The Homebrew Channel

So I’ve had a Wii for a few years, and after years of buying games, it’s come to a point where swapping discs has become so much of a regular occurrence that the time spent swapping discs just makes it not worth it. I’m from the Steam generation that all games should be in a list where you can just select a game from the list, click and play, no discs needed, so swapping discs is made more of a pain. So here comes in USB Loader GX, a nice alternative system menu that lists all the games stored on a hard drive attached to the Wii giving me the same flexibility. However this is not an official application (for obvious reasons) so this needs letting in via some non-official channel… so bring in The Homebrew Channel.

The main content here is a guide on what I did, it’s basically a mix of a few guides from other places, put into one post so there is a clear idea on what worked at this time with everything at its current version (System Menu 4.2 on 9th June 2010). As with all unofficial modifications, this guide works today, it might not tomorrow, and your Wii might break the next day, so this is something you need to decide you are sure you are doing before you do. Decided to take the red pill? Good, let’s start this little adventure.

Section A: Prerequisites

Here is the list of what you will need to be armed with in order to get this working:

• A Wii (obviously and connected to the Internet)
• An SD Card (I used a 2GB microSD card with an adapter and it works fine)
• A USB Hard Drive
• A Computer with a SD Card Reader (to put stuff on the SD Card to get this started)

And in terms of software tools:

• Bannerbomb (Provides the way in)
• HackMii installer (for the Homebrew Channel)
• DOP-Mii (re-introduces Trucha bug and erases stub)
• cIOS v17 (v19 is newer but v17 I found to work better)
• USB Loader GX

Tools needed for Homebrewing

Step 1: Bannerbomb and HackMii

Firstly, download Bannerbomb and HackMii. Whilst you are downloading make sure your SD Card is formatted with the FAT file system (or FAT32 if using a SDHC card), an empty card is a good thing as this card will be dedicated to storing Homebrew data in the future.

Once both of these are done, extract the private directory from the Bannerbomb zip file onto your SD Card, keeping the directory structure in tact. This provides our way in to running code that makes all this possible. Also extract the HackMii boot.elf file to the root of your SD Card. Once this has been done, turn on your Wii, with the SD Card not in the drive. Then once you are at the main System Menu, select the SD Card menu. Put the SD Card into the Wii and you will see a popup saying “Load boot.dol/elf?” As we do want to load this, select Yes and you will be presented with the HackMii screen, telling you what you can (and cannot do). Install The Homebrew Channel and then select the Restart Wii/Exit option.

Once the Wii has restarted you should now see The Homebrew Channel all ready to go. It there and it’s loadable? Good, now for Step 2.

Step 2: DOP-Mii and IOS Rewriting

So your Wii now has Homebrew, congratulations. You can now access a whole world of homebrew applications on your Wii. However the aim for us is to play games off a hard drive, so we need to do a bit more cracking, so it’s time to mod some of your Wii’s IOS. If you don’t know what IOS is, this page explains it well.

Take your SD Card out of your Wii and put it back into your computer. Empty it again if you want, we won’t be using Bannerbomb and HackMii again (unless you want to use it for other things, see below). Extract the contents of the Dop-Mii zip onto your SD Card, and place it back into your Wii. Fire up The Homebrew Channel and you should see Dop-Mii tool. Open it and prepare to have fun in this tool.

Once the tool is loaded, you will need to “fix” those lovely patches that Nintendo have been pushing to stop homebrew. Firstly select “IOS36 (v3351) w/FakeSign” to reintroduce the signing bug that allows you to play backed up games, this will overwrite IOS36 with a version that it will download, and will prompt you whether you want to do something a few times. As all of this is needed, just select yes to each prompt that comes up until setup is complete. Once you get that message, you should be able to use the “Scan the Wii’s Internals (SysCheck)” option in Dop-Mii to check this is done, which should reveal a screen like this:

DOP-Mii with All Patches Applied

Now we are almost done with Dop-Mii. Back on the main menu there is an option that says IOS: 36. Change that selection so it says IOS-249 and hit A. Some options should appear giving you the chance to remove that IOS. As it is only a stub trying to stop us having homebrew fun, go ahead and remove it. Once this is done, restart the Wii, and we are now ready for cIOS.

Step 3: Custom IOS (cIOS)

Now it is time to install our own custom IOS for USB Loader GX to run off. Download cIOS and put it onto your SD card. I used version 17 because in my opinion version 19 isn’t as good, but you can make your own mind up. Once you’ve made this decision and put cIOS onto your SD Card put it back into your Wii and boot back into the Homebrew Channel. You should now find a new option for the cIOS installer, select it so we can go to work. The first thing you will probably notice is the background music, which you might like, you might not. Personally I hit mute on the TV but that’s up to you. It should auto have IOS36 selected as a version to use during installation. If it doesn’t then choose it then hit A to continue. The next option (possibly after some “it’s not my fault if I brick your Wii” message is whether to do a local installation or a network installation. For this select network as we don’t have any local files to start with. Hit A to continue and cIOS should do its work and once complete, you will have a nice Custom IOS to run all your backed up games on. All we need now is the launcher for them, USB Loader GX.

Custom IOS Installation

Step 4: USB Loader GX

If you go to USB Loader GX‘s homepage and go into the Downloads section, you will find an option for the USB Loader GX Installer. It’s a small wizard that will download all the correct files and put them in the right place. If you grab that and point it at your SD Card (put back into your PC obviously), it should all work out fine. When you go back to the Homebrew Channel you will see an option for USB Loader GX. Assuming you have a hard drive attached to the USB, selecting this should work out just fine. If it doesn’t it will just tell you that you need to attach a drive, in which case try the other USB port or try a different drive. You are now finished, go forth and enjoy the Homebrew and convience of not having to switch discs every time you want to change game Have fun exploring USB Loader GX and all it can do.

Other Stuff

This section really contains one point and one other thing you can do. The first is that the hard drive you attach has to be formatted into a a file system called WBFS (Wii Backup File System). This is basically a file system that allows you to save your game ISOs without all the padding data on the end. You will be surprised how small most games actually are (e.g. Wii Play is only 100MB I think?). If you want to add discs from your PC, you will need a tool called WBFS Manager, which will allow you to copy games to and from your PC, as well as to and from another WBFS formatted drive.

The extra note here is that if you go back to the USB Loader GX download page, you can select a WAD to isntall which gives USB Loader GX it’s own channel icon, meaning you won’t have to go throught the Homebrew Channel every time you want to change game. If you want to do this, then download this WAD and search for a WAD Manager which should do what you want. I don’t have a link to it here with me, but just search WAD Manager and you should find what you need.

The End

Now that you have a working Wii Homebrew setup with USB Loader GX, enjoy having more freedom playing games on your Wii. Remember you also have the entire Homebrew Channel at your disposal, go ahead and download the Homebrew Browser and see all the other cool stuff you’ve now unlocked!

Thanks to the following guides (and one more which I will edit in later)

• http://lifehacker.com/5342733/hack-your-wii-for-homebrew-without-twilight-princess
• http://lifehacker.com/5518518/how-to-back-up-and-play-your-wii-games-from-an-external-hard-drive
• (Some guide that told me to remove IOS249 with Dop-Mii)