Thread: Wii Hacking, for dummies. 4.0+

This will allow you to play Wii ISO's from an external hard drive or thumb drive!

This guide assumes you do NOT have the homebrew channel installed on your wii.

***** Want to load GameCube games as well? Scroll to the bottom



Let's get started!

This guide is for version 4.0 or higher. Please download or have physical materials ready to go to save yourself time.

What you will need :
SD Card (Prefer 2GB)
Banner Bomb - http://wiisixtyfour.webs.com/bannerbomb/bannerbomb.htm
If your wii is V4.2 use banner bomb - http://bannerbomb.qoid.us/index.new.php
HackMii Installer - http://bootmii.org/download/
4.0NoCIOSfix.rar - http://www.mediafire.com/?jyfdjjjznt2
USB Loader GX - http://usbloadergx.koureio.net/downloads
WBFS Manager - http://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=26808
Wii WAD manager - http://www.teknoconsolas.es/blog/waninkoko/wad-manager-v14
cIOS Installer v1.4 - http://www.filecrop.com/cIOS-Installer-Rev14.html (Thanks poster)
And last, your external hard drive.

Now, onto the installations.

1) Make sure you have downloaded all items listed above!

2) Plug your SD card into your computer and format it. Regardless if you just bought it or not, format it. You do this by going to my computer, right click your XD card, and choose format (for you REAl dummies )

3) Unzip Banner Bomb that you downloaded to your desktop. Copy the Private folder to the root of the SD card. Make sure this is the only thin gon your SD card.

4) Unzip the HackMii to your desktop. Rename the file Installer.elf to boot.elf

5) Place Boot.elf into the root of the SD card.

6) Verify you have the folder Private and the file Boot.elf in your SD card.

7) Now, take your SD card and put it in your pocket for now, do not put it in your wii yet. Turn on your wii, go to Data Management > Channels > SD. Ok, NOW put the SD card into the Wii. It will do one of two things, it will either freeze or pop up "Load boot.elf?"

8) Then install the Homebrew Channel, DVDx, and BootMii.

Ok, now that you have the homebrew channel and othergoodies installed, it is time to get your CIOS fix.

9) Now that you are through with the files you used to install your homebrew channel, take your SD card and put it back into your computer. Format your SD card, again.

10) Unzip 4.0NoCIOSFix to your desktop, move ALL contents onto your SD card.

11) Open your SD card through my Computer and open the apps folder. Create a foled called WAD Manager

12) Now extract your WAD Manager to your desktop. Rename the WAD-Manager_v1.4.dol to boot.dol

13) Place boot.dol in the WAD Manager folder in the Apps>WAD Manager folder you had created.

14) Remove your SD card from your PC and put it in the Wii. Start it up and go to your Homebrew Channel.

15) You should see an option to run CMDVDX34, run it. Exit when finished.

16) Next, run the WAD Manager 1.4 from the Homebrew Channel and use it to install IOS35.wad. If it fails, don't worry, just means its installed already. Continue.

17) Run the WAD Manager again from your Homebrew Channel and use it to install CIOSv7 (MAKE SURE YOU SET THE WAD MANAGER TO USE IOS35!!!)

18) The hard shit is over BG! Time to install cIOS!

19) Unzip the cIOS[Version]-isntaller.zip and rename cIOS[Version]-Installer.dol to boot.dol

20) Plug your SD card into your PC again and open the Apps folder within your SD card.

21) Create a folder called cIOS and move the boot.dol file above into it.

22) Remove the SD card and put it back into your wii. Launch your Homebrew Channel and launch the cIOS application. Follwo isntructions on there for installation. Choose the Internet Installation if you have a wireless connection.

If all isntalls successfully it is time to move on to install the actual USB Loader!

23) Unzip the USB Loader GX to your desktop. The folder should be called apps that you unzip so just open it and copy the folder called usbloader_gx to the apps folder on your SD card.

24) Now launch the WAD Manager on your wii and install USB Loader.

25) Almost done BG! Grats you are almost able to play Wii games fromy our external hard drive!

26) Now, we are going to format your external hard drive. If you want to partition your external hard drive so you don't have wasted space you would rather use for other storage, PM me and I will give you details on how to format a hard drive into multiple partitions

27) Install the WBFS Manager you downloaded earlier. And let it finish (should take seconds)

28) Plug your external hard drive, or thumb drive into your PC. Right click on my computer, go to Manage. Click Disk Management, right click on the drive you want to use for your wii games and choose Delete Volume.

29) No right click on the drive again, and click New. Assign a drive letter and choose NOT TO FORMAT the drive when you create your new partition. This is because most of the time you can only format in NTFS when you cannot xonvert an NTFS drive to WBFS (Wii drive).

30) Now that you have a RAW drive, open WBFS Manage that you just installed.

31) Select the drive you just assigned a letter to (your external) and choose Format. If all goes well then you are done!!!!!

32) CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU CAN FOLLOW DIRECTIONS AND HACK YOUR WII IN 10 MINUTES!!!!

Just giving a shout out to Mike and Heth, I learned how to do this from them (OpenDNS) just their instructions were a little long winded so I revised it a bit for dummies.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me. Upcoming tutorials, How to Partition an external hard drive and how to properly burn Xbox 360 Games.

Ok So how do I play my downloaded games?

Simple.

First, you open WBFS Manager from your PC. Load the ISO's of the games you are wanting to move onto your hard drive. Select Move to Drive in WBFS Manager and viola they are on your hard drive.

Plug your external drive into your wii and run usb loader and MAGIC! THERE IT IS! ALL YOUR GAMES WOOHOO!

Some cool features to USB loader

Backing up games you already own or rent! You can actually RIP games from the physical disk using your wii!!!!

In the USB Loader program, insert your disk, and select rip game! it takes 2-3 hours but its well worth it if you are too afraid or dont have enough ratio to download!

Download Box Art through the internet! in the USB Loader interface you will have the option to download box art off the itnernet, it searches for the image for you! Do it!


Gamecube loader http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_Gamecube_Homebrew_Launcher

That's amazing. I've got all the materials, except a 2 GB SD card. I'll find one somewhere.