I have a launch wii with an original Wiikey 1 soldered. I have been able to read backups dvd without any problem for a very long time but recently, after playing around with softmod stuff to install a usb loader, my wiikey somehow stopped working. I don't exactly know what's wrong or what messed it up, maybe it was some softmod stuff or a system menu update I did in the meantime, (i'm on 4.2U now), but I can't remember if it was working or not after my last update). I even tried "revirginizing" my wii to erase softmod by reinstalling a bunch or ISO and flushing NAND, I left only the HBC, but still, I can't read any backup, not even the wiikey config or firmware discs)
Anyway, I know my wiikey should be working even with 4,2 and softmod, but it doesnt. I can read original retail discs just fine, but no backup will read anymore. So it mean the Wii itself is fine, it just seems to be the wiikey that is broken. I tried several things to restore it, including some wiikey restore disc that is supposed to reflash the chip to factory, but so far, no luck. I tried burning many dvds, using GCOS or not, filechopper or not, so far nothing works.
But my softmod is running fine. I have the HBC and usb loader and I can play all the games I want from a HD, but I would just want to restore my wiikey for the fun of it :-) This morning I dissassembled my wii to make sure the wiikey is still there and it looked fine with all the soldering ok)
So I was wondering if there is a way to load the wiikey config disc or firmware update using HBC. I have extracted the wiikey discs ISO using simply winrar and there is a .dol file at the root, so i'm assuming I should be able to copy the files on a SD card and launch it somehow, but I didn't figure it out yet.
I tried loading the wiikey disc ISO using USB loader, but even though it will show up in WBFS and succeed to transfer to my HD, it doesnt show up in the loader.
I also tried NeoGamma and it goes a bit further, but doesnt work either. NeoGamma actually reads the disc and shows some disc ID but then the screen flicks and goes all green before rebooting.
I tried a few options in NeoGamma, but I can't make it to load the wiikey disc but I can load normal game backups in NeoGamma.
Anyone have any idea how to do it? Or is it even possible?
I dont think its possible that the wiikey firmware was corrupted by the homebrew. As far as I'm aware, firmware updates cannot go from the wii to the DVD drive.
That said though, the wiikey is prone to randomly corrupting it's own firmware. If that is the case, then the recovery disk should fix it. Remember that the recovery disk is not readable by the wii. You insert it and let the wii sit on the main menu screen for 5-10 minutes. If it's not fixed after that then the modchip is probably dead.
As for running the wiikey update through homebrew channel, the dol file is a gamecube dol and HBC uses different standards for homebrew files. There might be an outside chance that if you found a very old version of HBC it could possibility boot the updater. But even if you got the file to run, the update wont be able to reach the modchip.
