Hacking Want to delete an IOS? Read this first.

[madmikeuk]

Since a lot of people are bricking their Wii consoles by not knowing what damage uninstalling the wrong stuff, I thought I'd put this up here.

Q: What IOS should I delete in the case of a banner brick?
A:None. Banner bricks are the cause of badly made channels. If you have the Twilight Hack installed (on 3.3 or older), you can try SaveMiiFrii to boot up WAD Manager, or if you installed Starfall you can autoboot disks with Y on the GC controller if you have one. Else, you're in trouble.

Q: I'm removing Softmii/MiiWii/CIOSCORP. Do I remove the IOSes I installed?
A: Absolutely not. If you use MiiWii, the provided uninstaller should work. Else, find the original WADs for the IOSes (Google is your friend) and then install them with WAD Manager. It should be safe to uninstall Custom IOS, but if you have doubts about it, don't.

Q: Are there any cases I should remove an IOS in?
A: None that I can think of, unless you actually want to brick your Wii, in which case, have a party. If you can correct me, leave a reply here. Thanks.

Q: What happens if I remove an IOS by accident?
A: I honestly don't believe you can do it " by accident" (you can do it without knowing the consequences), but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

If you do remove an IOS:

You will be unable to run any software that runs on it. This means homebrew (run through any method, be it HBC, WAD or Twilight Hack), WiiWare, VC games, Disk games and backups.

Particular IOSes are very bad ideas to remove. For example:

-------------------------------

IOS: 30

What's Affected:
System Menu 3.2 & 3.3 U/E/J(/K?)
Homebrew Channel (on most systems running beta8 or later)

Result:
On System Menu, full brick (Unrecoverable)
On Affected Homebrew Channels, return to Wii Menu on Launch from menu, freeze on launch from Preloader

-------------------------------

IOS: 31

What's Affected:
Wii Shop Channel on 3.2 & 3.3 U/E/J(/K?)

Result:
Return to Menu on Launch

------------------------------

IOS: 50

What's Affected:
System Menu 3.4(U, E, J)

Result:
Full brick (UNRECOVERABLE)

-------------------------------

IOS: 51

What's Affected:
Wii Shop Channel on 3.4 (U, E, J)

Result:
Return to Menu on Launch

--------------------------------

IOS: 52

What's Affected:
System Menu 3.4K

Result:
Full brick (UNRECOVERABLE)

--------------------------------

IOS: 60

What's Affected:
System Menu 4.0U/E/J

Result:
Full brick (UNRECOVERABLE)

--------------------------

IOS: 61

What's Affected:
Wii Shop Channel on 4.0U/E/J

Result:
Return to Menu on Launch

-------------------------------

Note System Menu bricks marked UNRECOVERABLE aren't if you have knowledge of the NAND workings, your NAND key, and an Infectus, but I'm going to assume that isn't true if you're reading this

That's all I'm aware of right now, if anyone would like to add to this list, feel free to add something on here. Please make sure it's important though, and not just "Game (X) won't work if you remove IOS(Y)!"

I'll try to answer any IOS questions I'm asked, but I'm by no means an expert.

Thanks to SanGor for reminding me that Preloader relies on the System Menu IOS. Can't believe I forgot that

 

[TroyTheZombie]

good job.

I'm surprised so many people delete random stuff without researching first.

Apparently they don't care about throwing away $200?

 

[SanGor]

preloader uses the same IOS as the system menu, so it's NOT recoverable with preloader!!!!!

edit:
homebrew selects an IOS on startup but nothing higher than IOS36.
The HBC mostly runs on IOS36 but depending on what IOSs you got when you installed the HBC it might be a different one.
When you press Home in the HBC menu it IOS version it uses is displayed at the top.

 

[madmikeuk]

preloader uses the same IOS as the system menu, so it's NOT recoverable with preloader!!!!!

Thanks for reminding me. The post has been updated.

 

[WiiPower]

I would stress that IOS30,IOS50 and IOS60(maybe all IOSx0) are very important IOS and deleting them instantly results in a brick if it's the one the system menu uses. Everybody should think twice(or more often) what to do exactly when it comes to these IOS, and deleting them is ALWAYS one of the most stupd things you can do.

Q: Are there any cases I should remove an IOS in?
A: None that I can think of, unless you actually want to brick your Wii, in which case, have a party. If you can correct me, leave a reply here. Thanks.

If you only use WAD Manager to install cIOS files, but it doesn't work because you managed somehow to get your IOS249 corrupted. Then you would need to delete IOS249 manually to get the WAD Manager working again. But as you see that's a very constructed example.


*Edit: wrong quote

 

[madmikeuk]

Q: Are there any cases I should remove an IOS in?
A: None that I can think of, unless you actually want to brick your Wii, in which case, have a party. If you can correct me, leave a reply here. Thanks.

If you only use WAD Manager to install cIOS files, but it doesn't work because you managed somehow to get your IOS249 corrupted. Then you would need to delete IOS249 manually to get the WAD Manager working again. But as you see that's a very constructed example.


Good point, but I think that's more of a general cIOS thing. I might link that in the post as a sort of general exception.

QUOTE(SanGor @ Apr 15 2009, 09:01 PM)

homebrew selects an IOS on startup but nothing higher than IOS36.
The HBC mostly runs on IOS36 but depending on what IOSs you got when you installed the HBC it might be a different one.
When you press Home in the HBC menu it IOS version it uses is displayed at the top.

I thought the Homebrew Channel configured it on install, hence it says "I'll Configure the Homebrew Channel to use IOS(X)." And I've only seen it run from IOS30, but it would go with whatever IOS is displayed when HOME is pressed in the HBC.

 

[Det1re]

IOS36 is important for 3.2/3.3 as well...

 

[madmikeuk]

IOS36 is important for 3.2/3.3 as well...

Can you expand on this? I don't recall if/why it is.

 

[BlackEnigma]

Umm guys, I deleted IOS60 because I wanted to see what would happen and I didn't believe you guys were telling the truth about brix and stuff. Anyway when I turn on my Wii its just a black screen. What should I do? Please tell me how to recover from an unrecoverable brix...
Just kidding. I am so grateful whenever I turn on my Wii and I see the wonderful wonderful system menu.

 

[piratesmack]

preloader uses the same IOS as the system menu, so it's NOT recoverable with preloader!!!!!

My IOS60 (System Menu 4.0's IOS) got corrupted and preloader 0.29 still worked.
I was able to recover fine.

 

[Det1re]

IOS36 is important for 3.2/3.3 as well...

Can you expand on this? I don't recall if/why it is.

If I remember correctly, that's what makes up the front end of system menu 3.2 (and 3.3...[?]).
Most games also ran on this IOS. It's comparable with IOS60 on a 4.0 system... well if you combine IOS30 and 36.

 

[madmikeuk]

IOS36 is important for 3.2/3.3 as well...

Can you expand on this? I don't recall if/why it is.

If I remember correctly, that's what makes up the front end of system menu 3.2 (and 3.3...[?]).
Most games also ran on this IOS. It's comparable with IOS60 on a 4.0 system... well if you combine IOS30 and 36.

The disk game part is correct. But 3.2/3.3 only rely on IOS30.

 

[batwings21]

@ piratesmack Corrupted is not the same as gone. You luckily had enough functionality to boot preloader. Gone is gone, send to nintendo and bend over.

 

[Det1re]

The disk game part is correct. But 3.2/3.3 only rely on IOS30.

Oh. OK.

 

[batwings21]

IOS: 30

What's Affected:
System Menu 3.2 & 3.3 U/E/J(/K?)
Homebrew Channel (on most systems running beta8 or later)

Result:
On System Menu, full brick (recoverable with SaveMiiFrii + Twilight hack)

I believe this is incorrect, on any version of system menu, if the ios it runs on is deleted, you have a full brick. Unrecoverable unless you have a way to program your nand.

 

[piratesmack]

send to nintendo and bend over.

lol

 

[snikerz]

Umm guys, I deleted IOS60 because I wanted to see what would happen and I didn't believe you guys were telling the truth about brix and stuff. Anyway when I turn on my Wii its just a black screen. What should I do? Please tell me how to recover from an unrecoverable brix...
Just kidding. I am so grateful whenever I turn on my Wii and I see the wonderful wonderful system menu.

nice troll attempt

 

[steve-p]

question,

if running 3.2/ios30 and newer games wont run without an update,
would installing ios40,50&60 be likely to sort this?
it shouldnt have any negative effect because the sysmenu is still gonna use ios30.

 

[steve-p]

question,

if running 3.2/ios30 and newer games wont run without an update,
would installing ios40,50&60 be likely to sort this?
it shouldnt have any negative effect because the sysmenu is still gonna use ios30.

 

[noobwarrior7]

Clarification:

SM 1.0 used IOS9
SM 2.0(/2.1) used IOS11
SM 2.2 used IOS20
SM 3.0-3.3 uses IOS30 (3.3K used IOS40)
SM 3.4 used IOS50
SM 3.5K uses IOS52
SM 4.0 uses IOS60

Other basically CRITICAL IOS include: IOS4 (for ninty-installed updating), IOS35 (for most homebrew)
You also never want to uninstall the system menu, thats important to mention in the same breath.
Also, if you don't have IOS37 installed, various USB device will not work, and you will get a ton of "Wii Restart" instances.

so to recap, these could/should be very important to you:
IOS's: 4, 9, 11, 20, 30, 35, 37, 40, 50, 52, 60, SysMenu

other commonly used IOS's, used by numerous games and channels are: 21, 31, 33, 36, 51, 61
Also, without IOS38, you cannot use WiiSpeak in-game.

basically, the LEAST-used, safest to delete IOS, are those that would end in "teen" when you speak them.
'cause teens are just not important, no newsflash there. X-D

Other things that are A-OK to delete,
IOS's: 10 and 16 (rarely used) 53/55 (only serve error 002)
cIOS's: 5 (oldest cIOS) 247 (random cIOS used for older patched launcher) 202 (non-DIP USB2.0 cIOS) 254 in some cases (If you updated since it became a big deal, it means you just have a clone of IOS9 there)

end of that note.

_~_~_~_~_

if you think/thought you had a corrupt IOS60, and preloader runs on your 4.0 system, its not IOS60 that is corrupt, it is preloader, and not really "Corrupt", thats just the error message it gives, it actually just needs "re-calibrated" so to speak.