Hacking Wii Softmodding to play .wads problems, er nightmare

[Shad0wman8008]

I'm half a noob apparently. I easily soft modded my wii with Letterbomb and Bootmii and also made a backup of the custom nand with bootmi, transfered that to my pc, off of the sdcard.
Basically I wanted to run all the .wad backups I have of virtual console games, lots of n64 games. so I figured out I neneded a usb loader and a .wad manager, great. The usb loader, gx version 3 all in one loader ran and said I needed some cios installed, looked everywhere to try and figure out how to install the cios and this is where I ran into trouble. I get net init failed if I try to download from the wii, thats not going to work obviously, tried the Nus Downloader and thats seems absurd, why can't I just download the files that I need instead of going through some obscure route to do it. I don't know how to use Nus downloader. Usb loader config doesnt work either.d2X cIOS installer won't run for me, gives me init net failed error, won't let me load the correct cios so I can inject wads or whatever the hell its called, loading, injecting. At this point it just doesnt even make sense to me why this doesn't work, why it seems so convoluted: cios intaller not having the cios to install, etc.

AS you can see I've now wasted a great portion of my Friday doing this and I have nothing to show for it. I was actually able to load Wii64 and run roms from my usb, but that inexplicably stopped working. So at a loss. Read too many tutorials, they all seemed pretty straighforward but many were missing links for the files, etc. Can anyone help this frustrated person out, would be awesome.

 

[Davidosky99]

Try using pimp my wii for hacking your iOS(249,250 and you may want to patch others). In pimp my wii go to minimal installation/hack my Wii or full diagnosis

 

[Cyan]

PimpMyWii will also do things online. (and a lot of users won't recommend using that tool, it can do lot of unneeded changes if misused!)
Don't use that tool if you can't get network access to work on your wii.
If you have a WiiU, or a 3DS, maybe you blocked and filtered access to nintendo servers? that's why you can't download files.


What you want is Modmii.
It's a PC Windows program which will download all you need from your computer and save the files as Wad files.
You can then install them with a WAD Manager to your console.
What you need is the custom IOS files for the slot 249 and 250 which are the only two files commonly installed for USBLoaders.


What you want to do can be done from different ways.
There are few things you need to know.

First :
USBLoaderGX 3.0 from the "all in one" package is old and not the latest version.
You can find the latest version in my signature : r1260
If you installed the channel version, follow this to replace it.

Second :
There are different ways to play channel games (wad files) on Emulated NAND.
the cIOS mode EmuNAND : Easiest mode. Most games will work (80%), but N64 game are known to have issues. you might want to use the other method for these games.
the Neek mode EmuNAND : maybe harder to setup and use. Almost 100% compatibility, and you do NOT need any cIOS installation ! (no need to use modmii, or cIOS installer, or anything which modify your console's system files)

third:
The current latest version or USBLoaderGX (r1260, NOT your version) can boot games using both mode : cIOS or Neek.
But the neek mode require some additional file installation on your SD card.
Modmii can generate the files you need on SD card for the neek mode.


So, What I suggest, seeing you want to play most games including N64 is :
1. use modmii and follow the "I want to softmod my wii", answer some questions and it will generate a guide specifically for your console state. it will download the files you need.
2. follow the guide to re-softmod your console and it will install the files needed for Wii gaming, and for "cIOS mode emuNAND". You probably won't use the cIOS if you don't want Wii games, but at least you will have the file if one day you need them!
3. use modmii to generate the neek files. Put them on SD card or USB (depends where you want to put your Emulated NAND to install games to : SD or USB).
4. use USBLoaderGX to make a copy of your NAND (system files) to SD or USB (you can change the path before launching the dump process)
5. use USBLoaderGX to install WAD files to the emulated NAND.
6. use USBLoaderGX to launch games (it can list and launch channels installed on Emulated NAND)


The steps are only big steps, if you want a detailed one let me know.

 

[petethepug]

Well you don't need a USB Loader to play your WAD's. You can install them using something like Multi Mod Manager.

I thought it might be worth mentioning since you kind of went overboard with using a USB Device. You only needed an SD Card, and a Wii with enough free space really.

Thought it was worth mentioning. But if you really wanted to you could play them VIA USBLoader if you really wanted to.

Edit: I realized you wanted them on your USB Device. My bad,

 

[Shad0wman8008]

Hey all, thanks for the replies, I will try some of these ideas later. Thanks for listening. ;-). I'll let ya know how it works out.

 

[Shad0wman8008]

If I have usbloader gx on my sd card and load it, does it mean its installed on my wii? do I need to uninstall it like you noted on https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-loader-gx.149922/page-1114#post-6478222?

 

[Shad0wman8008]

The steps are only big steps, if you want a detailed one let me know.

Yes please Cyan, you're a godsend hah

 

[Cyan]

Which part do you want a detailed step by step ?

About your question above :
having a homebrew on SD card doesn't mean it's "installed", it's only present on SD card. nothing is done to the console.
an "installed channel" to the console means that when you load the System menu (where you see the channels and the Disc channel to launch disc games), you see additional animated channel here.
that installed channel can be of either two different type :
- a channel with the homebrew inside : the full channel
- a channel without the homebrew inside : The forwarder channel, you need the homebrew on your SD card. the channel is only "forwarding" (loading another program) to your SD card.

If you have the "full channel" then you need to follow the guide you linked.
if you have the "forwarder channel" you don't need to follow the guide.
If you have a channel but don't know : eject the Sd and the USB, launch the channel. If USBLoaderGX launches then you have the full channel. if it returns to system menu, you have the forwarder.
If you don't have any "usbloaderGX channel" installed into your system menu, you can install the "forwarder channel"

 

[Shad0wman8008]

I only have the homebrew channel when I launch the Wii up with no cards installed. Also modmii seems to be hanging for me, and I'm unsure which biox I should check at the start, you said I want to softmod my wii and first one does say mod my Wii. Ugh, sorry for being such a noob, I thought I had a better handle on doing something like this but I've definitley had some trouble. Like I said before, I really just want to play the .wad files I have.

 

[Cyan]

I don't know what you are talking about.
you talk about a "box" to check ? which box ? where ? on the console ? on modmii ? (there's no box in modmii, only options to choose with letters and numbers)

"mod my wii" is probably what you want.

the term "soft" mod, means it's done using programs, using software.
the term "hard" mod, means it's done with soldering irons and chipset, and hardware electronic parts to add or plug into the console.

in all case, what you want is "mod" it.
using modmii will be a "soft"ware solution, no electronic or soldering involved.

 

[GreyWolf]

There is a GUI version of Modmii in the distribution but with limited features.

 

[Cyan]

ohhh
Never used it. my bad then.
Thanks for telling me, I forgot about it.

I guess he should use the non GUI version, so we could help him better as that's the version we know.

 

[Shad0wman8008]

So, I'm going to try what you recommended. I was wondering what the chance is of bricking when you are just loading these programs from an sd card? Do i need to uninstall the old usbloader gx if its just loading off of the sd card? So I can just try the new usbloader if thats what I need? I will start with the Modmii neek2o enunand at first with modmii and see of that works.

 

[Cyan]

loading from SD card = not touching the system at all.
launching from SD card = 0% chance of bricking.

If you want to update USBLoaderGX, you can try the internal update menu (settings>update>full). It might require 2 consecutive updates to get to the latest as google code closed last year. if the update still work it will download 1256, then do an update again to get the latest revision from sourceforge.
If the internal update doesn't work because of googlecode being closed, you can download the latest revision and replace the SD card files manually.
It will not brick.

 

[Shad0wman8008]

Theres nowhere in USBloader gx thats letting me make backup of my nand. I have usbloader gx on my sd card and i go to install a game and it says USB not initialized, I went with everything on sd card and din't have a usb drive in my wii. I have the latest version of usbloder gx i got from sourceforge.

 

[GreyWolf]

Theres nowhere in USBloader gx thats letting me make backup of my nand. I have usbloader gx on my sd card and i go to install a game and it says USB not initialized, I went with everything on sd card and din't have a usb drive in my wii. I have the latest version of usbloder gx i got from sourceforge.

It's in the setting menu under Features at the bottom of the list. Are you sure you're using r1260?

 

[Shad0wman8008]

I loaded my micro sd into the usb drive, top one, and it still won't use or install there, its reading from usb drive but most apps i launch don
t recognize theres a usb drive to install to. Multi Mod manager won;t let me, USB loader gx when I go to change setting to usb it says not supported Hermes not installed. sigh.



Ok yes, found it, dump nand to emunand, that took 2 seconds, went to emunand wad manager to load game from usb and i get error that it failed, both folder and file method. go to boot neek system menu and i get failed to find path. wow. it just seems this isnt meant to bii for mii

 

[GreyWolf]

You're still using an old version of USB Loader GX.

 

[Shad0wman8008]

My version on credits says Rev1260 IOS58 (Rev6176) with Cyans name on there too.

I'm trying everything that modmii sais to copy to sd card, I mean everything, so far, no luck, seems like theres something must be way off, or something simple I'm missing, don't know, already over on hour on it today and going to give it a rest till tomorrow, got a few more days before I just take back the wii. guess plopping down $40 for ocarina of time for n64 (AGAIN) won't be as frustrating as wasting over 10 hours on this.

my usb path is usb8
wiiflow keeps saying disk failed, I guess as in its wanting to install game from disc. Not what Im trying to do.
One would think that I would eventually stumble into the correct setup but no hahaha Whats Murphy's law for computers? Thats what I keep getting.

 

[GreyWolf]

Go get SysCheck and post the .csv contents in spoiler tags. (Use the one in that thread's OP)