Wii softmod (no mod chip)

[Galelor]

A certain someone just hacked his Wii to play burned (backed up) Wii games... Multi-region... And it will do a ton of other stuff, including playing DVDs...

I would be willing to post the resources I used if anyone else was wanting to give it a shot. It took me about 8-10 hours to figure it out with the walk through stuff posted on-line (most of the time was spent trying to figure out how to ad hoc the Wii to the internet through my laptop since I didn't have a working wireless router... Bad me...) I think I'll be able to do it in about 20 minutes for my friend down the street, and it will take a first timer about 2 hours with the same resources I used (but they would all be compiled into one spot...)

I just downloaded 8 games from rapidshare. I have only burned and tested one, but I highly anticipate the others to will work without issue...


Let me know if anyone is interested in learning how to soft mod their Wii.

[Peon25]

This will be of great interest to me once you find out how to burn Xbox 360 games to DVD and play them!

[tropon]

Yea i would be interested. It would give me a reason to dust off my wii again since i never play anymore

[Galelor]

This will be of great interest to me once you find out how to burn Xbox 360 games to DVD and play them!

search online, there are softmods for xbox 360 :p

[Galelor]

I just did the softmod to my Wii over the weekend. I have firmware version 3.4U and burned games are working fine. These are the websites I used for assistance/guidance:

Homebrew setup walk through-

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http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/735325

Wii Fix Guide so you don't need to roll back your firmware (but there is a firmware rollback guide if you insist on doing it...)-

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http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=112945

How to help protect from region bricking-

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http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/523776

General Wii hacking overview-

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http://www.wiiguide.co.cc/

Another link for general Wii hacking. I am going to be using their guides for backing up games-

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http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/662149

As of today, here are all the tools required in those links (outside of the Zelda game, and an SD card...) (FYI I read not to use an SD card larger than 2gig due to larger cards actually functioning differently on a root level and therefore not being compatible with the Wii):

Homebrew channel + Wii fix install files I used-

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http://rapidshare.com/files/196043505/Wii_Fix_Tools.rar

Anti-brick utility to be run on .iso prior to burning to dvd-

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http://rapidshare.com/files/196042367/WiiBrickBlocker_v1_3R2.rar

Wii duplicate channel remover (I have not had to use this yet)-

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http://rapidshare.com/files/196042392/16803_WiiDCR_v2.1_USA.zip

A .wad creator without the "commom-key.bin" which is said to be a required file (I have not used this yet, and if i knew what a commom-key.bin was, I would have provided it in the link.)-

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http://rapidshare.com/files/196047325/WADder_v1.zip

I am not a pro at this, but these are some helpful terms/hints that I have learned during my experience:

Bricking your Wii - This means breaking your Wii, and turning it into a worthless brick. IE- BAD...

apps folder- The apps folder on the SD card will show as programs in the homebrew channel.

.wad- After initial setup, usually when a .wad file is installed it will be installed to create a new Channel on the Wii. This new channel is a shortcut to applications in the apps folder.

Removing a channel- You need the .wad file to remove a channel. Don't delete your .wad files from the SD card if you still have the wii channel that was installed using the .wad...

Region- The geographical region your Wii firmware is from. USA= "NTSC(U)", Japan= "NTSC(J)", and Europe= "PAL".

Game Region- Just like your Wii, the games can have a region. Sometimes the game will force your Wii to DL firmware from the region written on the game. This can brick your Wii. Check out the anti-brick utility, and anti brick web link earlier in this post.

Anti-Brick utility- This will not always work, but works a good portion of the time for playing games of a different region than your Wii.

Media- The type of DVD on which you burn games. I am using the cheapest DVD (both + and -) that I can find.

Burning games- prior to burning games, run the anti brick utility. I burn using Nero. I select "make data dvd", and then I select "disc image or saved project". This will burn a disc from a .iso which is already saved on your hard drive.

SD Card- I read not to use an SD card larger than 2gig due to larger cards actually functioning differently, on a root level, and therefore not being compatible with the Wii. I am currently using and SD Micro card inside a full size SD converter case.


Again, I am not a pro and have only done this once, but I will be using this post to assist several friends with their consoles. I hope this post helps people save some time when attempting to softmod their Wii.

[tropon]

sweet thanks prolly gonna try this weekend

[Galelor]

NP, just let me know if you need any help.

[Civin]

Hrm.. I wonder where I put my wii... this could tempt me to take it out to play mario galaxy or paper mario

[Galelor]

I have DLed 20 games... I have played 3...