What You’ll Need

A Few Hardware Recommendations

**Wii PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE: I would highly recommend that everyone TURN OFF their Wii Connect 24. I actually had the (inconvenient) experience of having the Wii network card get hot enough to damage the Wii GPU (graphics card). This resulted in irreparable and annoying black/white pixelation. This hardware flaw is *not* officially recognized by Nintendo, but is a common issue, please see this site for more information. After sending my original unit back to Nintendo (and paying $80 since it was out of their warranty period), I was given a brand-new unit with all of my save-games and other information intact. Disabling Wii Connect 24 will both prevent you from downloading/installing updates to the Wii System Menu before you’re ready, and it will prevent your Wii from the above-referenced damage. Please do not chalk this up to internet rumor – the overheating issue exists, and it makes the Wii almost unplayable. Other references to the “Wii Black Dots of Death”: GameSpot Forums, NeoGaf, nintendic. Joystiq, and a YouTube video that does a pretty good job of showing what it looks like **

Step 1: Confirm that you have the System Menu 4.0 installed

The big feature enhancement in the Wii System Menu 4.0 was the addition of the SD Card icon on the channels page, and the ability to use an SD Card for storage (both for wiiware and save games). Unfortunately, the traditional way to hack the Wii for homebrew (the Twilight Princess hack) was completely disabled in this update. Until recently, there was no easy way to install the Homebrew Channel on the 4.0 system menu, but all that changed a few weeks ago with the release of the Banner Bomb. You can easily tell whether or not you have the 4.0 system menu by looking at your Wii channels page. If it looks like this:

WIth the SD Card Menu, then yes, you do in fact have the 4.0 Menu. If not, head back over to my original post and follow the instructions there.

When Nintendo updated to the 4.0 Menu, they completely disabled the traditional way to hack the Wii for homebrew (RIP Twilight Princess hack…you served us well…). In response, an alternative (and easier) method of installing homebrew was developed and released within a few weeks.

• Go here and download the HackMii installer.
• Go here and download the Banner Bomb exploit.
• Plug your SD Card into your computer and back it up if necessary. Now wipe it completely clean – there should be no other files on the card.
• Unzip the folder from the Banner Bomb download. It should extract to a folder called private with a bunch of stuff inside. Copy the private folder to your SD Card . Make sure that you don’t have any other private folders on the card!
• Unzip the folder from the HackMii download. Inside you will find a file called Installer.elf. Rename that file to boot.elf.
• Place the HackMii boot.elf file into the root of your SD Card . Now you should only have boot.elf and the private folder in the root of the card.
• **Don’t put the SD Card into the Wii yet!!!** Turn on your Wii and go to Data Management->Channels->SD. Now put the SD Card into the Wii. It will either freeze, or it will pop up with ‘Load boot.elf?’.
• Follow the instructions to continue installing. You’ll want to install all 3 elements (the Homebrew Channel, DVDX and BootMii). DVDX opens up the Wii drive for reading regular DVDs. BootMii will offer some additional safeguards against bricking your console.

**NOTE: if you have trouble with the Banner Bomb freezing, go to this site to troubleshoot. Most people will be able to use aad1f_v108, but there are alternative files to try if that doesn’t work for you**

OK – excellent. Now you should have the Homebrew Channel installed. Be sure to read my post detailing the best and most essential homebrew applications. Now you can easily install them!

Step 3: Get your IOS in Order and Ready to Install cIOS36

This step is absolutely essential to getting things in working order for the USB drive hacks.

• Grab your SD Card and plug it into your computer
• Backup your SD Card if necessary and wipe it completely clean (there should be no other files on it)
• Go here and download the WAD Manager v1.4.
• Go here and download the 4.0NoCIOSfix.rar file.
• Extract 4.0NoCIOSFix and put its contents on your SD Card (there is an apps folder and a wad folder).
• Inside of the apps folder, create a folder called ‘WAD Manager’ (the path should be apps\WAD Manager)
• Extract the WAD Manager 1.4 file and rename WAD-Manager_v1.4.dol to boot.dol
• Place the WAD Manager boot.dol into the apps\WAD Manager folder
• You should now have an apps folder with CMDVDX34, WMIOS35 and WAD Manager folders in it
• Put your SD Card back into your Wii and start up the Homebrew Channel
• Run CMDVDX34 to downgrade your IOS and exit when finished
• Run the WAD Manager 1.4 from the Homebrew Channel and use it to install IOS35.wad (if this fails, it means it’s already installed. Don’t worry about it, just continue).
• Run the WAD Manager 1.4 from the Homebrew Channel and use it to install CIOSv7.wad. NOTE: Make sure to set the WAD Manager to use IOS35!

• Go here and download the cIOS36_rev10 zip file. If that link is down, you should be able to get it here. If both links are down – check Waninkoko’s site.
• Unzip the cIOS36_rev10-installer.zip file and re-name the file called cIOS36_rev10-Installer.dol to boot.dol
• Plug in the SD Card that you typically use for Homebrew on the Wii (the SD Card that is used by the Homebrew Channel to load applications) and go into the apps folder
• Create a new folder called cIOS36_rev10 on your SD Card and copy the boot.dol file from above into it. You should now have the cIOS36_rev10 boot.dol file inside apps\cIOS36_rev10.
• Plug the SD Card into your Wii and launch the Homebrew Channel. You should see an application in there for your cIOS36_rev10. Load that application and follow the instructions on the installer. Choose the internet installation if you have a wireless connection.

**NOTE: if you don’t have an internet connection – I’m not sure how you install cIOS36_rev10. From what I gather, it’s a bit more complicated because you need special IOS files (per version) in the root of your SD Card . Save yourself the hassle and just use the internet install**

• Go here to download the USB Loader 1.5. If that link doesn’t work, check Waninkoko’s site (he is the author of the software) for a different download link.
• Unzip the SDUSB-Loader_v1.5.zip file and re-name the file called SDUSB-Loader_v1.5.dol to boot.dol
• Plug in the SD Card that you typically use for Homebrew on the Wii (the SD Card that is used by the Homebrew Channel to load applications) and go into the apps folder
• Create a new folder called usbloader on your SD Card and copy the boot.dol file from above into it. You should now have the SDUSB-Loader boot.dol inside apps\usbloader

At this point – if all you want is to be able to launch Wii games via USB from the Homebrew Channel, you are set up to do so. You should now be able to pop your SD Card into your Wii and launch the USB Loader from there. There are a few other optional steps that I will include to make the whole thing much nicer to use, but you can skip steps 3 and 4 if you want.

I would recommend installing the USB Loader Forwarder because it will give you a nice channel on your Wii Home Screen to launch the USB Loader (instead of navigating through the Homebrew Channel). To do this, you must have Waninkoko’s WAD Manager v1.4 installed in your Homebrew Channel Apps.

• Download the USB_Loader_Forwarder_Channel.zip.
• Unzip the USB_Loader_Forwarder_Channel.zip file and navigate to the WAD folder inside the ‘The Forwarder Channel’ folder. Copy the USB Loader-USBF VForwarder.wad file to the SD Card that you run Homebrew Applications from. If one doesn’t already exist, create a ‘wad’ folder in the root of your SD Card . Copy the USB Loader-USBF VForwarder.wad file into the wad folder.
• Plug the SD Card back into your Wii and navigate to the Homebrew Channel. Use the WAD Manager v1.4 application to install the USB Loader WAD file.
• If everything was successful, you should now have a USB Loader Channel on your Wii Home Screen.

This step is purely optional, but will make browsing your games via the USB Loader much better. Go to theotherzone.com and download some game covers. Since all of them only total around 60 Megs, you might just want to download every PAL and NTSC Wii game cover so that you don’t have to constantly mess around with adding covers after backing your games up to the Hard Drive .

• Open the SD Card that your Wii uses for Homebrew Applications and create a folder in the root called usb-loader. Now inside of that folder, create another folder called covers. The file path should be usb-loader/covers.
• Copy your cover .png files into the usb-loader/covers folder

That’s it – now the USB-Loader will find and display the covers for your backups.

• Download and install the WBFS Manager. Be sure to download/install the proper build (there is an x86 version and an x64 version)
• Plug your external hard drive into your PC. I have had success with the AcomData PureDrive 500 GB USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive PHD500USE-72.
• Use the Windows Disk Management Application to delete and create a new (raw) partition on your hard drive . THE WBFS MANAGER WILL NOT FORMAT AN NTFS FORMATTED DRIVE AS WBFS. You must go into the disk manager, delete the partition, then create a new, unformatted partition. To do this:

1. Right Click on My Computer and go to Manage
2. Click on the Disk Management option on the left
3. When your disk drives have loaded, right click on the drive to be formatted to WBFS format (to be read by the Wii ) and choose ‘Delete Volume’
4. Now Right Click on the disk drive to be used and click ‘New’
5. Be sure to assign a drive letter to your drive, and to choose NOT TO FORMAT the drive when you create your new partition
6. You should now have a RAW volume with a drive letter assigned in My Computer. I did this in Windows 7 (I’m assuming Windows Vista would work the same way). If you are having difficulty with this step of the process, try using a GParted Live CD to unformat your disk.

• Run the WBFS Manager. You will see an interface that looks something like this (this is from 2.2 – there are some new features and a nicer interface in 3.0+):

• Select the drive letter of your hard drive as assigned above. Click ‘Format’. If it was successful in initializing the drive, then you are ready to plug into your Wii and start backing up your games. If your format was not successful, you will need to go back into the disk management utilities in Windows, delete the external drives’ partition, create a new simple volume, assign a drive letter, DO NOT FORMAT THE VOLUME, and try again

• Plug your WBFS Formatted External Hard Drive into the back of your Wii and launch the USB Loader (either from the Homebrew Channel or the Home Menu Channel that was installed in step 3).
• When the program loads, click to select USB Hard Drive
• If all is well, you should see a blank black window. Insert a game disc into the Wii and click the + button. The channel will ask you if you are sure that you want to back up this game. Choose yes and watch it go!

And that’s all there is to it! Now you have a fast, easy and convenient way to launch and store your game backups for the Wii . Also of note is that the WBFS Manager will allow you to copy your .iso game file backups from your external hard drive to your PC (very nice for an extra PC backup in case of hard drive failure).

Here are some relevant updates to this article as contributed by others, or as I happen on them.