Hacking Prepare for worst - Wii Protection Checklist...

[w_n_s]

I've been reading around and I believe I have my Wii protected, but there are a few things confusing me.

I have a 4.0E Wii with the following installed:

cIOS Rev13a
Preloader
BootMii - Installed as IOS (my wii wouldn't allow a Boot 2 install)
HBC
USBLoader GX

I have taken a NAND backup with BootMii .

So, my question - What scenario would it take to bork my Wii beyond repair?

Have I taken enough precautions, or can I do more?

 

[WiiGuy10]

BootMii as IOS does that allow you to restore the NAND? I heard that you couldn't but I could be wrong.
I am pretty much in the same boat, I don't have anything for brick protection, not even preloader, but I mean I long as I don't install any crazy stuff beside for cIOS and new version of USBLoader GX, I should be fine.

I am looking forward to the NAND emu (whatever that is) - Maybe it is like a virtual wii system that I can mess with before I mess with the real thing, like a virtual windows inside my real window maybe.

 

[bdr9]

The only thing that could brick your Wii is if you touch your system menu or its IOS. So don't touch any IOSes, especially IOS60, and don't touch the system menu. That is pretty much the best protection you can get, what you have right now. If you had a boot2 install of BootMii, you could touch the system menu or its IOS, but you can't.

BootMii as IOS does that allow you to restore the NAND? I heard that you couldn't but I could be wrong.
Yes it does, but it is not very useful because in any situation where you would need it, you would not be able to even access BootMii.

QUOTE(WiiGuy10 @ Aug 2 2009, 03:38 PM) I am looking forward to the NAND emu (whatever that is) - Maybe it is like a virtual wii system that I can mess with before I mess with the real thing, like a virtual windows inside my real window maybe.

It is a way to make certian files in your NAND run from the SD card or USB drive, allowing you to do anything including VC/WiiWare games from SD/USB, test themes, build a NAND with a lot of modified things, ect.

 

[BlindDude]

would be a good Idea to keep that copy of your nand in case bootmii is ever updated to intall as boot2 on these wii's.

Oh, and get and install preloader.. it can recover you from banner bricks.. I think bootmii can too but preloader is much easier..(just hold down reset while loading)

I have been thinking too, a friend in an irc room said that a friend of his got a BAD wad from someone. This wad was meant to brick wii's. I dont know what was in it but it gave a banner brick and its ID was HAXX. So when you install it, it writes over HBC so you cant fix it.

So that being said, it might be a good idea to have a backup of HBC somehow.. If there is a .dol of HBC out there, it could be installed as "FILE" in preloader and booted straight to it.
Or install wad manager as "FILE"? ^^

Any other ideas on a hbc backup?

 

[tanis698]

if you can't install as a boot2 backup ur nand get preloader.as long as you don't delete your system menu you can restore your nand backup between preloader and bootmii as a ios.i have already tested this on a lu65 wii.a guy posted a vid doing it. http://www.yafaze.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1339 check it out.

 

[nabster92]

would be a good Idea to keep that copy of your nand in case bootmii is ever updated to intall as boot2 on these wii's.

Oh, and get and install preloader.. it can recover you from banner bricks.. I think bootmii can too but preloader is much easier..(just hold down reset while loading)

I have been thinking too, a friend in an irc room said that a friend of his got a BAD wad from someone. This wad was meant to brick wii's. I dont know what was in it but it gave a banner brick and its ID was HAXX. So when you install it, it writes over HBC so you cant fix it.

So that being said, it might be a good idea to have a backup of HBC somehow.. If there is a .dol of HBC out there, it could be installed as "FILE" in preloader and booted straight to it.
Or install wad manager as "FILE"? ^^

Any other ideas on a hbc backup?

Bootmii installed to boot2 on newer Wii's will likely never happen. What COULD happen is something like having bootmii with an option to install as the system menu IOS, which will still offer a bit more protection than preloader, but not as much as a boot2 install still. I believe Team Twiizers did say something along those lines would be possible in the future sometime, but finding another bug in boot2 would be highly unlikely.

You can still use the NAND backup if you load bootmii from preloader in the event from a brick, but if you try to restore, it will warn you that it too dangerous to continue and you will have to press like A+B+X+Y to continue anyways or something.

If you get banner bricked by that wad, you should still be able to directly boot wad manager from preloader and uninstall the wad to get rid of the brick and then reinstall the HBC through bannerbomb.

 

[w_n_s]

Thanks for the clarification. So the only solid 100% protection there is, is Boot2 option of BootMii which is only available on Wii's pre-sometime-in-2008 .

Just to be sure, what sorts of things touch the System IOS?

I get confused about the following, so if there is any good threads, or Wiki's that could explain it, then it'll keep me more aware - so far I believe I have installed / updated the following things, but I have no clue how safe they are or exactly what they updated :

System IOS definition - what should I never do so this isn't touched?
What gets updated during a System Update (e.g. 3.2, 4.0, 4.1 ) ?
What gets updated during a cIOS update (e.g. Rev 13, 14) ?
What happens when you add IOS 222, 223, 249 etc... what gets updated ?
I also recently added an IOS to get preloader 0.29 working - IOS36-64-v1042.wad - what did this do?

 

[LxTrix]

I'm very interesting in running vc & wiiware from sd so where and what do i need for this?

 

[FenrirWolf]

1: The System Menu IOS is different depending on what System Menu you have. For 3.2-3.3 it's IOS30, for 3.4 it's IOS50, and for 4.0-4.1 it's IOS60.
2: Depends on the update. Usually an update will install a new version of the System Menu and a few new IOS's, but sometimes only the menu is updated, like in 4.0. Older versions of IOS have only been updated to try fixing security issues like the trucha bug.
3: cIOS installs itself as IOS249 (and installs a backup copy as IOS250). Those are what get updated when you install a new version of it.
4: None of those IOS's actually exist in the Wii untill you install them, so it's not really an update when you first put them on.
5: That's an older version of IOS36 that has the trucha bug and ES_Identify or something like that unpatched. If you had a newer version of IOS36 in there all that did was overwrite it with the older version that plays nicely with h4x.