Regarding my bricked Wii U

[DoubleSlash]

So, for context:

I've had a Wii U since 2013, and I had it modded since 2016. Unfortunately, I was 12 in 2016, and even though everything went well, I knew I did some dumb things with it, though I never bricked it at the time. For the past few years, I knew my Wii U had some major signs of corruption, as sometimes games would crash (Mario Kart 8, which I owned physically with the DLC, would crash when loading some stages, though it never seemed to be consistent which ones would load and crash. Nintendo Land, a game I owned digitally, would crash after a few minutes no matter what I was doing), and updates for both games and the system would fail, resulting in my Wii U staying on a lower firmware (I believe 5.5.1, but I could be wrong).

I used Haxchi until January of this year, when I decided to switch to Tiramisu. I knew I had dumped my OTP and Seeprom for Cemu online, but I was smart enough to make a new backup at that time to have the other files, though unfortunately I didn't backup my MLC, as my Wii U had a 32GB SD card inside, which obviously would not be enough for the dump with all the other files in there. Cut to a month later, where I decided to install WarioWare Smooth Moves, where I kept getting download errors when trying NUSspli, so I downloaded it on my computer, moved it to my SD Card, and used some old homebrew to try to install it, in which my Wii U crashed while trying to install it to the NAND, and then proceeded to not be able to boot up (blue light, fans spinning, no output on TV or GamePad).

I didn't set up autobooting to Tiramisu because I thought it would have been safer,but now I'm wondering if setting it up would have made it a little different. Regardless, after I bricked the Wii U, I searched desperately to see if there was anything I could do to try and fix it. I decided to buy a Pico W to try UDPIH (I got the W because I thought it would be futureproofing for something else I wanted to do with it, and I still don't know if it has any impact on UDPIH or de_fuse, although de_fuse wasn't even a thing at the time), but that didn't do anything (obviously because of how the exploit works, but I didn't know better at the time). Since then, I've been browsing this forum for a while, seeing if there were any new developments, which is where I found out about Voultar's Wii U NAND-Aid and de_Fuse. The only problem is that I have no soldering experience. I still think there's a chance I could at least learn with the NAND-Aid, as that doesn't seem too complicated, but I know I have no chance trying to de_Fuse myself. I've yet to order anything for the NAND-Aid as I'm deciding to wait for the final product to be made, but even then I would have to buy the PCB and other components myself as I live in Canada and Voultar's shop does not do shipping outside the US (I'm not sure if there would be a chance if some other place could sell a pre-made one, but we'll just have to see when that comes out).

So then, what's the point of this thread? Honestly, I just figure I should get some words from people who are more knowledgeable than me on this situation so I can figure out what to do next. Is there perhaps a chance that I can still get a dump of my Wii U's eMMC in the state it is in and see what I can do with that and the NAND-Aid? Do I have to go to de_Fuse and figure out how to get that all set up (obviously, it's up to me to find some place that offers repairs like that, unless someone here has a recommendation for a place that can do it in the Greater Toronto Area)? Also, I'm going to attach the logs from the SLC that I dumped in January so that at least more can be figured out about the condition my Wii U was in at that time. I've yet to even open my Wii U, so I don't even know if I have a Hynix chip or not (I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case).

I apologise for the long post. I thought I should give as much detail as I could about the situation. Any help is very much appreciated, as well for taking the time to read this.

 

[SDIO]

00:03:39:676: mmc_core card err: idx=3, lba=16516096, blks=1024, xfer=0x1, ret=0x00200b40
00:03:39:712: mmc_core card err: idx=3, lba=16516096, blks=1024, xfer=0x1, ret=0x00200b40
00:03:39:712: mdblk: err=-131099, mid=0x90, prv=0x5c, pnm=[HYNIX ]
00:03:39:713: FSA: ### MEDIA ERROR ###, dev:mlc01, err:-2228230, cmd:11, path:(null)
00:03:39:769: mmc_core card err: idx=3, lba=16516096, blks=1024, xfer=0x1, ret=0x00200b40
00:03:39:805: mmc_core card err: idx=3, lba=16516096, blks=1024, xfer=0x1, ret=0x00200b40
00:03:39:805: mdblk: err=-131099, mid=0x90, prv=0x5c, pnm=[HYNIX ]
00:03:39:805: FSA: ### MEDIA ERROR ###, dev:mlc01, err:-2228230, cmd:11, path:(null)
00;03;39;686: FS: READ_FILE      upid:[15] sts:[MEDIA_ERROR] hnd:[0x3b70aa5] dst:[0x1f9e4980] size:[1] cnt:[1048576] pos:[0]

Your logs have MEDIA ERROR ont the eMMC all over them. And yes that is a Hynix, as you can see from the log.
Your story sounds very similar to mine: https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-i-fixed-160-0103-system-memory-error.626448/

You don't need de_fuse, but it would be helpful to get a complete dump before we do anything. But it is not required.
The strategy would be to solder NAND-AID and use it to dump the eMMC. Then you write the eMMC to an 32GB sdcard and insert it in the NAND-AID and hope it boots far enoug to run UDPIH.
If your eMMC went read only, there is a good chance that the clone would be good enough.
There is still the possibility that the eMMC is too far gone or it took out the slc cache, when it died, like it did on mine, when it died the second time.

I guess you have to find someone who can solder good enough or practive on some scrap boards to get a feeling for it.
Maybe if you look through the theads here you can find someone else from canada, who has ordered NADN AIDs or someone from the USA can ship it to you.

EDIT: @axmccx is from canada, maybe he can sell you a NAND-AID: https://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-stuck-on-logo.630328/post-10167966

 

[DoubleSlash]

@SDIO Thank you so much! I'll send the guy a message and see what comes of it, but even if not, I've found a way to get the final NAND-AID to me, even if it might take some time for that to happen. I still have hope the Wii U can be worked on, as at least for now the Wii U's power LED still goes blue when trying to power on and the fan still spins, and with how long the issues on my Wii U have persisted, I think it'll be able to go on for a little longer. It's really just the SLC cache that can prove to be a problem, but we'll obviously not know the condition until I get the NAND-Aid set up. If all goes well and I can get UDPIH working, I'll do a completely new dump along with the MLC, and then we can see what to do from there.

 

[DoubleSlash]

Alright, I'm back.

I have (mostly?) everything I need to proceed with the NAND-Aid. I don't have a dedicated emmc to sd breakout board (at least something like Voultar's upcoming SD Tool, I'm unsure if that's what it's properly called but searching up breakout board gave me siimilar results), but I do have a micro sd to sd card adapter, which I think could be wired up from the NAND-Aid to be read from the PC. I included an image of the state it is in just to ensure that it is fine being like that. I'm unsure if there is anything else that can work to get the hardware dump, though I heard raspberry pi's can work, but I only have a Pico, which I think cannot work.

I'll probably start to do the actual process of installing it tomorrow. If there is anything I should know before proceeding, let me know.

 

[SDIO]

Yes, you can build an adapter out of the micro SD Adapter. I also did that once. The Pico wont work.

 

[DoubleSlash]

Alright, perfect. My presumption is that I'd just have to solder the wires from the NAND-Aid pads to the exposed contacts of the adapter in order of the general pinout for micro sd cards?

 

[SDIO]

yes. Some adapters expect a pull up on DAT3, but I would first try without it. In theroy one DAT line (DAT0) should be enough