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

My bad, I thought the title of the thread meant you could upgrade if you were already HBC.

Also, the rather cheeky guide linked on the last page is very explicit in saying that you can't hack a virgin 4.0, so, uh, someone might want to get on that
 
Are there any media players that will stream video using uPNP? I have TVersity setup to stream to my PS3 and would like to stream to the Wii without using the web browser.
 
Oh hell, I upgraded via the Official Nintendo updater and HBC isn't working anymore, it just goes to black. Any help? Do I need to bannerbomb and reinstall some stuff at this point?

edit: Fixed! Did bannerbomb (man that shit is easy as hell compared to the Twilight hack) with the hackmii installer and got 1.0.2 working again.
 
StopMakingSense said:
Oh hell, I upgraded via the Official Nintendo updater and HBC isn't working anymore, it just goes to black. Any help? Do I need to bannerbomb and reinstall some stuff at this point?

edit: Fixed! Did bannerbomb (man that shit is easy as hell compared to the Twilight hack) with the hackmii installer and got 1.0.2 working again.

What's bannerbomb?
 
BannerBomb is a necessary step in the installation on a virgin 4.0 system. It works on all systems and basically replaces the Twilight Hack. It will probably disappear in 4.1 if Nintendo know what they're doing, though.
 
Mejilan said:
Yeah, I've got 60 games installed already. No way in hell I'm making channels for even a fraction of them. USB Loader HDD Forwarder channel ftw.
I say it's useful if you have kids or guests over a lot - install channels for the multiplayer or kids games so they don't have to muck around with the USB Loader to launch them. Keep it for all of your single player games.



AndyMoogle said:
I can't get the USB Loader to install my games. I've tried both the Ultimate loader and the Configurable Loader. What happens is that it will freeze/crash sooner or later during an installation. Punch-Out!! failed after about 2.50% and Blast Works failed at 34% or so. I guess it could be my HDD since it's pretty old by now. It's some Maxtor 120GB I've used in my PS2 before this.

I have cIOS36 rev 10 installed and I formatted the HDD with WBFS Manager 3.0.

Edit: I tried a USB thumb drive and it found it, formatted and it crashed during install. I think my cIOS is fucked or something. I get "Exception (DSI) occurred!". Doesn't sound too good.
Try using the original 1.1 version of USB Loader to install games. All of the other channels have frozen or crashed during installation of one game or another, but USB Loader 1.1 has never failed to install a game.




Linkhero1 said:
So which usb loader do you guys use? I'm probably going to go with the one recommended by Stump, but I'd like some opinions first.
I find USB Loader GX is the best by far for launching games - a complete GUI (no pressing buttons in response to text prompts anywhere) with a clean interface that matches the Wii menu and uses the official Wii font with a foolproof locking feature to prevent kids from inadvertently uninstalling games, plus the ability to rename games directly and easy coverart downloading.

USB Loader 1.1 for installing games.
 
USB Loader GX crashes all the time for me installing games, but Coverfloader has been bulletproof, but is much slower, which is fine with me. I'll go back to GX when all the games are installed.

USB Loader is the best thing about the wii!
 
Been reading through the thread and after reading about the USB loader I'm sold on getting homebrew on my Wii. But I really can't wrap my head around the different boot1, 2, 0, NAND stuff and so on.

But will I lose acess to the Wii Shop after installing any sort of homebrew? And how will stuff like updating firmware and updating homebrew stuff work from here on out? Is there a way to automate it like with the PSP CFW?

And what are the chances of bricking and destroying everything, if i really don't have any insight or deep understanding of what is going on with the modding, but just follow basic instructions?
 
666 said:
USB Loader GX crashes all the time for me installing games, but Coverfloader has been bulletproof, but is much slower, which is fine with me. I'll go back to GX when all the games are installed.

USB Loader is the best thing about the wii!
Configurable USB Loader now (v30) has a nice really fast GUI too, with Pointer support and full child protection. Fully customizable with a ton of other options too make it great.

Vinterbird said:
But will I lose acess to the Wii Shop after installing any sort of homebrew? And how will stuff like updating firmware and updating homebrew stuff work from here on out? Is there a way to automate it like with the PSP CFW?
Your Wii shop access will be fine. Updating is currently done through Nintendo's official installation methods. They are only blocking you from getting homebrew onto the Wii, not so much blocking you from running stuff already on there. Just don't update immediately on receiving a message from Nintendo (come here first) and you'll be good.

And what are the chances of bricking and destroying everything, if i really don't have any insight or deep understanding of what is going on with the modding, but just follow basic instructions?
As long as you are following a good tutorial, you should be fine. Launch the BootMii installer using BannerBomb, then follow Stump's guide that I posted recently in big flashing letters. I highly recommend you use Configurable USB Loader rather than Ultimate USB Loader to get started. It's installed in the same way so you can still use that guide (ignore the cover download step too if your Wii has wireless Internet).
 
oatmeal said:
I took out the GC stuff...

I get to that "Select PatchMii when prompted" or something or other...then wait...network initializes and then BAM...black screen and nothing happens.

(EDIT)
It flashes "File invalid" right before it goes to black and freezes there.
I keep getting this too.
 
I asked this before but I will ask again, has anyone had any problem with accessing their save data, the shop channel, slow disk reading, wii crashing? Ive been having for the past few months and I dont know whats wrong. I am deciding that Im just going to format the system memory and restore everything to its default to see if that could fix the problem.

I also have many save files and read that I could dump my game saves to my sd card using a homebrew app. Im gonna give that a try too.

If anyone has any input, please...
 
Oh...anyways, what does restoring the system to its defaults bring? Am I manually going to have to install everything again? i.e. news channel etc.

Has anyone used the save file dumping program?
 
oatmeal said:
Works with 4.0?

Last I heard it just worked with 3.2...

Hmm...
Yea, it works with 4.0. I used bannerbomb a few days ago on my virgin 4.0 Wii and everything works great. Just started burning Wii and GCN backups a few days ago and they all work great.
 
I just realised I have a spare 60GB harddrive that came out of my PS3 that I could use for USBloader, I just need to get an enclosure for it to plug to USB, right? What's a good cheap one to get, preferably not needing a plug for it? (Unless they all do.)
 
Is there a way for me to backup a game if i don't have an external harddrive that i can use at the moment? I'd like to keep my copy on my pc in the meanwhile.
 
I want to buy a portable hdd for use with usbloader.
The two candidates I've got so far are:
Seagate FreeAgent Go 320GB silver
and
Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB arctic white

Both cost roughly the same, both (or models with different capacity) have been recommended in this thread. I like the look of the WD a bit more.

In the gbatemp compatibility list is a spin down problem listed for the 320GB FreeAgent GO
Update!!! Drive appears to go to 'sleep' during some games (even with sleep mode set to never and using hdparm) creating black screen, thus some causing some games to crash.
and no problems for the 320GB My Passport.
Works excellently with USBLoader, no sleep mode issue seen.

With the respective 500GB models it's the other way round.
500GB My Passport:
Warning has spindown problems on some games ... ALTERNATE INFO: I got a new drive from Best Buy with no problems. WD5000MES-00. Still this drive is probably not an ideal choice for purchase. - mines working perfect got 29 games loaded on with no problems
and no spin down problems listed with the FreeAgent.


Do the WD hdds have the possibily to turn off spin downs like the seagate's?
And has anyone here witnessed problems with a FreeAgent despite the sleep mode being deactivated.
 
wow, that really was easy. i just installed HBC and BUL. Now i'll update the CIOS and hopefully get the USB Loader working. I just picked up a My Passport Essential (320) from bestbuy. It was 90 and came with a 10 dollar GC.
 
Ok I've got my wii all setup with a 320gb Maxtor One touch with all my wii games moved over to the HD. Couple questions. Is there anyway to prevent the Maxtor HD from going into sleepmode/spindown? Also is there a way to move my gamecube games to a HD as well?
 
I've had no issues with my 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go, and I've put dozens of hours into various games over the past month or so.

The very first thing I did was use Seagate Manager to permanently disabled the spindown. Then I formatted to a complete Fat32 partition with Fat32Formatter.exe, then reformatted to a complete WBFS partition using WBFS Manager 3.0.1 (actually 2.5 back then, IIRC). I've been using it heavily with Ultimate USB Loaders 6-7, and more recently Configurable USB Loader v30.

Punch-Out, Boom Blox 2, EA Sports Active, de Blob, you name it. And I've got another 55 or so games installed beyond those listed. I haven't played them as heavily, but I've at least attempted most of them, no issues.
 
ONe thing I am confused about, I upgraded via nintendo's updater to 4.0, (had to reinstall HBC, and I did reinstall DVDX after that, both via bootmii installer) and everything is running fine again. I haven't done any fiddly IOS downgrading or anything, will that be a problem, or am I okay?
 
You may be more limited in what you can run, or how.
Immediately after upgrading to 4.0 (also using Nintendo's updater, I don't trust Waninkoko's work THAT much), I ran IOS Downgrader in order to re-patch in many of the exploits that Nintendo has fixed to date.

Not to be confused with cIOS Downgrader, which is used to downgrade to earlier firmwares.
 
StopMakingSense said:
ONe thing I am confused about, I upgraded via nintendo's updater to 4.0, (had to reinstall HBC, and I did reinstall DVDX after that, both via bootmii installer) and everything is running fine again. I haven't done any fiddly IOS downgrading or anything, will that be a problem, or am I okay?
If everything you want works, then you're fine.
 
i have to unplug and re-plug in my 320gb my passport essentials drive when i turn on my wii (after leaving it off for an hour or two +) otherwise it just freezes. would that be a spindown problem? that's what I assume it is anyway.
 
StopMakingSense said:
ONe thing I am confused about, I upgraded via nintendo's updater to 4.0, (had to reinstall HBC, and I did reinstall DVDX after that, both via bootmii installer) and everything is running fine again. I haven't done any fiddly IOS downgrading or anything, will that be a problem, or am I okay?

I also had to reinstall HBC & DVDX after updating to 4.0, I wonder why. :/
 
this is great. i kinda wish i had partitioned my drives before i formated to wbfs. is there any way to do that now?
 
Since I was asking, I thought I'd post specifically what is on the Punch-Out!! system update and what got updated for me. My Wii started out as 3.2U, installed HBC via Twilight Hack, then installed cIOSrev10, IOS60, official Nintendo 4.0U, then IOS Downgrader - here are the results (before|after). BTW, what specific IOSes does IOS Downgrader downgrade and patch with the trucha bug? I wonder if I should run it again...

cIOSrev10+IOS60+4.0U+IOS Downgrader | Punch-Out!! Disc

54: (IOS10) vers: 3.0 (768) | v768 (same)
74: (IOS11) vers: 0.10 (10) | v256 (updated to 1.0)
73: (ISO12) vers: 0.6 (6) | v11 (updated to 0.11)
72: (IOS13) vers: 0.10 (10) | v15 (updated to 0.15)
62: (IOS14) vers: 1.7 (263) | v262 (not updated)
71: (IOS15) vers: 1.1 (257) | v265 (updated to 1.9)
70: (IOS17) vers: 2.0 (512) | v517 (updated to 2.5)
69: (IOS20) vers: 0.12 (12) | v256 (updated to 1.0)
68: (IOS21) vers: 2.2 (514) | v522 (updated to 2.10)
61: (IOS22) vers: 3.12 (780) | v777 (not updated)
60: (IOS28) vers: 5.13 (1293) | v1292 (not updated)
67: (IOS30) vers: 4.16 (1040) | v2816 (updated to 11.0)
66: (IOS31) vers: 4.16 (1040) | v3088 (updated to 12.16)
63: (IOS33) vers: 4.16 (1040) | v2832 (updated to 11.16)
65: (IOS34) vers: 4.15 (1039) | v3087 (updated to 12.15)
64: (IOS35) vers: 12.20 (3092) | v3088 (not updated)
59: (IOS36) vers: 4.18 (1042) | v3090 (updated to 12.18)
58: (IOS37) vers: 14.28 (3612) | v3609 (not updated)
79: (IOS4) vers: 255.0 (65280) | v65280 (same)
51: (IOS50) vers: 20.0 (5120) | v4889 (not updated)
50: (IOS53) vers: 20.29 (5149) | v4113 (not updated)
48: (IOS55) vers: 20.29 (5149) | v4633 (not updated)
77: (IOS9) vers: 2.9 (521) | v520 (not updated)
76: (BC) vers: 0.5 (5) | v5 (same)
75: (MIOS) vers: 0.9 (9) | v9 (same)
78: (System Menu) vers: 1.161 (417) FW: IOS60 | v385 (not updated)
-----The IOS listed here were also not updated, just listed for reference-----
55: (IOS60) vers: 24.30 (6174)
47: (IOS61) vers: 19.26
53: (IOS16) vers: 2.0 (512)
57: (IOS249)vers: 0.10 (10)
56: (IOS250)vers: 255.255 (65535)

Too much information I'm sure, but thanks to Clipper for suggesting Title Lister:
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Apps/Title_Lister
 
Linkhero1 said:
Don't WD hard drives have issues? I've been reading about them failing or something. Can you clear this up for me before I dive in and buy one? I don't mind the type of hd I buy as long as I know it won't screw up on me :p
HUELEN10 said:
WD HDDs are some of the best you can buy dude! The My Passport 320GB has my full recommendation.

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3952296&CatId=2424

You can even find it cheaper in-store, and some targets have them for 70 USD!
thy_ said:
I want to buy a portable hdd for use with usbloader.
The two candidates I've got so far are:
Seagate FreeAgent Go 320GB silver
and
Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB arctic white

Both cost roughly the same, both (or models with different capacity) have been recommended in this thread. I like the look of the WD a bit more.

In the gbatemp compatibility list is a spin down problem listed for the 320GB FreeAgent GO

and no problems for the 320GB My Passport.


With the respective 500GB models it's the other way round.
500GB My Passport:

and no spin down problems listed with the FreeAgent.


Do the WD hdds have the possibily to turn off spin downs like the seagate's?
And has anyone here witnessed problems with a FreeAgent despite the sleep mode being deactivated.
All WD Passports have the possibility for the spindown problem. There is no turning it off without cracking open the enclosure and connecting it to your computer directly and using hdparm and that is not always guaranteed to work. More information here.

All Seagate/Maxtor drives have the possibility for the spindown problem as well but it can be turned off with the Seagate Manager software. More information here.





JodyAnthony said:
i have to unplug and re-plug in my 320gb my passport essentials drive when i turn on my wii (after leaving it off for an hour or two +) otherwise it just freezes. would that be a spindown problem? that's what I assume it is anyway.
Yes that is the spindown problem.





Nabs said:
this is great. i kinda wish i had partitioned my drives before i formated to wbfs. is there any way to do that now?
Copy all of the disc images to another WBFS drive or extract them to ISOs on your regular hard drive (they will take 4.37GB each since ISO images have no compression), re-partition the drive with Windows. Or you'll just have to re-rip everything again. It's possible to resize NTFS partitions with unused space but not WBFS partitions.





jrricky said:
WTF? How long should formatting my Wii take?
Do you mean formatting the drive for WBFS? Connect it to your computer and use WBFS Manager for that.
 
Nabs said:
this is great. i kinda wish i had partitioned my drives before i formated to wbfs. is there any way to do that now?

Yeah, what you have to do is first get WBFS manager and extract your ISOs onto your PCs HDD, then once you have backed up your WBFS Partition you just need to go to My Computer, look up the WBFS drive and format it. then after you do that, partition the drive. go to WBFS manger, Format one side of the drive to WBFS, leave the another as is, then add your ISOs back to the drive. thats it.

Edit - just to add more info on WD, I have one, it froze on Guitar Hero and Rockband. but once I delayed the spindown (using hdparm) to like 5 hours it hasnt froze once. and I didnt have to crack open the drive to spin it down. Mine is a WD mybook, maybe its different for a Passport.
 
SS4Rob said:
Since I was asking, I thought I'd post specifically what is on the Punch-Out!! system update and what got updated for me. My Wii started out as 3.2U, installed HBC via Twilight Hack, then installed cIOSrev10, IOS60, official Nintendo 4.0U, then IOS Downgrader - here are the results (before|after). BTW, what specific IOSes does IOS Downgrader downgrade and patch with the trucha bug? I wonder if I should run it again...

cIOSrev10+IOS60+4.0U+IOS Downgrader | Punch-Out!! Disc

54: (IOS10) vers: 3.0 (768) | v768 (same)
74: (IOS11) vers: 0.10 (10) | v256 (updated to 1.0)
73: (ISO12) vers: 0.6 (6) | v11 (updated to 0.11)
72: (IOS13) vers: 0.10 (10) | v15 (updated to 0.15)
62: (IOS14) vers: 1.7 (263) | v262 (not updated)
71: (IOS15) vers: 1.1 (257) | v265 (updated to 1.9)
70: (IOS17) vers: 2.0 (512) | v517 (updated to 2.5)
69: (IOS20) vers: 0.12 (12) | v256 (updated to 1.0)
68: (IOS21) vers: 2.2 (514) | v522 (updated to 2.10)
61: (IOS22) vers: 3.12 (780) | v777 (not updated)
60: (IOS28) vers: 5.13 (1293) | v1292 (not updated)
67: (IOS30) vers: 4.16 (1040) | v2816 (updated to 11.0)
66: (IOS31) vers: 4.16 (1040) | v3088 (updated to 12.16)
63: (IOS33) vers: 4.16 (1040) | v2832 (updated to 11.16)
65: (IOS34) vers: 4.15 (1039) | v3087 (updated to 12.15)
64: (IOS35) vers: 12.20 (3092) | v3088 (not updated)
59: (IOS36) vers: 4.18 (1042) | v3090 (updated to 12.18)
58: (IOS37) vers: 14.28 (3612) | v3609 (not updated)
79: (IOS4) vers: 255.0 (65280) | v65280 (same)
51: (IOS50) vers: 20.0 (5120) | v4889 (not updated)
50: (IOS53) vers: 20.29 (5149) | v4113 (not updated)
48: (IOS55) vers: 20.29 (5149) | v4633 (not updated)
77: (IOS9) vers: 2.9 (521) | v520 (not updated)
76: (BC) vers: 0.5 (5) | v5 (same)
75: (MIOS) vers: 0.9 (9) | v9 (same)
78: (System Menu) vers: 1.161 (417) FW: IOS60 | v385 (not updated)
-----The IOS listed here were also not updated, just listed for reference-----
55: (IOS60) vers: 24.30 (6174)
47: (IOS61) vers: 19.26
53: (IOS16) vers: 2.0 (512)
57: (IOS249)vers: 0.10 (10)
56: (IOS250)vers: 255.255 (65535)

Too much information I'm sure, but thanks to Clipper for suggesting Title Lister:
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Apps/Title_Lister
IOS Downgrader downgrades these IOS files:

Downgraded:
11 (to version 10)
12 (to version 6)
13 (to version 10)
15 (to version 257)
17 (to version 512)
20 (to version 12)
21 (to version 514)
30 (to version 1040)
31 (to version 1040)
33 (to version 1040)
34 (to version 1039)
35 (to version 1040)
36 (to version 1042)

The Punch-Out disc (I'm pretty sure the New Play Control - Mario Power Tennis disc uses the same disc update as well) checks all of the IOS files on your Wii and compares them with the IOS version on the disc. If the IOS on the disc is a more recent version than the IOS on your Wii, then the disc will say that it needs to perform a system update when you load it up in the disc channel. The newer IOS versions on the disc will remove the trucha bug from the earlier IOS versions that you got from the IOS Downgrader.

As long as you have any version of the particular IOS files that the game uses to play the game, then the game will still play fine. If you are completely missing any of the IOS files that the game needs, then the game will not run. In this case, since you are already on firmware 4.0, then you have all the necessary IOS files to play the game. But the IOS Downgrader downgraded several of these IOS files to earlier versions which still contained the trucha bug.

So if you want to keep the trucha bug in those IOS files, then you will need to run the IOS Downgrader again after you installed the disc update from Punch-Out. Basically you have to decide if you want to keep the trucha bug in those IOS files or not. If you want to keep the trucha bug in those IOS files, then you should just use Gecko OS or Preloader or something to bypass the disc update when you play. Because otherwise you will have to run IOS Downgrader everytime you want to play the game, because the disc will want to update those IOS files everytime you downgrade them.
 
Why would you partition your WBFS drive?

I'm asking because I'm getting ready to dedicate one of my externals to acting as the Wii's harddrive and am curious what everyone's talking about.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Why would you partition your WBFS drive?

I'm asking because I'm getting ready to dedicate one of my externals to acting as the Wii's harddrive and am curious what everyone's talking about.
In order to place ISO files from your drive to your PC and back, but I really don't think it's necessary.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Why would you partition your WBFS drive?

I'm asking because I'm getting ready to dedicate one of my externals to acting as the Wii's harddrive and am curious what everyone's talking about.
If you want to get multiple uses out of your external hard drive, you can partition it. For example, if you have a 500GB hard drive, you could either format it all as WBFS for the Wii, or you could partition it so that you use 300GB as WBFS for the Wii, and 200GB as FAT32 for backing stuff up on your PC.
 
Okay I'm thinking of making the jump to a USB Loader, at the moment I'm happily on an old firmware (2 or 3. something? not at home can't remember) playing all my homebrew emulators etc with no real reason to update (I have 2 Wiis, one is 'untouched' for normal games the other is the homebrew machine).

SO

Will I lose anything in updating to 4.0 on the homebrew one? Will I gain anything really?

I've kept it not updated this long because no real reason too and was worried Nintendo would block the homebrew stuff from working, but haven't really kept up with the scene, is 4.0 all completely hackable and everything? I used the old Twilight method to do this one back in the days.

One last question, I need to go out and buy a USB hard drive for the loader, what should I be looking for or what is the best kind?

Cheers guys.
 
Conrad Link said:
Will I lose anything in updating to 4.0 on the homebrew one? Will I gain anything really?
You won't lose anything. You will gain the ability to copy channels to the SD card and you will be able to use the Wii Shop.

I've kept it not updated this long because no real reason too and was worried Nintendo would block the homebrew stuff from working, but haven't really kept up with the scene, is 4.0 all completely hackable and everything? I used the old Twilight method to do this one back in the days.
Twilight Hack is dead, but there is a new way to hack 4.0 Wiis now called BannerBomb.

One last question, I need to go out and buy a USB hard drive for the loader, what should I be looking for or what is the best kind?

Cheers guys.
Read the last couple of pages of the thread. It's been a key point of discussion.
 
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