waninkoko's 4-3b safe updater bricked a Wii! T__T

Ok, so... right to the point.

A friend of mine decided he wanted to update from 4.1U to 4.3U Told him a million times no, gave him reasons why not to... fast forward several days later, he tells me he bricked his Wii.

He said he used waninkoko's "SAFE" updater 4.3b for the process, after which he supposedly got an error near the end that only appeared briefly, after which he got a black screen. A reboot later, he was automatically thrown into PREloader, from where he tried getting into the System Menu. He then got the "System Files Corrupt" message and has been like that ever since.

I decided to take this case to the good fellows over at #wiihelp and have made some progress which will be detailed in the next post by Sonicdude41.

I thank you in advance for any insight you may have on the subject.

When I was told about how he had bricked with the 4.3 "safe" updater (lol safe), I had no clue I would be in for a rough time.

We initially noticed that it would boot the Recovery Menu instead of the System Menu. From there, we were able to make note of the System Menu version (which was 4.1U). Our first thought was that the fail updater installed, but the IOS was missing, so it was from here that me and geekboy helped him to get IOS80 on there. To do THIS, however, we had to make use of Preloader 0.29's Install/Load File function to install the DOP-Mii .dol, install IOS80, and hope that it would work.

Our next boot brought us to the Recovery Menu again, but we figured out that Preloader hacks were enabled, likely causing this to happen. After disabling them, we got the Wii to boot to the Health Warning screen. However, it froze, which led us to believe that a banner brick was the source of the problem. But since we didn't know what channels were on there, I instructed him to use Gecko OS's Launch Channel menu, which listed nearly all the channels and allowed us to workaround this problem. I then told him to launch each channel, to see if any of them had problems booting up; I then concluded that if this happened with certain channels, those ones would be the ones causing the banner brick.

Tonight, me and hunterm gathered each channel's ID from the Title database on the wiki and instructed him to delete the Photo Channel, Mii Channel, VC and WiiWare games -- just in case any of them caused the problem. But of course, we hit a dead end.

I now have reason to believe that it's something within the System Menu and the IOSes on the Wii itself. If that's the case, then it's simply a matter of loading DOP-Mii, reinstalling everything, and making everything work again. But, hunterm, geekboy, and I are afraid that doing this will eliminate Preloader, and ultimately leave us with a permanently bricked Wii. Me having BootMii/boot2 installed, I tried to see if I could recreate this problem by doing everything his friend did to explore possible solutions -- but of course, I was not successful in doing this.

We have spent 3 nights trying to fix this, exhausting nearly everything at our disposal, and are running out of ideas. I have directed Magil to this forum in hopes of us getting a solution. Help?



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2010 11:13AM by Sonicdude41.

I'm guessing either an issue with the system menu or message board data corruption. I suggest starting off by reinstalling the system menu. First, though, we need to make sure that you still have Priiloader afterward.

I assume you already have cIOS 249, but if you don't you must install it now. Next, install Priiloader. Finally, run DOP-Mii on cIOS 249, install IOS 60, then install system menu 4.1U. Make sure to have DOP-Mii restore Priiloader after it installs the system menu (it is only able to do this when running on cIOS, which is why you needed to install it).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2010 04:42PM by jbc007.

Ok, so far... installation of Priiloader was completed succsefully. After which, my friend was instructed to run DOP-Mii, but accidentally loaded Gecko OS, which upon exiting somehow threw him into HBC. Yay (weird, but yay!). From there, he launched DOP-Mii, and proceeded to installing IOS60, then System Menu 4.1U, while backing up and then restoring Priiloader.

Then testing ensued... and while it appeared that bannerbrick was no longer in effect (Press A message at Health Check reappeared), we'd get a black screen after pressing A.

Ok.

Then he went into Priiloader, chose Launch Title and checked out what titles appeared: 2 News channels, 2 Forecast Channels, 1 Wii Shop channel, SSF 2 Turbo, PWAA JFA and HBC with JODI ID. Sonicdude41 has now hit another dead end. He says it's still most likely a bannerbrick, but we don't know where to go from here.

Help?

Well, we installed a new System Menu and its corresponding IOS, and unfortunately, THAT failed. Since we've nearly gone through everything available to us, I'm willing to bet that it's Message Board data corruption, as a previous user mentioned. Why? Well, he can access Maintenance Mode, which we know disables Message Board functionality.

Since this is the case, wouldn't a system format do the trick, or would it get rid of Priiloader?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2010 11:21PM by Sonicdude41.

Message board corruption it is then. As you suggested, a system format should take care of it. This will not remove Priiloader.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2010 12:47AM by jbc007.

As expected, it worked and he can load the System Menu normally again. This can be finally put to rest. :D