Wii Modding Project

[GreenGoo]

Well, I successfully softmod'd my Wii last night. Had to invest in a 15 dollar (C$) 2 gig SD card but it didn't cost anything else.

I'm supposed to be able to play regular DVD's on it now, but I think I'm missing something, since I can't, yet. I was able to burn a copy of Star Wars Lego and run the burnt copy. This is awesome because we've already had a few scares with originals. 3 Kids 5 and under and those disks are like nectar to a bee. I don't know how many times I've found one of them walking around with a case open and their grubby hands smearing the disk, or the disk on the ground being stepped on. Anything but putting them away under lock and key has failed to prevent the kids from finding and manhandling the games.

I also took an image and put it on a USB stick. I plugged the stick into the Wii and ran Super Paper Mario from it. So I don't even have to burn the originals if I don't want, I can just fire them onto a stick. I think this is fantastic.

Next I want to be able to leave the stick in the machine and use the wireless network to move the image over from the computer to the Wii. Not sure it can be done but I assume it can, with the right app.

Lastly I think I'll buy a small (by today's standards) external harddrive to rip and archive our games to. Would be handy to have them all in one place. Hmmm, I wonder if you can plug an external harddrive into the usb port on a wii? Have to look into it. That would be double plus awesome. I'd just use an internal drive but all the slots are taken up with older, crappier drives and I don't want to muck with them and the data on them for now. One small hindrance is the lack of USB 2.0 ports on my desktop. Yeah, it's that old. USB 1.0 is SLOW.

Anyway, took some doing, had some difficulties and some "Oh shit" moments where I worried I was about to brick it, but in the end the Wii is in a modded state, able to play backed up disks and even images on a usb stick. All it cost was 15 bucks for the SD card. USB sticks I already had.

Huzzah.

[ChaoZ]

Is yours a launch Wii? Does it matter?
What about system updates, etc? Can Nintendo eventually patch out softmodding through required system updates like the PSP does?

[GreenGoo]

Is yours a launch Wii? Does it matter?
What about system updates, etc? Can Nintendo eventually patch out softmodding through required system updates like the PSP does?

No, mine is a late 2008 model. Brick protection is nearly non-existent for this model. Pre-mid-2008 and you're golden though. Basically unbrickable with with a couple of steps at the beginning.

My firmware was 3.4 when I started. The process, once you have injected the hack into the boot process, allows you to eventually update your firmware with straight from Nintendo updates, with a couple of tweaks/hand holding. You can never go through the system menu to get the updates, but you can definitely download them from the official servers, modify a bit, then install. Having wifi access helps a lot, but you can still do it by sneaker netting an SD card back and forth from your 'net connected pc.

My final product has firmware 4.1U installed. You can go to 4.2, but I didn't bother, since a lot of the apps aren't completely tested on the latest firmware yet. Homebrew, wad-manager, usb loader gx etc.

From what I read, due to the nature of the hardware, it will be impossible to patch out softmodding. No guarantees on newly manufactured boxes though. Eventually they might make them unmoddable. Nothing produced so far is umoddable, as far as I know.

Ok, to answer more clearly:

1) No, mine is a mid 2008 box. It doesn't matter though. Except some older boxes are easier to mod, safer to mod.
2) No system updates any more through the system interface. You can update manually by downloading to your PC, tweaking the files, then transferring to the box.
3) Boxes already in existence can never be patched to be unmoddable, is my understanding. No guarantees on new models though.

Some interesting things I've done with it since.

FTPii. I can now ftp files over the wireless network, to any fat32 partition. While cool, and somewhat useful, it does not allow me to ftp image files to the WBFS partitions. So no ripping games to the PC then FTP'ing it to the Wii. Believe it or not, I only have USB 1.1 ports, and doing the transfer wireless would have me at least 50% transfer time. I'm disappointed. Still, FTP'ing to my Wii. Pretty cool.

Last time I posted I had only tested USB loaded images, which worked great. I've now tested images burnt to single layer DVD's, and they work fine too.

I still haven't found a solution to my inability to play DVD's. An app called USB Loader gx is supposed to be able to do it, but no luck yet. Despite its name, I use USB Loader to load both usb mounted images and burnt disks as well.

Hmmm, I guess that's it. I thought I did more with it but nothing else is coming to mind.

Day 3 and it's still working like a champ. No unexpected behaviours or glitches. Kids able to access the USB menu and pick disk images from it with no issues, although there are no pretty pictures to tell them which is which. None of them can read so they just guess. They are memorizing the position of each game in the menu. =P

At some point I'll be buying an external drive to fill up with all their games. Will be nice to have all the disks stores safely away, without the hassle of finding and putting the disk in every time they want to switch games. They literally leave them lying around the house, on the ground, under pillows on the couch. It drives me nuts. They can then just pick any of their games from the menu and run from there. No disk required. The investment in our game library will be mostly safe.

[ImLawBoy]

Just a reminder that while we don't specifically have a policy against discussing these types of things, we would like to avoid providing instructions on how to mod consoles, links to sites that provides such instructions, or anything like that.

Thanks.

[GreenGoo]

Just a reminder that while we don't specifically have a policy against discussing these types of things, we would like to avoid providing instructions on how to mod consoles, links to sites that provides such instructions, or anything like that.

Thanks.

Roger.

At the same time, it's mine, I should be able to do what I want with it. I can modify my lawnmower as much as I want (hell, I can turn it into a go cart and drive it around if I want), but throw some software in it and suddenly I'm not in control of product I bought. It's an absolutely retarded direction consumer rights have taken, and everyone seems perfectly at peace with it. Maybe it's karmic payback for my no smoking stance.

While I might be skirting the law, I don't feel the law is ethical and I feel perfectly within my rights, at least ethically.

I admit this is neither the forum nor the thread for that discussion. I respect OO's right to limit whatever conversation they would like. I won't bring it up again.

[Kraegor]

It's mine, I should be able to do what I want with it.

a witch hunt generally results in collateral damage. the witch being EULA & piracy.

the digital age has certainly muddied up the concept of ownership... corporate rights + profit margins apparently holding the trump cards. it is amazing how bean counters don't actually understand the nature of the beast they are attempting to fight.

Killing birds with landmines....

[GreenGoo]

Doing something cool, had to share:

Ripping one of my retail disks using the Wii as the drive and sending the iso over the wifi to the computer. Is that insane or what?

Now why it can't send the iso to the wbfs formated usb stick in the back of the Wii I don't know, because that would be more than ideal.

Still, ripping disks from the Wii over the wifi. Very cool.

Some additional stress to the Wii drive, so I won't make it a habit. Just wanted to try it once for the technological cool effect.

[Creepy_Smell]

Sounds interesting. Especially being able to rip to usb and load from there. Lucky for me my 5 yr old handles discs/dvds with care. Still might do it one day down the line just to be able to play without discs. I hate disc swapping.

[EvilHomer3k]

Ever get the dvd player working?

[GreenGoo]

Ever get the dvd player working?

No, but I didn't really follow through on it. It is my understanding that I'm 1/2 way there. Part of the modding process produced a "DVD channel", but I need to load additional software to finish the job. I haven't done that. It's a shame the USB loader program doesn't do this part as well. Based on the interface, it looks like it is supposed to.

I'll do a little reading and see if I can get it to work today with a minimum of fuss. I can "install" programs (not game images) over the wifi now, so that makes life a lot easier.

One negative to note. We got Ghostbusters for Christmas and it is demanding a system update before working. When I modded the Wii, I moved from 3.4U(SA) to 4.1 I believe 4.2 is the most recent system version. There were some issues moving to 4.2 so I didn't bother (plus it was additional work). I may try moving to 4.2 in the future to get Ghostbusters working. So far this is the only game that hasn't worked with the Wii as is. We also got the Toy Story shooter thingy for my 3 year old, and it works fine.

[GreenGoo]

Ok, threw the app into the Homebrew channel. Wii now plays DVD's, both retail and backups.

Ta da.

[Creepy_Smell]

I went ahead and modded my 4.2 one. Still need to get a usb HD for all my games. Tested 1 game on a 1gb stick and it works great. Nice not needing the drive to spin up.

Was easier then modding my xbox1 (runs duty as my media center w/ xbmc). Little more stress though since wii is used a lot and my xbox wasn't at the time I modded it. I just read a lot of tuts and picked one that was clear, up to date and still active.

Be nice to put my games away. Had them in a fancy box thing the wife bought as a liv room decor but its full now.

[Daehawk]

When I saw the thread I was thinking something like this...

[GreenGoo]

I went ahead and modded my 4.2 one. Still need to get a usb HD for all my games. Tested 1 game on a 1gb stick and it works great. Nice not needing the drive to spin up.

Was easier then modding my xbox1 (runs duty as my media center w/ xbmc). Little more stress though since wii is used a lot and my xbox wasn't at the time I modded it. I just read a lot of tuts and picked one that was clear, up to date and still active.

Be nice to put my games away. Had them in a fancy box thing the wife bought as a liv room decor but its full now.

Congrats. I have yet to move to 4.2 and have no immediate plans to do so. I rarely go near the thing and after my initial excitement, I haven't thought about it in weeks.

I found modding it a bit difficult. There were some steps missing in the tutorial I used and I had to guess at a few things or go find the info online. This was the first time I had done this sort of thing. I haven't had a console since...the atari 2600 maybe?

Despite some lapses in the tutorial, I was impressed with the organization of the material.

[Creepy_Smell]

Still enjoying my modded wii. While my son was careful with discs its nice that he doesn't have to get them out.

I've been using xbmc in my modded xbox1 to stream netflix to my hdtv using playon on the pc. Tried it on the wii and it looked ugly due to wii browser.

Finally decided to try the actual netflix disc and it looks comparable to xbmc but the wii has a lot better interface. My xbmc also sometimes required a few reboots to find the pc stream. Installed the disc to my usb hd and found a loader so now have a nice netflix channel on my wii home. Besides the nicer interface, its easier for other family members to now watch netflix. Also a lot quieter than my xbox1 and more portable. Now to get a 2nd power adapter, etc. so I can easily move it to bedroom tv when main tv in use. Was looking into a Roku but this works for my needs.

[GreenGoo]

Cool. I've been meaning to see what is available for turning the Wii into a media center. Not a priority but I'll probably look into it next month.

[GreenGoo]

For the record, using the modded Wii, I was able to rip every game we have in record time, storing the images on an external USB drive (see General Computing thread). This has allowed me to put the disks away (including burned backups, which is how I was doing it before putting together the external drive) from greasy, careless hands.

I now have a searchable, online library of about 30 games, all of which run from hard drive with faster read time (meaning better performance during load screens) with original box and disk art as part of the UI (done through an online database similar to what you can find for mp3 tags/covers for albums).

No more disk swapping. Ever.

This is my first console so bear with me, but I think this is friggin awesome. Kids can just fire it up and pick a game, and there are parental controls for the few that are not fit for their age group.

Now to look into converting it to a media player.

[lildrgn]

Interested in this. Have done part of it. Cannot get rest of it to work. Confusing stuff. Anyone PM me with specific tips?

[GreenGoo]

Interested in this. Have done part of it. Cannot get rest of it to work. Confusing stuff. Anyone PM me with specific tips?

There are like a thousand ways to do it. I'll pm you with my specifics.

[Nipper]

Has anyone tried this with firmware 4.3?
I bought my Wii and updated by mistake, now it seems I'm up a creek. A shame too, since the only reason I bought the thing was for Homebrew/emulation.

[GreenGoo]

No, sorry. I have been poking around since I'm having trouble putting one or two new games on my HD and having them work, but no idea about anything beyond 4.2

Good luck.

[GreenGoo]

I should mention that my modifications are no longer working. I believe my son put a rented game in it while I was at work. When he selected it, it probably came up with a window with a single button on it [update]. My Wii is now reporting that it is firmware version 4.2. While it was possible to mod a 4.2, I had only upgraded to 4.1 which had proven hacks.

So, no backups work, nothing on the stick or external drive work, no dvds can be played (both backups and retail) and the USB loader software crashes with a mem dump.

Heh.

All the retail game disks we have still work, so it's not a complete catastrophe, but it's not good. I'm slowly working up the energy to investigate the damage and what can be done to fix it, if anything.

And note when I say "damage" all I really mean is the modified parts. It's still a fully functional Wii. Hurray?

[Creepy_Smell]

ouch! glad it still works and didn't brick though.

i have priiloader set up to block updates (feels the urge to go verify it even though I know it was done) but have never tested it..hope my kid doesn't try to test it either

[GreenGoo]

Yeah, I have the internet turned off to avoid any accidental attempts to talk to nintendo, but I hadn't figured on the games themselves having the updates on them.

In fact I think this happened one other time (with Ghostbusters) but the update didn't mess anything up. It's possible that update tried to get it from Nintendo and was blocked.

I actually put Ghostbusters away when I saw it was going to attempt update. I had planned on doing some research to find out what I could expect, but before I could, the kids found it and the mom ok'd them to play it, again while I was at work. In that case we got lucky. This second time, not so much.

Going to leave it for a month or two. The kids weren't appreciative enough of the convenience. You should hear them whine when I tell them they have to go get the disk if they want to play something.

If I can remod it or recover what was lost, I will. Otherwise, we're back to legacy technology. (i.e. disks )

[cicobuff]

I am thinking of buying a Wii. Mainly for Monster Hunter Tri (which they are not releasing for PSP... sob sob). My key concern for the purchase was that I will get the same problem with my older consoles (scratched and degraded discs).

They should make it possible for us to backup our games into a harddisk or large usb stick and maybe encode it to tie it to the console it came from so that piracy is prevented for casual users (pirates will always find a way somehow...).

[Kagath]

GreenGoo I sent you a PM.