Hacking Swapping DVD drives question

[sw3despills]

I have a PAL Wii and my sister has a NTSC-J Wii with a chip. Could I swap the DVD drives over and they'd work?

 

[noobwarrior7]

EDIT: misunderstood question, like an idiot, so disregard and look below.
as for my answer, I was saying, you can install starfall or do a region mod INSTEAD of switching drives,
BECAUSE the drives will function identical. your chipped drive should already be RF
to make your pal one RF, just install starfall

 

[Tichinde925]

Any DVD drive will work with any Wii 100%

You dont need to swap the system menu.

If you have a PAL Wii and you switch it with the DVD drive thats in an NTSC Wii, your PAL Wii will still only be able to play PAL games.

Each DVD drive is basically the same except for the chipset. The only thing that controls the region is the Wii itself, not the DVD drive.

 

[noobwarrior7]

ok, my last reply was less than clear, and Tichinde925 fogot something, so here Im gonna say it all right

you dont need to switch drives, there are other options (starfall for RF, backup-loaders for backups)

BUT to do so, THERE IS something you NEED TO KNOW:

(the unchipped one will work as normal when swapped.)

the CHIPPED one will be trying to force your PAL wii to load a "NTSC-J xy Optical Disc"
because that is what it forces every disc to read as.

so, two easy ways to fix this, but you must already have HBC running on your PAL wii:
-install starfall RegionFree and youll never even know the difference, but you'd still be running your chip on the wrong region
-boot your games throught the newest GeckoOS, you will notice the difference there though, obviously since sysmenu won't load them

BUT to REALLY fix, just use either of those two methods above, and...

Run the CORRECT REGION config/firmware disc for your modchip.
which I guess since you're installing the drive in a PAL system would be PAL region disc.
itll boot region free in GC mode with either method I described above, problem solved once you install


so to simplify....after you swap drives, you notice that no games will load
as long as you already have HBC installed, you can boot the newest geckoOS
and boot your new regions config/fw disc, and install the new firmware to your chip.

 

[sw3despills]

So with her drive (JAP with chip) I put it in my PAL Wii and run the PAL disc for the chip and it'll be sorted and on her JAP wii with PAL drive I install starfall?

 

[noobwarrior7]

no you got it backwards, this is a rare case where the chip complicates things

the PAL system, which will now have the chip,
will need to have some kind of region free enabled,
so that you can load the new config firmware disc (the one for the chip)
if you use starfall, you never REALLY have to change your chips region, but you will be running the wrong region, itll just still work.
with geckoOS, you obviously can use it to boot other region discs, but the system menu isnt modded by it, so no normal loading

its easiest just to boot up your new config disc on geckos, run the new firmware and be done with it.

the drives would be completely swappable if you had no chip, but the chip forces a region, to fool the sysmenu,
only before you do what Ive described above, itll be trying to fool it with the wrong region

your sysmenu will be going "I need a PAL disc playa"
and your drive will be listening to the chip and saying "Dude, these are all JAP discs, but I know you can do it bro."
and thats a massive FAIL.

so good luck

 

[Tichinde925]

If you switch both DVD drives, the Japanese Wii will still function as normal, except it wont be able to play backups unless you use the backup loader due to there not being a chip on the drive.

For the PAL Wii with with the swapped DVD drive with Chip, run the config disc over again.

Like stated above, before you can even be able to run the config disc, region free needs to be enabled.

Once region free is enabled, run the config disc. It should reset the region after configuring and placing an original PAL disc into the drive.