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GAF Wii Homebrew thread: Homebrew, emulators, USB disc installs! Easy tutorial!

SS4Rob said:
So I picked up Punch-Out!! and it wants me to perform a System Update... not sure how I feel aboot that. I'm currently 4.0 - here are the details of my setup:

1.) Started at 3.2U with HBC 1.0.1
2.) Installed cIOS rev 10, then updated to 4.0 via Nintendo
3.) Used IOS Downgrader to redo the trucha bug, then installed Ultimate USB Loader 7.4
4.) Began the dance of ripping and rejoicing

Any ideas on what this system update actually is? I'm already 4.0, what is Punch-Out!! trying to do to my Wii? Should I re-run the IOS Downgrader? Will I even BE ABLE to re-run anymore IOS modifiers after doing whatever Punch-Out!! wants to do?

Oh, it seems to work just fine via Ultimate USB Loader 7.4... so I may play it a while this way until I figure out what the actual disc is wanting to do... I wanna play it for real at least an hour so I can vote on it in the Nintendo Channel :-D
Click to expand...

Most updates on discs are just IOS updates, not version updates. They should mostly be safe and you will likely hear about any potential problems before you get round to putting the disc in your system. If you are being asked to update after you know you already have the latest version of the firmware, you can pretty much guarantee it's just a new IOS.
 
So here's my problem, something happened that fucked up my homebrew channel. Now nothing shows up in the HBC menu even though it's all on the memory stick. I need to erase the channel and put it back on, but I'm on 4.0u and am not sure I can even put it back on the wii. I could use some help because I just got my hard drive and just got done installing my games on it and I can't even use it now. :(
 
Just for informations sake, I extracted my rip to my PC and used Dolphin to show the update partition file contents. Lots of stuff:
vnp842.jpg

I just played for over 2 hours - would have loved if it had counted on the Wii board :-/

Edit: Is there a way to determine exactly what IOSes you have installed?
 
Mejilan said:
I hear that Crediar is working on getting GCN games working without shutting down Wii functionality. He's calling it "Freedom" or something, according to the little I've read about it.
Click to expand...
That's probably one of my biggest complaints with the Wii system. Hopefully it comes out soon and rocks our world.
 
SS4Rob said:
Just for informations sake, I extracted my rip to my PC and used Dolphin to show the update partition file contents. Lots of stuff:
http://i44.tinypic.com/vnp842.jpg
I just played for over 2 hours - would have loved if it had counted on the Wii board :-/

Edit: Is there a way to determine exactly what IOSes you have installed?
Click to expand...
Lots of stuff, but as long as you have cIOS36 rev 10 (which is IOS249) and HBC installed, it shouldn't affect anything. To check what you have on your Wii already, try Title Lister, or run the hackmii installer for BootMii and check the log file it creates.

Synless said:
So here's my problem, something happened that fucked up my homebrew channel. Now nothing shows up in the HBC menu even though it's all on the memory stick. I need to erase the channel and put it back on, but I'm on 4.0u and am not sure I can even put it back on the wii. I could use some help because I just got my hard drive and just got done installing my games on it and I can't even use it now. :(
Click to expand...
What did you actually do to the HBC? Is it an SD or SDHC card?
 
Clipper said:
Lots of stuff, but as long as you have cIOS36 rev 10 (which is IOS249) and HBC installed, it shouldn't affect anything. To check what you have on your Wii already, try Title Lister, or run the hackmii installer for BootMii and check the log file it creates.


What did you actually do to the HBC? Is it an SD or SDHC card?
Click to expand...
The Homebrew channel loads up but now it won't recognize anything on my memory stick. The wii itself recognizes everything because I can still load my VC games off it, but the HBC will not. What happened was I was updating my SNES emulator and it froze and when I restarted it nothing was showing up.
 
Synless said:
The Homebrew channel loads up but now it won't recognize anything on my memory stick. The wii itself recognizes everything because I can still load my VC games off it, but the HBC will not. What happened was I was updating my SNES emulator and it froze and when I restarted it nothing was showing up.
Click to expand...
Have you tried removing the SNES emulator app from the card and leaving the rest? It's possible that it is corrupted and stopping the other apps from being loaded.
 
gotta ask:

can softmod or wiichip remove a console's region lock? I've been looking at getting a wii again but reading about PAL games gimpiness... :S
 
Clipper said:
Have you tried removing the SNES emulator app from the card and leaving the rest? It's possible that it is corrupted and stopping the other apps from being loaded.
Click to expand...
As I was reading this I was erasing everything and redoing everything on the memory stick. I got it working now. Everything is showing back up now that I put it back on. Thanks for the help!
 
Jax said:
gotta ask:

can softmod or wiichip remove a console's region lock? I've been looking at getting a wii again but reading about PAL games gimpiness... :S
Click to expand...
Yes and yes. It is the the only reason why I installed the HBC in the first place (although now I have USB Loader too, which also supports imports). Not every game works, but almost all of them do.
 
Clipper said:
Yes and yes. It is the the only reason why I installed the HBC in the first place (although now I have USB Loader too, which also supports imports). Not every game works, but almost all of them do.
Click to expand...

:D this is good new. thanks!
 
Melhisedek said:
What USB Loader are you guys using?
Click to expand...
I am using the Ultimate USB Loader based on 1.1 to rip, and the one based on 1.4 to load. As with 40 percent of your rectum, that' all you need!

FUTURAMA
 
Okay, so I'm getting my USB external HDD back from my sister today and I wanna set up USB loader. I found this tutorial, but I wanna run it by my friendly neighborhood gaffers to make sure this is a legit tutorial before I start doing brain surgery on my Wii.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/761233

Will this do the trick? What's this I'm hearing about using one version to rip and another version to load? Ehh?
 
HUELEN10 said:
I am using the Ultimate USB Loader based on 1.1 to rip, and the one based on 1.4 to load. As with 40 percent of your rectum, that' all you need!

FUTURAMA
Click to expand...
don't you worry about your rectum, let me worry about blank.
 
how do i tell if i have cIOS 36 v10 installed? i'm pretty sure that i do, but i'm not positive...i think i needed to install it to get homebrew on a firmware 4.0 system, right?

edit: i decided to just go ahead and do this step (again?) because apparently no harm will come if you've already installed it and you do it again. I had an error when installing CIOS7.wad, but I'm not really sure if this is a good or a bad sign. i'm moving on to the next step anyways...
 
Alright I'm getting very frustrated.

For a long time now, my Wii has had trouble reading discs as soon as you insert one into the Wii. Has been like that shortly after I got it during the launch period of the system. It bothered me for a while but I got around it by continually rebooting the system, usually resulting in the game being recognized.

However, since I updated my system after I bought Punch-Out (that IOS update, not the 4.0 firmware), it hasn't really been working AT ALL. I haven't been able to play Punch-Out since yesterday morning. So I'm thinking about sending it to Nintendo for repairs.

My question is: Do you think this might be caused by HBC or anything I have on it, by chance? Also, if I send in my Wii, what precautions do I have to take to makre sure Nintendo doesn't stumble upon HBC, Bootmii, etc?
 
Okay, I followed all the steps in that guide, but I'm having a problem. When I launch the USB Loader, it asks for me to plug in a USB device, and I do. Then it freezes. My Wii remote can't sync to the Wii at any time while this app is open.

Did I do something wrong?

edit: scratch that, i guess it's not frozen, but the countdown is moving very slowly now. like 1 second per 30 seconds. and it still isn't doing anything with the USB drive, so far as i can tell. when i unplug or turn off the drive, the countdown continues moving normally. this is a bit strange.

should i try a different usb loader app? possibly my external HDD isn't supported? ehh?
 
autobzooty said:
Okay, I followed all the steps in that guide, but I'm having a problem. When I launch the USB Loader, it asks for me to plug in a USB device, and I do. Then it freezes. My Wii remote can't sync to the Wii at any time while this app is open.

Did I do something wrong?

edit: scratch that, i guess it's not frozen, but the countdown is moving very slowly now. like 1 second per 30 seconds. and it still isn't doing anything with the USB drive, so far as i can tell. when i unplug or turn off the drive, the countdown continues moving normally. this is a bit strange.

should i try a different usb loader app? possibly my external HDD isn't supported? ehh?
Click to expand...

Do you have any other devices plugged into the other USB slot (Wii Speak, LAN adapter, etc.)? If so remove them.

If that doesn't work, try plugging the drive into the other port of the Wii.

Try having the drive plugged in from the start, too.

Aadil said:
Is there anyway to install the WAD installer without the twilight hack?
Click to expand...
Use BannerBomb to install the HBC using the BootMii installer.
 
BrandNew said:
Alright I'm getting very frustrated.

For a long time now, my Wii has had trouble reading discs as soon as you insert one into the Wii. Has been like that shortly after I got it during the launch period of the system. It bothered me for a while but I got around it by continually rebooting the system, usually resulting in the game being recognized.

However, since I updated my system after I bought Punch-Out (that IOS update, not the 4.0 firmware), it hasn't really been working AT ALL. I haven't been able to play Punch-Out since yesterday morning. So I'm thinking about sending it to Nintendo for repairs.

My question is: Do you think this might be caused by HBC or anything I have on it, by chance? Also, if I send in my Wii, what precautions do I have to take to makre sure Nintendo doesn't stumble upon HBC, Bootmii, etc?
Click to expand...

Sounds like the drive has gone. This happened to someone I know.

If I were sending a Wii in, I'd probably take everything off. Or at least hide things. They aren't gonna delve into your NAND to see what kind of naughty business you've been upto, and I don't know what they'd do with such knowledge anyway - but its better to be safe than sorry isn't it.

You can't take BootMii off (as far as I know) but you can stop it from loading by removing the appropriate files on your SD card, or setting the bootmii.ini to autoboot the menu. You could actually use BootMii to back up the NAND and format the system potentially (but I wouldn't go that far). As long as you've got the CIOS to allow reinstallation of HBC, just take it off. Hopefully they'll just replace the drive and send it back.

What'll suck is if they send you a virgin, harder-to-hack Wii.
 
Clipper said:
Do you have any other devices plugged into the other USB slot (Wii Speak, LAN adapter, etc.)? If so remove them.

If that doesn't work, try plugging the drive into the other port of the Wii.

Try having the drive plugged in from the start, too.
Click to expand...

No dice, I'm afraid.

The drive is formatted for Mac (Windows cannot interact with it) and I think this might be part of the problem. I was going to try formatting it back to fat32, but unfortunately I don't have a Mac anymore and I'm not sure this is possible on Windows. Also it could just be that this HDD is very old and not compatible with these new-fangled hacks. I'm half tempted to just go buy an 80 gig USB drive since they're so cheap.

However, the fact that I can't use the Wii Remote on Ultimate USB Loader makes me think that maybe I installed something incorrectly. I had some problems when I ran CMDVDX34, but the tutorial assured me that if it froze up at any time to just try again and if it still didn't work to just move on. The cIOS36 installer (which downloaded and installed stuff off the net) ran without a hitch, so I must have done it all properly. I don't know where I could have gone wrong...are there any USB loaders besides Ultimate USB Loader? I might have better luck simply by using another app.
 
autobzooty said:
No dice, I'm afraid.

The drive is formatted for Mac (Windows cannot interact with it) and I think this might be part of the problem. I was going to try formatting it back to fat32, but unfortunately I don't have a Mac anymore and I'm not sure this is possible on Windows. Also it could just be that this HDD is very old and not compatible with these new-fangled hacks. I'm half tempted to just go buy an 80 gig USB drive since they're so cheap.
Click to expand...
OK, the formatting is likely the problem. Use a GParted Live CD or other partitioning app (even a Windows OS boot disc should work) to reformat the drive as either unformatted or FAT32. WBFS manager might also allow you to format straight to WBFS if it can recognise the drive (not sure if it would).

However, the fact that I can't use the Wii Remote on Ultimate USB Loader makes me think that maybe I installed something incorrectly. I had some problems when I ran CMDVDX34, but the tutorial assured me that if it froze up at any time to just try again and if it still didn't work to just move on. The cIOS36 installer (which downloaded and installed stuff off the net) ran without a hitch, so I must have done it all properly. I don't know where I could have gone wrong...are there any USB loaders besides Ultimate USB Loader? I might have better luck simply by using another app.
Click to expand...
Your installation sounds fine. There are plenty of USB Loaders. A list that compares most of the good ones can be found here. I (and Mejilan from his posts) prefer Configurable USB Loader as it is pretty much the easiest to use and is fully featured. Coverflow also seems quite popular if you prefer the pretties, although I haven't tried it yet.

Edit: Oh, I meant to ask... what do you mean the Wii Remote doesn't work? Do you mean pointing? Ultimate doesn't support IR Wiimote control, only the buttons.
 
Clipper said:
OK, the formatting is likely the problem. Use a GParted Live CD or other partitioning app (even a Windows OS boot disc should work) to reformat the drive as either unformatted or FAT32. WBFS manager might also allow you to format straight to WBFS if it can recognise the drive (not sure if it would).


Your installation sounds fine. There are plenty of USB Loaders. A list that compares most of the good ones can be found here. I (and Mejilan from his posts) prefer Configurable USB Loader as it is pretty much the easiest to use and is fully featured. Coverflow also seems quite popular if you prefer the pretties, although I haven't tried it yet.

Edit: Oh, I meant to ask... what do you mean the Wii Remote doesn't work? Do you mean pointing? Ultimate doesn't support IR Wiimote control, only the buttons.
Click to expand...

Bah, I managed to format it to FAT32, and it's doing the same thing.

And when I say my Wiimote wont work, I mean when I launch this app, the thing desyncs from the Wii and wont resync if i press the buttons. I'll try the "Configurable USB Loader" off that link you gave me...see if it works.
 
I plan on doing this when I get home (assuming I don't have the incompatible serial number), but have one odd question.

Why does the stumps tutorial say to mute your speakers?
 
Okay, I got the Configurable USB Loader to at least work with the Wii remote, but it times out when attempting to mount my HDD. Any ideas? Maybe if I use that program to format it with my PC, I can use the USB loader after that? Does configurable USB Loader format your HDD for you?




Amon37 said:
I plan on doing this when I get home (assuming I don't have the incompatible serial number), but have one odd question.

Why does the stumps tutorial say to mute your speakers?
Click to expand...

It plays loud god awful rock music.
 
autobzooty said:
Okay, I got the Configurable USB Loader to at least work with the Wii remote, but it times out when attempting to mount my HDD. Any ideas? Maybe if I use that program to format it with my PC, I can use the USB loader after that? Does configurable USB Loader format your HDD for you?
Click to expand...
All the USB Loaders support formatting, although some work a little better than others. Some drives seem that they must be formatted with a WBFS manager, so that is probably a good option to try next.
 
radioheadrule83 said:
Sounds like the drive has gone. This happened to someone I know.

If I were sending a Wii in, I'd probably take everything off. Or at least hide things. They aren't gonna delve into your NAND to see what kind of naughty business you've been upto, and I don't know what they'd do with such knowledge anyway - but its better to be safe than sorry isn't it.

You can't take BootMii off (as far as I know) but you can stop it from loading by removing the appropriate files on your SD card, or setting the bootmii.ini to autoboot the menu. You could actually use BootMii to back up the NAND and format the system potentially (but I wouldn't go that far). As long as you've got the CIOS to allow reinstallation of HBC, just take it off. Hopefully they'll just replace the drive and send it back.

What'll suck is if they send you a virgin, harder-to-hack Wii.
Click to expand...

So just take the bootmii files off of the SD card?

To be honest, couldn't I just wipe everything (I don't really have anything of importance application wise other than Gecko and the Homebrew Browser), send in my Wii, get that unit or a new one back, and just use the Hackmii installer all over again?
 
BrandNew said:
So just take the bootmii files off of the SD card?
Click to expand...
Just take the SD card out :p.

To be honest, couldn't I just wipe everything (I don't really have anything of importance application wise other than Gecko and the Homebrew Browser), send in my Wii, get that unit or a new one back, and just use the Hackmii installer all over again?
Click to expand...
That's the safest option. If you're OK with going through the rigmarole again, go for it.
 
Clipper said:
All the USB Loaders support formatting, although some work a little better than others. Some drives seem that they must be formatted with a WBFS manager, so that is probably a good option to try next.
Click to expand...

god dammit, it's still not working. it's definitely formatted for WBFS now, but it still times out when attempting to mount the thing on Configurable USB Loader. I tried everything I can think of, I unplugged the other USB device from the Wii, i unplugged all my gamecube accessories, i put a wii disc in the drive instead of a cube disc...i'm out of ideas.

my wii has really gotten its ass kicked with homebrew though, so maybe it's just not compatible anymore. i had the HBC via twilight hack for a long time, but removed it when i had to send it to nintendo for repairs, and then i had to get the HBC back on the system with bannerbomb after being on a 4.0 system. maybe somewhere during all that, it's just not compatible with USB Loaders anymore, because unless i fucked up in the setup process, i can't think of what the problem would be.


edit: i tried using the "official" loader (it looks almost exactly the same as the configurable one...), but while it was trying to mount it, it said "no wbfs partition found" and asked me if i wanted to format it. when i said yes, it told me that no partitions were found on the drive and crashed. so i think the problem is that it's not formatted quite properly...not sure how to make this happen, though.
 
Melhisedek said:
What USB Loader are you guys using?
Click to expand...

The newly released Configurable USB Loader v30 is fucking awesome.
It comes with mp3 menu music (I'm using Midna's Desperation from Twilight Princess) and GUI support! It's such an amazing loader!

HUELEN10 said:
I am using the Ultimate USB Loader based on 1.1 to rip, and the one based on 1.4 to load. As with 40 percent of your rectum, that' all you need!

FUTURAMA
Click to expand...

Eeeew. 1.1 and 1.4 are both garbage compared to 1.5.

autobzooty said:
god dammit, it's still not working. it's definitely formatted for WBFS now, but it still times out when attempting to mount the thing on Configurable USB Loader. I tried everything I can think of, I unplugged the other USB device from the Wii, i unplugged all my gamecube accessories, i put a wii disc in the drive instead of a cube disc...i'm out of ideas.

my wii has really gotten its ass kicked with homebrew though, so maybe it's just not compatible anymore. i had the HBC via twilight hack for a long time, but removed it when i had to send it to nintendo for repairs, and then i had to get the HBC back on the system with bannerbomb after being on a 4.0 system. maybe somewhere during all that, it's just not compatible with USB Loaders anymore, because unless i fucked up in the setup process, i can't think of what the problem would be.


edit: i tried using the "official" loader (it looks almost exactly the same as the configurable one...), but while it was trying to mount it, it said "no wbfs partition found" and asked me if i wanted to format it. when i said yes, it told me that no partitions were found on the drive and crashed. so i think the problem is that it's not formatted quite properly...not sure how to make this happen, though.
Click to expand...

What make/model is your HDD again?
 
autobzooty said:
edit: i tried using the "official" loader (it looks almost exactly the same as the configurable one...), but while it was trying to mount it, it said "no wbfs partition found" and asked me if i wanted to format it. when i said yes, it told me that no partitions were found on the drive and crashed. so i think the problem is that it's not formatted quite properly...not sure how to make this happen, though.
Click to expand...
As Mejilan is hinting, it could just be your drive is incompatible. However, as a last ditch effort, use the Gparted Live CD I posted a link to earlier (or another partition app like Partition Magic if you own one) to delete the current partition on the drive and create a new one, but leave it unformatted. Then try using USB Loader to format it, then if that doesn't work, WBFS Manager. If none of that works, it looks like you need a different drive.
 
My harddrive is pretty old, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's incompatible. It's a Maxtor One-Touch 120 gig or something like that.

I think I might just buy a really small USB drive. Can someone point me to a small/cheap one that is confirmed to work?
 
Here's what I did to get my drive working.

1) Used Fat32Format.exe to format my entire drive to one Fat32 partition.
2) Used WBFS Manager 3.0.1 to format the entire drive to one WBFS partition on my PC.
3) Plugged it into my Wii, booted up my favorite USB Loader... and voila!

I see three One Touch drives on a compatibility wiki, and it looks like the 250GB one does NOT work. Could be the same deal with your 120.
 
Thought I'd throw it out here in case anyone has an idea.

I'm in Australia, my Wii died, and Nintendo replaced it for free, well out of warranty (launch day system). I sent in a picture of all my 30 Wii games with the system to show them I am a good customer, and they obviously saw that keeping me happy would be profitable, so there's a tip for everyone.

Anyway, the replacement Wii is brand new, and is the PAL equivalent of the less hackable LU64 Wiis. It came factory freash with 3.4E installed. Now I've managed to hack it up, HBC via Twilight Hack, used a special cIOS and installer for LU64 Wiis, and got all my stuff running again (USB loader and a forwarder channel).

Now the thing about LU64s is that they can never be downgraded or they brick. I'm not interested in downgrading, but wish to move back to 4.0 to acess the shop channel and re-download all my VC games (that Nintendo changed over to this new console).

Does anyone know if I can use Waninkoko's 4.0 updater on this Wii? Does it 'downgrade' some IOSes (which could be dangerous) or does it just skip certain updates to existing IOSes while adding the new stuff?

I want to keep the ability to create channels (like my USB forwarder), but I already have more VC games then fit on the system memory, so 4.0 is the way to go.
 
autobzooty said:
That's exactly what I did, but I formatted it into Fat32 off of a Mac computer.
Click to expand...

I had problems with my hd that was originally formatted on my mac. I redid the formatting in Windows via Parallels, and then it worked fine.
 
Okay i'm a little confused here. I ran bannerbomb and installed the homebrew channel (i'm on 4.0). How do i install bootmii? I tried doing it from bannerbomb and i put it in boot2 but i always need my sdcard in for it to load and my controller always loses sync when i'm in bootmii.. any advice?
 
koam said:
Okay i'm a little confused here. I ran bannerbomb and installed the homebrew channel (i'm on 4.0). How do i install bootmii? I tried doing it from bannerbomb and i put it in boot2 but i always need my sdcard in for it to load and my controller always loses sync when i'm in bootmii.. any advice?
Click to expand...
That's how BootMii is at the moment. You can only use GCN Controller with it.
 
You can use the power, reset, eject, etc. buttons too.
But no Wiimote support just yet. Should be in the next version, though.
 
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