I am a newbie and I have been reading all the instructions on ?Forum? talk and questions. I have read tons of material on backing up Wii games that work and tons of answers that says it doesn?t without a wired or non wired mod chip. Also I?ve read where you need Homebrew for everything to work. I am totally confused. Are there any comprehensively written pieces and a step by step set of instructions that will tell me exactly how to back up a game(s) from start to finish without having to go to 10 different ?forums? for more info?
Thanks
Shamoda
You see alot of people saying contradicting things because things are constantly changing.
Until very recently you needed a modchip to play backup games. But several months ago the backup loader homebrew program was released, which lets you play backup games without a modchip.
Theres no be-all-and-end-all thread with all the information you could want, but I can give you my general info listing.
Hardmodding, or installing a modchip:
Before choosing a modchip it is important to know what chipset your wii is. Entering your wii's serial number here http://www.wiidrives.com/list will give you a pretty good idea what chipset you have. If you cannot do this for some reason then there are a handful of chips that support all chipsets.
If you have an earlier wii, then a wiikey is probably the way to go. But the Wiikey only works on DMS, D2A and D2B chipsets. If you have a D2C, D2C2 or a D2E then you need a different modchip. D2Pro 9 wire, wiikey2 and the newest wasabi version support all current chipsets. Also, if you have a D2C or later you don't have to worry about cut pins. Only some D2B chipsets had cut legs. Cut lets made it more difficult to mod the console.
If you are bad at soldering then something to keep in mind is a wii-clip. Solder the clip to your modchip and then you wont have to solder anything to the console. It makes an install MUCH easier, though does have the drawbacks of coming loose and being generally less reliable.
Advantages to softmodding are that you dont need to buy anything (aside from an SD card and zelda twilight princess to run the twilight hack) and you dont have to open up the wii to do it.
Disadvantages are that game compatibility is not perfect with the backup loader and load times are longer than with a chip.
Other mod methods:
There is a new method that will be coming out called the flatmii. Not much is known about this yet as it has not been released yet, but it claims to be a replacment for the wii's DVD drive that allows you to stream game ISOs directly to the wii from your PC via USB. Discussion thread and info here http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/735297
At the current time THERE ARE NO WII FIRMWARE UPDATES THAT CAN DETECT MODCHIPS. This may change in the future but for the time being it stands. Some newer games can detect some older modchips (giving error 001) but this can be fixed on some modchips by updating the chip's firmware.
You can safely allow the console to do updates from a game so long and ONLY SO LONG as the game you are updating is from the same region as your console. Updating with a firmware from a different region can brick or semi-brick your console and should never be attempted.
A semi-bricked console can be fixed by running a later update than the one that bricked the console from the proper region. Example: You have a NTSC console at firmware 3.1 and update it with the PAL version of 3.2. The console is now semi-bricked. Games still play but the wii settings cannot be accessed. If you run the NTSC 3.3 firmware it will fix the console.
There are also homebrew programs that can fix a semi-bricked wii. But if you do not already have the homebrew channel installed before the semi-brick occured it is rather difficult to install it.
Questions on firmware 3.3 and 3.4:
Wii firmware 3.3 briefly blocked the twilight hack (not gonna explain what that is here, if you don't know search for it) but the hack has been fixed now and will work again. And it blocks truncha signed disks. Truncha disks can still be run by loading them through the gecko OS on the homebrew channel. Scrubbed and brickblocked disks still work. If you want more info on truncha and scrubbed disks search for them.
Firmware 3.4 again blocked the twilight hack and blocked the installation of wads. The twilight hack was again fixed and wad installers are fixed by installing IOS16, a speical wad patch that can still be installed on 3.4. Also, the twilight hack version for 3.4 is specific to that firmware and cannot be used on earlier versions.
As was said earlier, NO FIRMWARE UPDATES CAN DETECT MODCHIPS, AND THIS INCLUDES FIRMWARES 3.3 and 3.4.
Online play:
Online play with a modchip and a backup copy of a game works exactly the same as it does on an unmodded console with an original copy of the game. It works just fine and you won't get banned.
Gamecube game backups can be safely run from any region without fear of bricking because none of them have updates. They can also be burned on normal sized DVDs, and more than 1 can be burned to a single disk using GCOS.
Updating the modchip:
Not all modchips can be updated. There is a very nice for updating the wiikey here http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/597460 but some D2C chips cannot be updated. Others lack the ability to update from a DVD and instead use a USB ribbon cable that connects to the PC. Not going to go into all the details here. Again, if you need the info try searching for it.
Backing Up Games:
First off is downloading or backing up your games. If you choose to download one you will most likely get a collection of rar files. There's a guide on what to do with them to get the iso file here http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/555919
Backing up your games is a little more complex, but there are 3 ways to go about doing it.
First off remember that most DVD drives cannot read wii disks. In fact, only 4 models of DVD drive can read them, and they can be somewhat hard to track down. If you do get one though, you can dump the wii game to an iso using rawdump2.0 or friidump.
The second option is to use an SD Gecko, its a gamecube memory card with an SD slot. If you have a modded console you can run a homebrew program that will dump an iso of the game in your wii console to the SD card in the Gecko.
Finally there is a program run through the homebrew channel that can dump games from the wii directly to your PC via wifi. Guide to using this program is found here http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/701082
Burning Games:
Once you have your iso image the process of burning the game is simpler. Any DVD burner will work for burning wii games. Simply load up imgburn or nero and burn your iso file. I recommend burning at 4x to reduce errors. The brand of the disk used is also important. Verbatum DVD-R is preferred by most, but +R is fine as well. Don't bother with the off-brand disks as you'll probably end up with a bunch of coasters.
Thank you so much Mr. penguin98,
Wow, the time and effort you put into the reply for me is over the top gracious and nice. I will read it and re-read it until I get it and whatever I need to do. I want to go with the ?No mod chip? if possible. Will I have to educate myself on HBC + WiiGator Gamma BootLoader? What ever that is? The more I read the more I get confused.
OK I will download and install Homebrew and then use ?larrylie?s AfterDawn Addict (31 December 2008 @16:09) instructions and then use elk1007?s (13 September 2008 @14:45) to copy a backup a disk. Am I forgetting anything?
Lol, thanks for the appreciation but it wasn't all for you. I keep that reply saved and update it regularly so I can just copy and paste it in for the newbies.
Thats it though. If you follow those couple guides you should get backup games going real easily.
