Thanks a lot for the advice, although I'd rather use it as a last resort. My problem with it is that I'm not even sure Cubic Ninja or OoT would work at all, I bought the console just for the occasion, so I don't have any games to test if at least those are still running.
I also heard some games come with an update to 10.1, and prompt you to update before getting to the splash screen (where everything seems to get stuck). Do you think that would be another option?
cubic ninja would work 100%
ocarina of time... only if you have the correct save file for your version (you're partially 9.2, so you'll need to try that and if it doesn't work then the one that applies to your original firmware)
i don't have experience updating the console from a gamepak so I'll let someone else chime in on that, on the surface it seems like a viable option