Gaming Got a free wii from a church, cant access wii settings

[frustratedFerry]

Hi I just got this wii from a church. Don't know if it's modded, I don't know how to TELL if it is modded. I have no access to online because I have no access to the wii settings. Trying to enter wii settings gives me the message "System files are corrupted, see wii manual for troubleshooting" I've searched far and wide but im not seeing any way to factory reset the console without this menu.

If I have to do some modding or something I'll try but I dont have any device that can write to an SD card. Neither does anyone I know...

What do I do?

 

[blackb0x]

Hold the reset button on your Wii and then press the power button. Does it load Priiloader?

You could buy a USB 3.0 SDXC card reader from eBay for less than $4. Then you might be able to use Bannerbomb to install the homebrew channel and BootMii, which will allow you to backup the NAND and use homebrew to fix the Wii.

https://sites.google.com/site/completesg/hacking-guide/bannerbomb
https://sites.google.com/site/wiisixtyfour/wiihomebrewguide/bannerbomb

If you can't access the data management screen then you could use Bluebomb. You'll need a PC that's got bluetooth and can run Linux though.

https://wii.guide/bluebomb.html

 

[bonkmaykr]

I highly doubt it's modded considering it's coming from a church, and people religious enough to be church employees typically from my experience aren't the most tech savvy nor interested in homebrew. An unstable assumption, but a likely one. How the system files got corrupted, not sure, might have been NAND wear etc.

If it's unmodded, I'm pretty sure the only way around that is hardware modifications. Sorry.

I suppose I'm lucky, my 11-year-old Wii only has *one* bad block on it, when most people have about 3 to 5. So my NAND is super healthy. The chance of my Wii getting corrupted due to bad sectors is pretty slim. I can't say the same for all of them.

 

[blackb0x]

I highly doubt it's modded considering it's coming from a church, and people religious enough to be church employees typically from my experience aren't the most tech savvy nor interested in homebrew. An unstable assumption, but a likely one. How the system files got corrupted, not sure, might have been NAND wear etc.

My thinking is that the church might of received the Wii as a donation after someone partially bricked it. But you're right, it could also be caused by 14 years of NAND wear.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hi I just got this wii from a church. Don't know if it's modded, I don't know how to TELL if it is modded. I have no access to online because I have no access to the wii settings. Trying to enter wii settings gives me the message "System files are corrupted, see wii manual for troubleshooting" I've searched far and wide but im not seeing any way to factory reset the console without this menu.

If I have to do some modding or something I'll try but I dont have any device that can write to an SD card. Neither does anyone I know...

What do I do?

https://savemii.net/troubleshooting.html
Branch B
SaveMiiFrii is a free alternative to the SaveMii dongle if you have a GC controller.
However if the Wii has Priiloader or Bootmii as boot2 repair is easier.
To check for Priiloader: Hold reset on boot.
To check for BootMii: Disc drive light flashes twice on boot without SD card in

 

[qqq1]

Years ago I did a trick on my friends Wii he had messed up to the point that it didn't boot. I used a GC controller which I had to mod the D pad so you could push down in the middle to click all 4 directions at once. There was a cone behind it on the inside preventing this, just cut the end off the cone. We then rented the latest Wii game we saw hoping it would have the highest Wii update built into it. Then it was as simple as holding down the D pad and inserting the game. It made the Wii auto install the latest software from the disc and everything was good. I don't know if this only worked with a newer update or if it will work with reloading the same version. He probably would have had the latest update at the time. Maybe the issue was finding a game that didn't have an older update.

 

[bonkmaykr]

https://savemii.net/troubleshooting.html
Branch B
SaveMiiFrii is a free alternative to the SaveMii dongle if you have a GC controller.
However if the Wii has Priiloader or Bootmii as boot2 repair is easier.
To check for Priiloader: Hold reset on boot.
To check for BootMii: Disc drive light flashes twice on boot without SD card in

Only problem, doing research on this it appears to only be for booting discs, in the event discs are unreadable. It's a gateway to another existing recovery method, which is to install a system update from a Wii Disc.

In the event that:
A. You cannot find a disc with a newer system version included or
B. You're running 4.4 which is the latest version to ever release (since the Wii was last updated nearly 6 or 7 years ago)
then you're out of luck unless you plan on using hardware mods.

A disc drive modchip could help assist in running a non legitimate update disc. If hardware modification is OP's only option, this might be the way to go.

 

[SkyPeppers]

Honestly just buy a new SD card for like $5 at walmart

 

[bonkmaykr]

Honestly just buy a new SD card for like $5 at walmart

Have you been listening at all? He can't hack it. Letterbomb does not work without knowing the MAC address of the Wii console, and that can only be found via the Settings menu which is currently corrupted.

 

[SkyPeppers]

Unless I'm mistaken (which I probably am) the settings are saved in the SD card, so getting a new SD could allow access, it will just delete all your progress

 

[CMDreamer]

I highly doubt it's modded considering it's coming from a church, and people religious enough to be church employees typically from my experience aren't the most tech savvy nor interested in homebrew. An unstable assumption, but a likely one. How the system files got corrupted, not sure, might have been NAND wear etc.

You assumptions are wrong. Religious people (directly related to the church, i.e. not the congregation) are not the ignorant people they were in Middle Ages. They pretend to be, but it's only to have people's condescension. But anyway, I got this off-topic, sorry.

Making a corrupted NAND backup will not be of any use. First you should try recovering the Wii's functionality, but sadly it's directly tied to NAND's health.

May a Recovery DVD (I think that's how they're called) be of any use?

 

[WiiExpertise]

Only problem, doing research on this it appears to only be for booting discs, in the event discs are unreadable. It's a gateway to another existing recovery method, which is to install a system update from a Wii Disc.

In the event that:
A. You cannot find a disc with a newer system version included or
B. You're running 4.4 which is the latest version to ever release (since the Wii was last updated nearly 6 or 7 years ago)
then you're out of luck unless you plan on using hardware mods.

A disc drive modchip could help assist in running a non legitimate update disc. If hardware modification is OP's only option, this might be the way to go.

There is no 4.4 version.

 

[bonkmaykr]

There is no 4.4 version.

4.3* I made a typo

Unless I'm mistaken (which I probably am) the settings are saved in the SD card, so getting a new SD could allow access, it will just delete all your progress

...Absolutely not. I don't know where you got this information from, but this makes no sense whatsoever. The Wii didn't even ship with an SD card included, it was a purely optional separate purchase. There would have been nowhere to keep the settings.

I also highly doubt Nintendo would do anything like that to begin with, there's no practical reason to.

You assumptions are wrong. Religious people (directly related to the church, i.e. not the congregation) are not the ignorant people they were in Middle Ages. They pretend to be, but it's only to have people's condescension. But anyway, I got this off-topic, sorry.

Making a corrupted NAND backup will not be of any use. First you should try recovering the Wii's functionality, but sadly it's directly tied to NAND's health.

May a Recovery DVD (I think that's how they're called) be of any use?

Rephrased, I suppose what I meant to say was the specific age demographic that frequently works there. Not specifically the fact that they are in church to begin with. The majority of old folk don't really like or share an interest in console modding. It's a correlation but not a causation.
zippia.com: "Interestingly enough, the average age of church workers is 40+ years old, which represents 71% of the population."

Back on topic: the NAND is probably worn out, rather than the Wii having been softbricked via modding. My explanation above was what led me to this conclusion. The Wii is over a decade old, after all. What you said is probably very true--if this is the case, restoring a backup probably is not enough (unless you can skip over those bad blocks and there's enough usable space left). Thanks for pointing that out, it was probably something we should've considered sooner. That does bring me back to my earlier concern though, that if the Wii is fully updated, then there might not be any from-disc recovery options unless OP hardmods the console.

 

[CMDreamer]

[...]
Rephrased, I suppose what I meant to say was the specific age demographic that frequently works there. Not specifically the fact that they are in church to begin with. The majority of old folk don't really like or share an interest in console modding. It's a correlation but not a causation.
zippia.com: "Interestingly enough, the average age of church workers is 40+ years old, which represents 71% of the population."

No worries.

Back on topic: the NAND is probably worn out, rather than the Wii having been softbricked via modding. My explanation above was what led me to this conclusion. The Wii is over a decade old, after all. What you said is probably very true--if this is the case, restoring a backup probably is not enough (unless you can skip over those bad blocks and there's enough usable space left). Thanks for pointing that out, it was probably something we should've considered sooner. That does bring me back to my earlier concern though, that if the Wii is fully updated, then there might not be any from-disc recovery options unless OP hardmods the console.

Actually, a hardmod might help to make a NAND backup and check if the Wii is modded (i.e. hacked), also a backup of specific files (encryption related) might help too.

Can't remember if its possible to "create" a NAND using another Wii NAND's backup as a source by modifying it and "adjusting" it for another Wii using its own encryption files, can someone shed some light on this?

 

[bonkmaykr]

No worries.



Actually, a hardmod might help to make a NAND backup and check if the Wii is modded (i.e. hacked), also a backup of specific files (encryption related) might help too.

Can't remember if its possible to "create" a NAND using another Wii NAND's backup as a source by modifying it and "adjusting" it for another Wii using its own encryption files, can someone shed some light on this?

The filesystem is documented on Wiibrew, and the tools to read a dumped NAND exist. It's entirely possible, but I personally wouldn't know how. It might take some experimentation. All that needs to be done is to just copy the intact contents to a fresh NAND and then do the repairs from there, by replacing the corrupted settings file.

 

[CMDreamer]

The filesystem is documented on Wiibrew, and the tools to read a dumped NAND exist. It's entirely possible, but I personally wouldn't know how. It might take some experimentation. All that needs to be done is to just copy the intact contents to a fresh NAND and then do the repairs from there, by replacing the corrupted settings file.

FSToolBox requires to be loaded from HBC, also:

Using FS Toolbox without proper brick protection(BootMii as boot2 + nand backup) is suicide

What's needed is a PC tool to safely (while keeping the file attributes correctly) read/write a NAND backup to "repair it" and be able to upload it to the Wii afterwards (using a hardmod). The latter is possible already.

 

[XFlak]

If u have a copy of super smash bros brawl, you can run the smash stack exploit to launch homebrew. Once you're able to launch homebrew, we can reinstall the system menu, priiloader, etc. and fix this right up.

Also, do you see the homebrew channel or any forwarder channels already installed to the system menu? If so, you can launch homebrew even without smash stack

Edit: do you see the SD card menu on the bottom left of the system menu? If so, we could also try bannerbomb v2 to launch homebrew, which should work IF the console is on 4.2. But if it's on 4.3 then BBv2 won't work.

 

[N7Kopper]

If u have a copy of super smash bros brawl, you can run the smash stack exploit to launch homebrew. Once you're able to launch homebrew, we can reinstall the system menu, priiloader, etc. and fix this right up.

Also, do you see the homebrew channel or any forwarder channels already installed to the system menu? If so, you can launch homebrew even without smash stack

Edit: do you see the SD card menu on the bottom left of the system menu? If so, we could also try bannerbomb v2 to launch homebrew, which should work IF the console is on 4.2. But if it's on 4.3 then BBv2 won't work.

Assuming the IOS used by any given 'sploit game isn't corrupted, this could be your best bet.

If the Wii was unpowered for a very long time, that might have caused some of the blocks of NAND to discharge, too. Apparently, that can happen.

 

[XFlak]

Oh! I forgot about bluebomb! It's more difficult to set up, but this should have a very high chance of success!

 

[bonkmaykr]

If u have a copy of super smash bros brawl, you can run the smash stack exploit to launch homebrew. Once you're able to launch homebrew, we can reinstall the system menu, priiloader, etc. and fix this right up.

Also, do you see the homebrew channel or any forwarder channels already installed to the system menu? If so, you can launch homebrew even without smash stack

Edit: do you see the SD card menu on the bottom left of the system menu? If so, we could also try bannerbomb v2 to launch homebrew, which should work IF the console is on 4.2. But if it's on 4.3 then BBv2 won't work.

Thank you for the idea! I completely forgot about game exploits, I'm so used to using letterbomb nowadays lol