Wii Repair

[yotsuya]

The DVD drive in our Wii keeps spitting discs out. Anyone ever replace the drive, or hack the device so a drive isn't necessary? Any ideas?

[Justin Z]

I'm giving these instructions by memory so if I screw up a step Google "letterbomb" and you can find better instructions.  Go here

http://please.hackmii.com/

Enter the Wii's MAC address, which can be found in the settings.  Cut either wire, it doesn't matter.  Copy the contents of the file you download (a RAR I think) to an SD card.  Go into your console's envelope menu in the lower right corner, and you should see a message.  Click it and let the fun begin.

[05SRT4]

I personally used the letterbomb hack, Twilight Hack, Lego Indiana jones hack. Once I found out I could hook up a external hard drive to the wii and use Wiiflow as a front end, everything changed.

Let me know if you need any help. If you do go with the hack make sure you have a "Original" 2gb SD card. Mine didn't like the  SDHC ones.

[Louis Tully]

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[pbj]

If you do a software hack, make sure you use a game that can be used to hack a wiiu as well.

Might as well be prepared if you're spending the $10 anyway.  GameStop will likely have the compatible games conveniently grouped together.

Lego Star Wars did both consoles for me...

 

[Hoopz]

I modded my Wii so long ago that I havent looked at any mods in a few years.  External HD makes it simple for my kids to switch games.  I need to look at more homebrew stuff now.  I think the last thing I added was "Bags" (cornhole) and that was probably 5 years ago.

[SavannahLion]

I personally used the letterbomb hack, Twilight Hack, Lego Indiana jones hack. Once I found out I could hook up a external hard drive to the wii and use Wiiflow as a front end, everything changed.

Let me know if you need any help. If you do go with the hack make sure you have a legit 2gb SD card. Mine didn't like the  SDHC ones.

Define "legit". I think I have a branded Wii SD card somewhere but to that end can you still even get 2GB cards anymore? Ballpark smallest I've seen these past 6 months are the 8GB.

[05SRT4]

I personally used the letterbomb hack, Twilight Hack, Lego Indiana jones hack. Once I found out I could hook up a external hard drive to the wii and use Wiiflow as a front end, everything changed.

Let me know if you need any help. If you do go with the hack make sure you have a legit 2gb SD card. Mine didn't like the  SDHC ones.

Define "legit". I think I have a branded Wii SD card somewhere but to that end can you still even get 2GB cards anymore? Ballpark smallest I've seen these past 6 months are the 8GB.

I changed my wording to "Original"
Basically anything not SDHC like this one , please someone correct me if I am wrong. I just remember not beaing able to get the hack to work without one.

[pbj]

SD for the hack, SDHC for the games.

[yotsuya]

Thanks for all the tips, guys! I'll try Justin's first, and go from there...

[SavannahLion]

I personally used the letterbomb hack, Twilight Hack, Lego Indiana jones hack. Once I found out I could hook up a external hard drive to the wii and use Wiiflow as a front end, everything changed.

Let me know if you need any help. If you do go with the hack make sure you have a legit 2gb SD card. Mine didn't like the  SDHC ones.

Define "legit". I think I have a branded Wii SD card somewhere but to that end can you still even get 2GB cards anymore? Ballpark smallest I've seen these past 6 months are the 8GB.

I changed my wording to "Original"
Basically anything not SDHC like this one , please someone correct me if I am wrong. I just remember not beaing able to get the hack to work without one.

Christ, those things are $18+ a pop.

[yotsuya]

Ok, I got the Homebrew Channel installed. I'd like to go about ripping my games to a HD and using that. Any tips?

[05SRT4]

Couple things to remember:

The HD needs to be partitioned a certain way:

Depending on how your going to load your homebrew apps (SD, or HD)

The External HD will need to be formatted to FAT32 (For the Wii games) On my HD I had a 15 gig NTFS partition for the apps (mostly emulators/Roms and a few homebrew tools) and then the rest was FAT32 for all the Wii games.)

I use WBFS Manager 3.0 to do the formatting.
This app you install on your PC. If you have the ISO files already on your PC this app can convert and transfer them to the HD. Overall a very good app to have.
I'm not sure but you may be able to use this to dump the games. I'm at work so I cant test it.

Added - (JUST REMEMBERED THE DISK DRIVE WAS MESSED UP ON YOURS)
For the dumping the wii games from the Wii  console:
There are a few ways to do it, I installed WiiFlow This acts like a front end loader. Built into the app is a self dump tool. Once installed just insert the game, go into the options within Wiiflow. I think its just called "Install". this will rip the game to the HD. Wiiflow is a really cool app. Here is a

I might of missed a few things but that's the gist of it, Or at least the way I did it. Please someone let us know if there is a easier or different way. I haven't actually done a hack in a long time. I haven't really had to do anything since the initial hack which was a few years ago.

You can also use a WAD loader to install the actual wiiware games. We can get into that later.

[yotsuya]

Just cracked open the Wii and saw that a little white tab on the drive mechanism has broken. Gonna try and see if I can fix the tab well enough to rip my games to disc.

[lilshawn]

a big blob of placercene or "thumb tack" or  "sticky tack" on the connector can hold it in place temporarily. if that works for you, hit it with a blob of hot glue to make it more permanent.

otherwise, rip your games from the internet and dump them on the drive.

WBFS is dead. (and stupid proprietary too)

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-convert-from-wbfs-to-fat32-or-ntfs.292391/

[hypernova]

I'd get ModMii, too.  It's extremely user-friendly.  It takes a snapshot of your current Wii state, then tells you exactly what you need to download in order to get the mods current.

[lilshawn]

I'd get ModMii, too.  It's extremely user-friendly.  It takes a snapshot of your current Wii state, then tells you exactly what you need to download in order to get the mods current.

THIS x 1000.

modmii is the bomb diggity.

[yotsuya]

I used Gorilla Glue on the tab, and it fit back perfectly. Let it dry, put it back together, popped in a disk.... And it accepted it.

However, when I tried ripping games, it would lock up after only like 2-3%. I'll try playing a game later to see what's up.

I'll check out ModMii, too. Thanks, guys!

[yotsuya]

Thanks for all the tips, guys! I have everything running exactly the way I envisioned it! Also, the drive is working fine, so I can rip what I have. 

[jdbailey1206]

Did you keep the original FE or boot to a different one like WiiFlow?

[jdbailey1206]

Kind of an odd thing to say but I wanted to thank Yots' drive for breaking.  I never knew how easy it was to put emulators on the wii.  I was in the process of creating buying a NUC computer with my Christmas money but saved about 200 smackers going this route and picking one up on fleabay.  I got mine going in under 3 hours and will spend next week buttoning everything up.  Thanks to everyone for the tutorials on doing it.  And Im glad also to hear you got your drive fixed Yots.

[yotsuya]

I hear you, brother. The info I got here was a million times better than Google. I added all my SNES and NES stuff and it's good as gold.

[jdbailey1206]

Playstation and N64 is kinda buggy tho.

[yotsuya]

NES/SNES 4 Lyf. Screw the rest.

[Louis Tully]

.

[pbj]

Did they ever release a menu system you could navigate without the remotes?  I've got a wii I haven't turned on in at least three years.

[hypernova]

I assume the rest of the USB loaders were the same, but cfg usb loader works fine with a cube controller.  I think I remember USB Loader GX being the same.  Never tried Wii Flow, been using CFG for years.

[yotsuya]

I use CFG, mainly because it did everything I wanted it to do the first time around.

Anyone have tips on ripping GameCube games? CFG didn't seem to recognize the one I have.

[jdbailey1206]

I was wondering the same thing but I want to rip my old ps one games.

[yotsuya]

I was wondering the same thing but I want to rip my old ps one games.

Would it even be able to read the PS1 discs?

[SavannahLion]

Sneek/Uneek seems to do it according to the feature list but I haven't figured out what the DI portion everyone mentions is.

[jdbailey1206]

I was wondering the same thing but I want to rip my old ps one games.

Would it even be able to read the PS1 discs?

I guess I was vague in what I was saying.  I would like to convert my PS One discs into *hmrf* form so that I can play them on an emulator.  Because downloading *hmrf's* is illegal.   

[pbj]

I assume the rest of the USB loaders were the same, but cfg usb loader works fine with a cube controller.  I think I remember USB Loader GX being the same.  Never tried Wii Flow, been using CFG for years.

I'm actually trying to select programs from the main splash screen without a remote, not navigate the ISO loaders.  Probably not really worth the trouble given the system isn't HD.

[yotsuya]

Anyone know of a way to boot directly into CFG Loader and bypass the Wii menu altogether? I haven't tried it but James' post right now made me think of it.

[pbj]

Looks like this would do it...



Maybe I ought to blow some dust off the thing and give it a shot....

[yotsuya]

Looks like this would do it...



Maybe I ought to blow some dust off the thing and give it a shot....

You should. Once the KADE+ dealie is done and I can use real controls on my Wii, I won't ever need to build a emulator console.