Bootmii Newb

So, a number of months back, i thought that i had checked to see if i could install bootmii as boot2 only to discover that i could only do it as IOS. I thought this was odd because i had a first gen wii and thought that the early wiis could all be done to boot2, but i moved on and just kinda skipped over this forum.

ON A WHIM, i decided to "double check" this last weekend and turns out I CAN install it as boot2. so after i got finished doing my happy dance, i did it, backed up my NAND, and stored it in a safe place.

Then i came here to catch up on all the posts that i had missed out for the last 4 months but I couldn't seem to find anything on one of the questions i had.

The only thing i need to restore are the two files made during the dump process right?
keys.bin
nand.bin

now that i'm safe and backed up, i feel a little better about tinkering with some of the more risky (yet still legal of course) things... but i quickly realized that most all of the risky stuff i was avoiding is just the illegal stuff.

Any recommendations for a newly minted boot2 guy?

That's all you need to recover from a brick yes.

And as for risky stuff to try, I dunno really, I guess you could mess with banners and themes (both legally of course), if that sort of thing interests you, making and applying System Menu patches if you're that sort of person (i.e. good at reverse engineering stuff etc.), dump random files from NAND and see what happens when you edit them then flash them back onto NAND, stuff like that.

It may also be a good idea to try out SNEEK when it gets released (I think it'll be soon ;) ), as that stops you from getting bricked, as opposed to just being able to recover from a brick.

Well, you can basically do anything with your Wii and still restore it, as long as you ensure you don't overwrite the first few sectors of the NAND... So, do whatever the hell you like :p

Yes, you only need keys.bin and nand.bin (the former being your Wii's encryption keys so bootmii knows it came from your Wii, and nand.bin being the actual dump). You'll probably also want to keep the bootmii files (ppcboot.bin et al), as those are difficult to get hold of without a Wii.

My recomendation is to use the legal and "risky" stuff and have fun. I bet Linux through MINI would be a good idea too.