Hacking Least intrusive/risky way to mod Wii

[Warrior522]

Sooo... My family has a Wii, but they're paranoid about modding. What I want to know is this: what's the least intrusive/risky way to mod a Wii to run backups off SD? If possible, I'd like to keep it on the card(8 gig).

 

[ddetkowski]

Use Modmii, run it from your PC. put the files it downloads onto SD.
Look into getting a External USB drive, 50 bucks at walmart 320 GB will hold 100+ games
click on modmii for windows on my sig.......

 

[Warrior522]

Quick clarification; USB drive plugs straight in? No Gecko?

 

[XFlak]

correct

 

[Warrior522]

*glomps both of you*

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU
THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!!!!

 

[Schlupi]

OFFTOPIC NOW THAT YOUR QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED:

Your sig should be updated, March 27th came and went.

 

[Warrior522]

Right; forgot about that; thanks.

 

[mvgc3]

You should probably know too, that ModMii (and any other guide worth following) will install the Homebrew Channel, which will be clearly visible on the Wii's menu, like any other channel. I'm not sure if you can move it to the SD card like most other channels (it's been a very long time since I've seen it discussed and I THINK the answer was that it couldn't, at the time), so you might be stuck moving it to the last page and hoping nobody flips through and sees it. If someone can confirm one way or the other, that'd be great. I'm not trying to fling incorrect information around, but he should know about the possibility.

Otherwise you could use the original exploit (Bannerbomb if on System Menu 4.2 or lower, or the game exploit if on SM 4.3) to start the USB loader.

Besides HBC there shouldn't be anything else you need to worry about them finding.

 

[Thesolcity]

You should probably know too, that ModMii (and any other guide worth following) will install the Homebrew Channel, which will be clearly visible on the Wii's menu, like any other channel. I'm not sure if you can move it to the SD card like most other channels (it's been a very long time since I've seen it discussed and I THINK the answer was that it couldn't, at the time), so you might be stuck moving it to the last page and hoping nobody flips through and sees it. If someone can confirm one way or the other, that'd be great. I'm not trying to fling incorrect information around, but he should know about the possibility.

Otherwise you could use the original exploit (Bannerbomb if on System Menu 4.2 or lower, or the game exploit if on SM 4.3) to start the USB loader.

Besides HBC there shouldn't be anything else you need to worry about them finding.

AnytitleDeleter can remove HBC easily, you'll also want to remove the save file that HBC makes where normal game saves are stored. But only IF you need to return it. My friend has sent in a fully bricked wii and got a new one back no problem.

 

[Taleweaver]

What I want to know is this: what's the least intrusive/risky way to mod a Wii to run backups off SD? If possible, I'd like to keep it on the card(8 gig).

You make it sound like "least intrusive" and "least risky" are synonims. In this case, they aren't.


In order to play backups (no matter if they are from backup discs, SD card or USB) you a cIOS on your wii (preferably more than one, even). The way the wii internal stuff is layed out, you can install these cIOS next to the official IOS that the wii needs for things like the system menu or loading retail discs.

Since nothing gets overwritten, it's not exactly intrusive. The same with the homebrew channel: you have to install it to your wii, but it doesn't require you to make any changes to something already in the wii. Yes, it'll be visible on the main screen. But it's no different than having a wii fit channel, internet channel or any other one.

By itself, a few cIOS'es, the HBC, an USB drive, an USB loader and (of course) a game on the drive is sufficient to play the games. And only the first two require having something on your wii itself.
But the thing is: though by itself this the least intrusive approach possible (aside from installing and uninstalling cIOS and a loader every time you want to play a game) that will actually work, it is not the most risk-free.

This is because the best way to avoid risks is to take precautions to recover from things that might go wrong. I haven't followed the modmii guide recently, but I'm pretty sure these are at least optional steps to take:
-bootmii. bootmii is a program that lets you make a full backup of your wii's hard drive (which is usually called 'the nand'). This can either be installed as a cIOS or (if you have an older wii) as boot2. If possible, the latter is much prefered, as this provide a better way to restore a made backup than the former. But even though bootmii is pretty much invisible if you configure it correct, it IS resident on your wii (and thus intrusive).
-priiloader. this nifty program has a couple important features, like blocking updates and allowing to boot into bootmii (if you had to install it as a cIOS). Both features reduce the risk of bricking your wii seriously*. And bootmii as cIOS isn't very convenient without this program (what use is a full backup of your wii if you have no way to restore it if the wii fails?).
But although the same goes for this program as for bootmii (once configured correctly, you won't notice it's there), it is certainly intrusive. Even more than the cIOS'es, really, as this program does replace the system menu (that doesn't mean things'll be different: in most cases, it just loads the real system menu straight away).


The final consideration before you decide to do anything to your wii: it will void the warranty. Hacking a wii pretty much always leaves some traces, and nintendo doesn't like to fix those wii's.








*if you hang around at this forum, you'll notice that when people come here asking for help because their wii doesn't start, the first questions he gets in return is if he had bootmii and/or priiloader installed

 

[Warrior522]

...well, fuck. This just got complicated...

Soo... Make certain to back up the Wii immediately after hacking in the homebrew channel?

 

[XFlak]

@Warrior522, ModMii covers everything, just follow your ModMii guide and it will tell u step by step instructions on how to do everything mentioned above.

 

[obcd]

A little off topic and not yet possible as far as I know...but,
If you could launch Uneek + DI from the bannerbomb exploit, you could do pretty much everything without the need to alter anything to the wii internal nand drive... I think theoretically, it should be possible, but I don't have the skills (yet) to make such a setup possible. It would require the 4.1 or 4.2 menu, but those are all official big N software. They could say..It's impossible that this serial number has a 4.2 menu.. We sold it with 4.3 preinstalled..
Of cause, I have no idea how and when this downgrade happend...

If you have a backup of your nand contents, than in very worst case someone with good soldering skills and an infectus (modchip) nand programmer could restore your wii nand contents and get it running again. (Will also void the warranty..)

 

[mauifrog]

The least intrusive mod would be to use sneek/uneek

Simply load the hackmii installer v0.8 via exploit of your choice. Install bootmii as ios, prepair the sd card.

Then load bootmii and make a nand backup, use bootmii-booter.elf using any exploit you like.

Then use modmii to prepare your sd card for sneek/uneek

Then load sneek/uneek via bootmii-booter.elf using any exploit you like.

 

[Warrior522]

Aight, having further discussed it with my parents, they'll let me soft mod it on one condition; that it does not interfere with the Wii's original functionality. In short, original menu must remain intact or easily accesable, and it's gotta be able to run disks 'n save and all that shit. Warranty is irrelavent, btw. (to keep things simple, the main goal for me is GameCube game backups off a hard drive)

 

[ploggy]

If it's Gamecube backups via hdd, then it's gonna get a bit more intrusive mate.
Your either gonna need a sd gecko (to play GC backups off sd card) or an IDE-EXI adapter (backups via an IDE hdd)
And game compatibility with these devices isn't 100% yet..

 

[Warrior522]

...why is Dolphin suddenly looking so good all of a sudden...

 

[machomuu]

...why is Dolphin suddenly looking so good all of a sudden...

Why don't you just buy DVDs and burn your backups if HDDs are so complicated for you?

 

[ploggy]

Dolphin is fine if you have the rig to play games 100%
My pc is pish so i'd be lucky to get 10fps out of it

WOW it's taken me forever to get 100 posts lol

 

[neotank19]

I don't think wii hacking is for you OP. Better stick with dolphin.