Bricked Wii... need halp

So I tried upgrading to 4.0 via the Ultimate System Menu 4.0 Guide at GBATemp from a "slutty" 3.2U. I previously had HBC 1.0.1 installed, the HackMii installer upgraded HBC to 1.0.3. I installed BootMii to boot2, backed up my NAND and let it verify, "downgraded" IOS and CIOS to 3.2U again (to clean stuff up as recommended) and installed Preloader. It all worked fine until I tried to install 4.0 via Waninkoko's network updater. It upgraded Photo Channel, Shopping, Photo v1.1, got to IOS55 and gave either a ret=-1 or ret=1 error and stopped and prompted me to restart. I restarted, BootMii came up but selecting the Wii system menu or HBC from BootMii goes straight to a black screen. I don't believe I have a video signal when the screen's black because I can see the "Video 1" display shaking a bit. I can power the Wii on via Wiimote so I don't think it's the Bluetooth.

With the SD card with the "Ultimate" software and BootMii inserted, if I power on, the BootMii screen displays. If I choose Wii or HBC, it goes straight to the black screen. If I power on with reset held, it attempts to go into HBC (I can see the HBC icon selected in BootMii for a second) and then goes to the black screen.

Without a SD card with BootMii on it, on power up, it goes directly to the black screen. If I hold reset while powering on, same thing, black screen. At *no* time do I see Preloader although I'm certain it installed because I installed it twice, the first time I didn't see the "successful" message before Preloader ran, so I wanted to be sure and reinstalled again.

I've tried loading Maintenance Mode via + and -, I've tried recovery mode with a disassembled GC controller, it all does the same thing, goes to a black screen. I backed up and formatted the SD card and reloaded the "Ultimate" software from scratch, doesn't do anything, doesn't boot BootMii unless I have the BootMii folder on the SD card. Tried restoring the NAND from my backup, no change.

When I try running elfs and dols from the SD menu in BootMii, it stops for 2-3 seconds and goes back out to the main menu with the SD card selected. I tried running the HackMii installer and Preloader installer executables from it, it just drops back out to the main menu.

Any ideas, anything else for me to try? :(



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2009 10:23PM by Arikado.

Bootmii cannot run ELF's and DOL's designed to run under IOS.

*sigh* this is why its called GBAFail. and this is why we dont use Wanikoko fail. you have been bricked. even if you had preloader, i dont think it would work because it is uninstalled by any upgrade. but if your nand dump restore doesnt work, you're screwed. send it to nintendo.

Hmm. I've used that sameguide before on my original Wii with no problems. Something obviously went wrong somewhere in the process. Did you follow the instruction thoroughly? The official 4.0U update through Nintendo can be decently hacked as well to allow certain functionalities. I would know. I used a completely different procedure this time around cause this new Wii wouldn't allow me to downgrade my IOS' using the methods like before. Hmm. So you can get too bootmii, but not HBC? I would think that Bootmii would be the key ingredient during moments like what you're experiencing. I'm trying to think of what I would do if this happened to me. I wouldn't send it to Nintendo just yet. Are you sure you ran the full backup process and not just the simulation? Odd.

Maybe you got a zero byte backup. That appears to be a semi-common bug with BootMii. It says it has done a backup, but when it is examined on computer it is actually zero bytes in size. Check that. And to the guy above - yes something went wrong. He said that in his original post.

Quote
dole2
gave either a ret=-1 or ret=1 error and stopped and prompted me to restart

Positive I ran the full backup and not just the simulation. Backing up, it found 4 bad blocks and I know that's not unusual. I did check the backup file on the card and it looked to be ~542MB. One thing that I thought was peculiar was it that while it was restoring from backup, it only did certain blocks and skipped a lot, I would've expected to do the whole thing regardless but I guess that's just the way it works. I'm going to try restoring from the same backup again and cross my fingers but I'm not expecting much.

And yeah, it'll boot BootMii just fine, will not launch HBC from there. Have no clue why since HackMii installer was successful and I ran the rest of the downgrading through it with plenty of reboots in between. Not sending it in just yet, will wait a few more days and see if anyone has anything else to try out. :/ I know it's getting bleaker. :(



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2009 10:33PM by dole2.

Bootmii only restores blocks that were modified since the backup. Try checking the settings menu from Bootmii. Tell us what system info it displays, as well as FS usage. There's currently no software to install sysmenu and HBC under MINI, so there's no way to fix your Wii.(Especially since the NAND restore failed)

Well, I just tried restoring NAND again, no change. Here's some more info.

BootMii/Stub/Mini v0.9
SysMenu: unknown boot1b boot2v2
NAND FS usage 3.3%

Restore Simulation:
Will erase 27456 pages (429 blocks)
Will write 25368 pages

Actual:
Erased 28544 pages (446 blocks)
Wrote 1152 pages.

After a 3rd run, it only wrote 128 pages.

Every single block (except for 2) it identifies as green/processed in simulation turns black during the actual restore. Not sure if this is by design, but considering how many pages it actually wrote... they're probably bad.

Another bad indicator I found in the HackMii installer.log on the SD...
Found IOS 4: revision: 0x3.
WARNING: ECC failure at page 138
... (every page in between 138 and 447)
WARNING: ECC failure at page 447

:(

Woah! It looks like a good portion of your NAND has been deleted! Basically everything but BootMii must be gone.

This might be fixable once a program is developed to run on MINI that can install IOSes and the System Menu.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2009 10:08PM by MattMan.

Quote
MattMan
This might be fixable once a program is developed to run on MINI that can install IOSes and the System Menu.

Can this be done by using cBoot2 via Bootmii to run some programs that will do this ?

Yes, but I wasn't going to mention this as he can't run the installer, which is the only way to legally obtain the modified armboot.bin.

EDIT: Wait, dole2, you can run the installer on a friend's Wii and then transfer the custom armboot.bin to your own Wii! From there you can reinstall IOS30 and the System Menu.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2009 03:41AM by MattMan.

Nand FS: 3.3%... Sys Menu: Unknown.... I am beginning to see a pattern

EDIT: I don't think cBoot2 would work, but it's worth a try



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2009 08:09AM by metroid_maniac.

Quote
metroid_maniac
Nand FS: 3.3%... Sys Menu: Unknown.... I am beginning to see a pattern

Good call. We should all try to pay attention to such things.

Quote
MattMan
Yes, but I wasn't going to mention this as he can't run the installer, which is the only way to legally obtain the modified armboot.bin.

EDIT: Wait, dole2, you can run the installer on a friend's Wii and then transfer the custom armboot.bin to your own Wii! From there you can reinstall IOS30 and the System Menu.

Thanks for the reply... I'll give it try. Found a armboot.bin that was part of someone's BootMii install, so I'm crossing my fingers until I get home from work. Sincere thanks for all who've posted so far or at least read the thread.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2009 06:45PM by dole2.

It would need to be the cBoot2 armboot.bin, not the one created by BootMii.

Hey ive had a similar brick/problem almost excactly the same i was told to hold reset and hit menu and then boot anyregion changer from preloader

difference here - this guy doesnt have preloader installed.

Quote
MattMan
It would need to be the cBoot2 armboot.bin, not the one created by BootMii.

so if i'm reading you right, someone would've had to install cBoot2 on their Wii's SD, it'll generate the armboot.bin there and that's the one I need to use, correct?

A little tougher to dig up... both a physical friend or a completed cBoot2 install on the tubes. :/

It's likely your NAND FS was formatted, basically deleting everything on it.(Except for /sys files) cBoot2 won't help if that happened. To confirm this, dump NAND again,(copying the previous dump before the brick occured, to your PC if you haven't already done so) and extract SFFS from 0x20be0000 - 0x21000000.(With a hex editor) Then upload it and then either post/PM the link.

Seems likely it was formatted too. I finally got around to redumping and the whole range looks as barren as the Octomom's uterus: 00, FF, FE, or FC. Just for giggles, here's the dump:

[www.megaupload.com]

Unless there's been any fantastic new developments in the past week, I'mma prepare to send it to big N. :(

Edit: there any other hardmod possibilities to fix this? I'd rather fix it with a hardmod than have to send it in. Not worried about what N will find on it, just prefer spending the money on something better than a simple fix.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2009 04:36PM by dole2.