Japanese Wii Semi-Bricked?

Hey there guys, I'm new to the forums and I am in dire need of help (I apologize that I haven't introduced myself, but I am in a really frustrating situation right now :( )

I brought in a Japanese Wii off of eBay, it's a genuine Japanese one at that, but first thing I noticed when I pressed the Eject button, a game, burned onto a DVD-R disc popped out, and when I popped it back in, it loaded up from the Wii Menu(Like it normally would), so I figured this was chipped? Since I couldn't find any trace of Homebrew whatsoever, and it was odd that there were 2 News Channels as well.

I tried to access the Wii settings to see what firmware it was running on, and I sadly ended up with this Opera Help Error, so I have no idea what to do from here. I just want a Japanese Wii, I'm not wanting to do any modifications with it whatsoever, so please, can someone help me out here? I'd really appreciate it, thank you very much.

If you require any other information or pictures, then please feel free to ask. I'm not much in the know about all the Homebrew and such, so please bare with me.

P.S. - I DO NOT want a Wii that's modified, and I'm not planning to do such a thing either. I actually only wanted a Japanese Wii to play some Japanese imports which I can to be getting in soon.

Sounds like someone botched up a region change. Either it was a Japanese wii and they tried to change it to US, or vice versa. (Or PAL instead of US, depending where you are). What you now have is what's known as a "semi brick". I'll try and post back tomorrow to help more, I'm on a tablet right now that is a bit of a pain to type on.

As for the burnt disc, that's either a modchip as you suggested or one of several software modifications, each of which is known to cause problems and are frowned upon here. Again, I'll try be more helpful tomorrow if no one else has helped by then.

Ok, thank you so much. And I AM still seeing the Menu's and such in Japanese, so I guess it was a failed attempt or something? And I really appreciate the help. If there's anyway for me to remove the modchip permanently or whatever's causing it (So I can get back my genuine Japanese Wii that I've wanted) then please let me know. Thank you ^^

Do you have an sd menu at the bottom of the channel menu? Put bannerbomb v2 on the sd card with the hackmii installer, try to load hackmii via bannerbomb v2. If it loads, great, install HBC and bootmii, make a nand backup. Then run syscheck from the HBC, this will tell you what region your wii settings are and what system menu you have installed. At that point you have two choices, install the system menu matching the region settings or install the region settings of your choice, it does not matter, you just need to decide what region you want the wii to be.

I know you don't want to have a modded wii, but fixing it requires you to use homebrew. It may be possible to fix be using savemiifrii and inserting a game of proper region with higher system menu. This is not the simple way.

You will be able to uninstall homebrew once you're done.

Hi there, yes there is an SD Card menu there too. And ok, I'll get in an SD Card and try it out and let you know how it goes, thank you.

Hmm, can you guys link me to the appropriate pages please? ^^; I'm a little cautious on where to look for them ^^

If you get stuff from the wiibrew wiki at [www.wiibrew.org] you'll be fine. I can't post specific links right now, still on my tablet. If you need them I'll post them later.

EDIT: OK, links:

Bannerbomb: [bannerbomb.qoid.us]
HackMii Installer: [bootmii.org]
SysCheck: [wiibrew.org] (or GX version here: [wiibrew.org] - I don't think there should be any difference in the function of these) [I'm not really sure SysCheck is actually needed. If you just post the file "HackMii.log" from the root of your SD card after running HackMii Installer, we should be able to work enough out from that without using SysCheck. I just include these links for completeness]

You will need other stuff later, but until we know exactly what state your Wii is in, I think that shoudl suffice. If you need help being able to use Bannerbomb to run the HackMii Installer and install HBC, you may find this guide helpful: [wiisixtyfour.webs.com] - follow the link for "bannerbomb" in the section when you choose your exploit.

EDIT: And to add some more usefulness to my earlier posts:

A semi-brick occurs when you install a System Menu from a different region, but don't change the region settings on the Wii first. So the Wii still expects, for example, a US System Menu, but the one installed is Japanese, and certain files are then in a different location, which is what leads to the problems. (e.g. being unable to access Settings). There's a page on WiiBrew for bricks (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Bricks), but there isn't much more info on semi-bricks there.

Basically, as mauifrog said, the way to fix is either: (i) install the System Menu that matches the region settings, or (ii) change the region settings to match the System Menu

As you want a Japanese Wii in the end, the later would most likely be what is in order (it sounds like you have a Wii with Japanese SM, but with US/EU settings - so you'd want to change the settings to Japanese; this can be done with homebrew, but I'll wait till we're sure that is what is necessary before advising further on that)

And the burnt discs: Either, as you suggested, there is a modchip installed OR the previous owner installed either "DarkCorp" or "cIOScorp", both of which are messy modifications which replace every IOS in the Wii (IOS are system files that control the hardware of the Wii, they also implement the security - they can be patched to allow burnt discs. Usually, only one or two IOS are patched in this way, leaving the rest intact, but meaning you must use a special loader to load burnt discs. The corp modifications patch every IOS in the Wii, which is a really bad idea because it causes a bunch of problems etc.).

If it's a modchip, you could probably just leave it and not have any problems. If it's one of the corps, you should be able to remove it with a little help from us. But again, we need to be sure either way before instructing you. The HackMii log will give a definite indication either way.

Sorry for the huge post, there was a lot to get in there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2012 05:10PM by SifJar.

you can look at the opera error and get a decent idea of how the system menu is botched. it should say something like "marc:bla/bla/bla.html was not found in the archive". all the system menu versions come with the translation file for japanese, and the text showing up in that language is no indication that you really have a japanese console or system menu.

the issue you have sounds like you are having the simi brick issue here [hackmii.com] .the path after the "marc:" is determined by the AREA setting in the setting.txt. each system menu is able to generate the path, but each system menu does not actually have the data that belongs to the path. so, if you install a USA system menu, and have your AREA set to japan, the US system menu will try to load "JP/JP/JPN/index01.html" and fail since it doesnt contain the data for that path. installing the jap system menu over top of that one should fix the issue.

if you see it trying to load "FIX/US/ENG/index01.html", then it would be a non-usa system menu but the AREA setting would be USA. you could very well have a japanese system menu installed, but they didnt change the setting.txt to match it. in this case, it wouldnt matter if you installed the jap system menu 100 times, it would still give you this same error. you need to make the AREA setting match the installed system menu.

Ok guys, thank you for all the help you've been providing me with up until now. I'm going to go a head and order the SD Card right now, so please bare with me a couple of days and keep your eyes on this thread please? I would really appreciate it, thank you ^^

Oh guys, I've just confirmed; PAL and NTSC games DO NOT work on the Wii, but oddly enough, that Burned game on the DVD-R disc works. I hope you can use this information to help me out, thank you guys. I'm still waiting for the SD Card to come in, I really don't want to be spending money on it, but I have no choice, I guess.

This is odd, I just tried to launch the SD Card menu with the Bannerbomb v2 on the root of the SD Card, with the contents of the Hack Mii installer and I got an this:

Error #004
An error has occured
The System Files are Corrupted

I think I've done something wrong?

Ok, I've tried all of the bannerbomb's to try and get them to launch, but I keep getting that same error, right before the SD Card loads the contents. I'm absolutely stuck on what to do right now, please help me out guys, thank you



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2012 11:35PM by Kenshin999.

The Wii has System Menu 4.3, which blocks bannerbomb v2. This will be harder, but not impossible. You need to find a way to run Super Smash Bros Brawl. Once you do, use the Smash Stack exploit, found here: [wiibrew.org] (use the version for whatever region of the game you can get to boot).

What version of Super Smash Bros Brawl shall I get in? (PAL/NTSC/JP?)

EDIT: Managed to find a JP version of Super Smash Brothers Brawl, I should have it in next week if I manage to win it for a decent price. I hope you can assist me every step a long the way, as I'm most likely to find it confusing. Thank you for all the help you've provided with me up until now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2012 06:04PM by Kenshin999.

It'll have to be a copy of the game from whichever region you can currently boot on the Wii. If it can currently boot original Japanese discs, that copy of the game will be fine. If not, you'll need a different copy I'm afraid. And we'll give as much assistance as possible.

Heya, sorry I randomly disappeared like that. Decided to get rid of the Japanese Wii and get a genuine PAL one, but thank you for the assistance, if I do ever come across one like that again, I'll be prepared for next time ^^