Secondhand Wii U with bricked vWii

[nvb]

in early 2020 i bought a secondhand wii u, restored to factory settings prior to me getting it. it worked perfectly, the only caveat being that the vwii would not start. that being said, since i've never had access to a "working" nand i don't have a backup. here's a rundown of what happens after i attempt to launch the wii menu:

1. gamepad shows the "wii" screen as normal while the console restarts to go into wii mode
2. vwii starts up and shows the health and safety warning
3. after a very brief amount of time, usually less than a second, the health and safety warning disappears and the vwii powers off on its own
4. the led indicator on the console flashes yellow for a few seconds, then stays yellow for several minutes afterward before returning to red. it does not power back on unless i press the button
5. after powering the console back on, it simply boots into the wiiu menu as normal

back then i tried decaffeinator -- before doing that it just wouldn't boot into wii mode at all and after that it started behaving as described above, so i just assumed the previous owner bricked it and i couldn't fix it without a nand backup

i tried decaffeinator again today after finding out it was updated since the last time i used it. i regenerated the settings.txt and i got a spark of hope when the health and safety screen showed up for slightly longer than usual, only for it to be dashed when the same thing happened again after i tried to press A... i tried regenerating it a few more times but to no avail, and it's gone back to only showing the health and safety for a split second so im guessing that one attempt was a fluke. both times i used aggressive mode iirc

at this point i'm not sure what options i have or why exactly it's behaving this way. considering i've tried decaffeinator several times i wonder if it might just be a hardware issue... idk if there are logs i could provide for this sort of thing but if anyone is willing to help i'm happy to provide any additional information you may need, thanks in advance

Post automatically merged: Oct 3, 2023

update: i have learned since this post that i have a hynix eMMC

could the nonfunctional vWii be an indicator that it is dying? and should i do nand-aid as soon as possible?

 

[nvb]

ok this is getting personal imma open up my wii u because ive now found other people with the same issue on supposedly unmodded wii us and it still has no solution...?!?! i'm not very experienced in the hardware side of things but im gonna have to learn it one way or another so im going in you guys

 

[WingedStar64]

I think there are two possible causes that keeps your vWii from working properly:

1. You're plugging 2 USB drives at the same time (one for Wii U games and the other one for Wii and GC games for USB Loader GX and Nintendont). Your system will automatically shut down by itself if it detects more than 1 USB connected. Disconnecting the hard drive for Wii U games or hiding the partition of your USB with your Wii and GC games with UStealth.

Or 2. Your vWii's NAND is corrupted and/or has missing/damaged files.

If you hacked your Wii U with Tiramisu CFW, maybe this video helps if you hacked your Wii U. Give it another try to the vWii Decaffeinator.



1. Go to your Homebrew Launcher and run vWii Decaffeinator.

2. If you want to keep the save data, select the Light Mode; otherwise, if you want to delete everything from the vWii NAND, then select the Aggressive mode. Then, it should appear a message asking you to press any button to update your console, and it will redirect you to the system settings.

2.1 If you're using Tiramisu while doing this, IT WON'T LET YOU UPDATE!
In that case, just restart your Wii U console, and while your Wii U is booting up showing the Wii U logo, hold down the X button on your GamePad until a blue screen appears, which is the Environment Loader, select the "installer" option and press A on it.

2.2 You will be redirected to the PayloadLoader Installer. In this menu, just press A on these options:
Check > Boot options > Switch back to Wii U Menu

After you've done this, your Wii U will shut down.

3. Now, turn it back on! It should redirect you to the system settings. The system may think that something's wrong (in this case, your vWii NAND is completely gone), so it asks you to update your Wii U console.

Just give it some time to update... I hope this works in your case and fixes your Wii U

4. If it worked or not; and you still want to use CFW... Just go to the Health & Safety Information app on your Wii U menu and do the same in the step 2.2. It will redirect you to PayloadLoader Installer.

Check > Boot options > Switch to PayloadLoader

Now, restart your console.

(And just so you know, the vWii NAND will be unusable because the Decaffeinator will delete the whole vWii NAND, so you must go to the Wii U system settings and "updating" your console... (Because I don't know if you updated your console after you used Decaffeinator on your Wii U; as you need to update your console to restore your vWii and get it to work again)... No worries if you're already in the latest version! All it does here is to download the missing vWii NAND from Nintendo servers. Sure you may need to install Wuphax and cIOS to homebrew your vWii every time you do this...)

 

[Inkin6779]

Well... From what I have done, it is currently updating, (I had the same problem) I will come back with an update to see if it works as thought.

----------

Did everything, and it seems that the issue is still present.

Post automatically merged: Oct 19, 2023

I did a little looking around, and it seems to be something with the SLC files, more specifically the boot.bin. Or not... I have a separate Wii U with a working vWii, so I will see if I can find the problem. (With my luck, probably not)

 

[notChocoMilk]

wait.. you can brick a vWii??

 

[Inkin6779]

wait.. you can brick a vWii??

Apparently, I don't even know how it does, but it can be bricked.

 

[nvb]

I think there are two possible causes that keeps your vWii from working properly:

1. You're plugging 2 USB drives at the same time (one for Wii U games and the other one for Wii and GC games for USB Loader GX and Nintendont). Your system will automatically shut down by itself if it detects more than 1 USB connected. Disconnecting the hard drive for Wii U games or hiding the partition of your USB with your Wii and GC games with UStealth.

Or 2. Your vWii's NAND is corrupted and/or has missing/damaged files.

If you hacked your Wii U with Tiramisu CFW, maybe this video helps if you hacked your Wii U. Give it another try to the vWii Decaffeinator.



1. Go to your Homebrew Launcher and run vWii Decaffeinator.

2. If you want to keep the save data, select the Light Mode; otherwise, if you want to delete everything from the vWii NAND, then select the Aggressive mode. Then, it should appear a message asking you to press any button to update your console, and it will redirect you to the system settings.

2.1 If you're using Tiramisu while doing this, IT WON'T LET YOU UPDATE!
In that case, just restart your Wii U console, and while your Wii U is booting up showing the Wii U logo, hold down the X button on your GamePad until a blue screen appears, which is the Environment Loader, select the "installer" option and press A on it.

2.2 You will be redirected to the PayloadLoader Installer. In this menu, just press A on these options:
Check > Boot options > Switch back to Wii U Menu

After you've done this, your Wii U will shut down.

3. Now, turn it back on! It should redirect you to the system settings. The system may think that something's wrong (in this case, your vWii NAND is completely gone), so it asks you to update your Wii U console.

Just give it some time to update... I hope this works in your case and fixes your Wii U

4. If it worked or not; and you still want to use CFW... Just go to the Health & Safety Information app on your Wii U menu and do the same in the step 2.2. It will redirect you to PayloadLoader Installer.

Check > Boot options > Switch to PayloadLoader

Now, restart your console.

(And just so you know, the vWii NAND will be unusable because the Decaffeinator will delete the whole vWii NAND, so you must go to the Wii U system settings and "updating" your console... (Because I don't know if you updated your console after you used Decaffeinator on your Wii U; as you need to update your console to restore your vWii and get it to work again)... No worries if you're already in the latest version! All it does here is to download the missing vWii NAND from Nintendo servers. Sure you may need to install Wuphax and cIOS to homebrew your vWii every time you do this...)

i said that i already did decaffeinator, light and aggressive, multiple times... pls read my post thoroughly before replying. i also don't have anything plugged into my USB drives, why would i have stuff plugged in there for the entire multiple years that i've had this issue?

let me reiterate: when i got my wii u it was at factory settings. i didn't install any hacks of my own until well after finding out the vwii didn't work. it DID NOT WORK from the moment i got it, i didn't touch anything homebrew related to make it stop working because i literally couldn't have. i have NEVER had a working vwii on this console. there is a problem here that none of the existing solutions seem to account for...

sry if i sound rude here btw im just a little irritated bc everyone i see just says "use decaffeinator" when i've tried that so many times by now, and i've seen the same thing with others who have the same issue as me -- then when they say decaffeinator doesn't work everyone just stops replying because they don't know what to do... its frustrating

also sorry this reply was so late, i thought nobody even saw this post until i remembered it and went to check again

Post automatically merged: Feb 8, 2024

i will add though that i feel like i remember one of my USB ports not working properly when i got it? i never use the USB on my wii u so im not 100% sure if im remembering that properly, but if so i wonder if that could be confusing the vwii

in that case i guess it might be solvable via some hardware modding but idk how difficult that would be and who knows if itd even work...

i did see someone else having a similar issue to me say they also had a non working USB port... but then i feel like this problem would be a bit more common if that was all it was? maybe im wrong tho