL file which acts as the System Menu. It has it's own DOL which it replaces as the main.dol, and that in turn will boot and decide when to load the old main.dol.

There's not a lot of solid info in the wiki though. So during the installation, you are allowed to toggle the patches on or off that you desire from the hacks.ini, and those are then written to NAND? Also, what exactly is the Boot --> DOL functionality do? Is there some way you control this, and set the DOL you want to use? My first thought would be that if you are holding a certain button during the boot sequence, the PreLoader main.dol would pick up on that and allow you to change the DOL from the regular System Menu one to an SD card one.

Apparently if you install a .dol file with it then set the autoboot function to DOL when you boot it directly loads that dol file off the SD. Kinda nice because you can have multiple dols in your SD root and they don't have to be named boot.dol to work. when you select to install dol, it will list all the dol files in the root. choose the one you want to autoboot, save setting, set autoboot to dol. then power off and reboot. Problem is, doesn't look like many dols are gonna work booting from this. I'm 1 out of 4 and it doesn't exit properly.

Still waiting on word of a success autobooting an installed dol with this.

Also the game region patching is not really a help toward what we were trying to accomplish. What we need patched for games to show up in Disc Channel is the console region code i think. Since the system menu appears to read game region off disc then compare it to console region to allow it to display in disc channel. If it will display it will play, as is proven by region patching the games making them show up and load.

Has anybody considered finding where System Menu reads the game region code off the DVD and then just spoofing the result to your consoles region?
Or just eliminating the check and defining the variable if needed?

 

[madtamski]

Just holding in the reset button to allow you to select the Homebrew channel is what sells this to me.

It's almost instantaneous, loads quicker than starfall and no GC controller needed

 

[frostyfrosty]

also for the hacks.ini, is there supposed to be repeated patches?
like this?

[Replace healthwarning with backmenu]
version=290
offset=0x81626708
value=0x813EADF8
[Region free Wii games]
version=290
offset=0x813798C0
value=0x38600001
[Region free Wii games]
version=290
offset=0x81377B6C
value=0x38000001
... snip...

how there are two "Region free Wii games" and two "Region free GC games"?

If patch contains more than a single value patch then it's specified with those specific addressses more than once... for all the nocopy patches for example you need 8 entries like that...

by the way could someone run this [http://www.tepetaklak.com/data/crazymenunocopy.rar]
and tell me the 5 addresses it print outs?
preferably a ntsc user... weird thing I found the initial two nocopy patches in the exact same place or my crt tv really sucks...

all it does search for the nocopy search strings and prints the addresses where it founds them... after 60 seconds it will boot the wii into recovery mode... (was lazy to comment those parts in the code)

it will say patch code found at [address] 5 times...

if thats true, why didnt he implement all of the starfall patches? and only those 4 or 5?
main thing i wanted was the update blocker and the recovery mode. (or are these not needed with this or something?)

I know im askin a good amount of questions, but i just want to get things straight. ^^

 

[joda]

Anyone managed to boot any dols from this, auto or not? All I've tried (cIOS downgrader, wad manager, ftpii, anytitledeleter and more) segfault or just blackscreen. Booting to system menu or HBC works like a charm though. Word to be added though is that I've dip-patched all IOS:es on my Wii.

 

[stayingarmed]

I swear I couldn't ask for ANYTHING else to be done for the wii at this point. Between this and the system menu cios files, I'm good to go!!!!

Everything works perfectly and I have it set up to boot to the system menu and then I can switch to the HBC if I ever need to.

Thanks a million guys, you all don't know how much you've done for everyone! You are all gods among men!


On a side note though, does anyone have a file made that can be used to remove this if someone ever would want to? (not sure why they would)