Nintendo released the 4.2 firmware and it dealt a serious blow to Wii homebrew. It was also seen bricking some Wii consoles due to an update made to the Wiis boot2 process. The infamous Waninkoko as well as other coders have released programs which claim to safely update people to 4.2. However, you actually have a better of chance of these apps bricking you than Nintendo's boot2 update. This leads many people to believe that it is simply best to stay away from 4.2 However, this is not the case. You can safely update to 4.2 retaining all of your homebrew and avoiding the boot2 update. This post will show you how.
Disclaimer: Before going on, I would like to remind you that updating through Nintendo is not as risky as it seems. Even after updating through Nintendo, you can still retain all of your homebrew. However, in theory, the method I describe in this post does carry less of a risk.
First things first, use the latest hackmii installer to update to the latest versions of the Homebrew Channel, DVDX, and BootMii.
Now backup your NAND with BootMii. We will obviously be messing with the NAND a little bit, so it is best to have a backup incase something goes horribly wrong.
Before going on, you need an IOS with the trucha bug installed. If you do not have one, use the trucha bug restorer to install one.
Now, have my Dop-IOS MOD install IOS 61 and IOS 70 using your trucha bugged IOS.
Next, have my Dop-IOS MOD install System Menu 4.2 for your region.
Then, have my Dop-IOS MOD install the shop channel for your region.
Finally, use StartPatch (make sure you use the proper version for your region) to install hacks you think are a good ideas into your 4.2 system menu.
Congratulations, you have safely updated to 4.2! As a bonus, you can now do things on 4.2 normal 4.2 users can't.
If you have any questions regarding the content of this post, feel free to leave a comment, join me in #arikadosblog on EFNET, post in our forums, tweet to me, or send me an e-mail at castlevania7689@yahoo.com
Thursday, November 26, 2009
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Nice write up. I do have a question though... This really just updates a few of the individual items that make up 4.2. I assume that Boot2 is left untouched and all the other updates IOS stay unchanged? Will this cause problems with future software looking for specific revisions of an IOS that is updated by the official 4.2 upgrade process? Also...once booting into the new system menu, does the system menu software check for these old ISO revisions or an older boot2?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Nope, no system menu checks.
ReplyDeleteThe IOSs used by system software on 4.2 are 70 (system menu), 61 (shop channel), some really old IOSs 36 50 and 55 (games).
Hope that clears things up a little bit.
Ok. Excellent. Does bring up one more question though. If a game that requires 4.2 or if you run the Nintendo update after following your process is run....will it think 4.2 is installed or will it tell you things are all set?
ReplyDeleteIt will think 4.2 is installed. However, it will recognixe that you need to update boot2 and it will also recognixe if there are IOSs that need to be killed/updated.
ReplyDeleteThats why I recommend installing startpatch to avoid all of this.
Just went through the process. Everything went great except one thing. After following your instructions I was not able to run the shop channel. It would start and then get stuck on an all white screen. While using Dop-IOS-Mod I noticed that my 61 IOS was an older version so I updated it to the latest (without patch since HBC uses 61) and then the shop channel worked fine.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the great write up.
Oh....one suggestion/request for Dop-IOS-Mod...I love that it tells me what version is installed and if there is an upgrade or downgrade available on the update server, but it would also be great if it told you if your current IOS is bugged or not....and if it is bugged, if it's naturally bugged or patch bugged. Also...is there anyway, like with IOS installs, to display the installed version of a channel and the available version of a channel?
Thanks for all of the cool ideas. If I could, I would definitely implement all of them. Rest assured that I and the rest of the team will definitely try to do it.
ReplyDeleteHi, I could not find a startpatch mod for Japan version, I guess it is OK to use startpatch?
ReplyDeletehttp://wiibrew.org/wiki/StartPatch/StartPatch_Mod
ReplyDeleteThat has support for the Japanese Menu as well as the other regions in a single .dol
I have a question. I semi-bricked my Wii (US) by running a PAL update of New Super Mario Bros. The Wii settings are no longer available. Will the 4.2 update fix my settings menu? If so, how should I proceed? I do not have the HBC or any other soft mods.
ReplyDeleteOkay I followed the procedure and now my HBC displays upside down and mirrored. Is there anyway to fix this other than restoring my NAND backup and losing the shop channel again?
ReplyDeleteUninstall and then reinstall the homebrew channel.
ReplyDeleteOr just use DOPIOS to reinstall an unpatched IOS36.
ReplyDeleteI've gone through all this, but when I try to access the shop channel, it just has "Update" instead of "Start".
ReplyDeleteWhat I may have done wrong is when installing IOS70, it asked if I wanted to FakeSign patch it or whatever, and I said yes. Was this wrong?
I didn't do the StartPatch things either.
Going into the settings shows that I'm on 4.2E.
Thanks.
You need IOS 61 and the latest version of the shop channel installed to avoid the update. Dop-IOS MOD v11 can install both of those for you.
ReplyDeleteI'd installed all of these things and still no dice :S
ReplyDeleteDoesn't matter now though as I used a "Safe updater" and it fixed my problem.
Very well done on the program though, it's a really neat creation. I'm sure any problems that occured were all my fault :P
Quick question, well actually 2. I have system version 3.4u with HBC 1.06 BootMii/IOS, will NSMB (or any other new game with updates) brick my wii or damage it in any way?, and does 3.4u still have the trucha bug?. Thanks in advance.
ReplyDelete1)Nope
ReplyDelete2)Yup. Also, just so you know, you can get the trucha bug on any firmware.
?? my comment has vanished??
ReplyDeleteok so will my wii be ok updating from 3.2e with this method? it a big jump to 4.2
What settings do you recommend for StartPatch?
ReplyDeleteIf i use this method to update to 4.2, will 4.2 still kill my cIOSCORP?
ReplyDeleteMy Wii system menu is 4.2J and has been softmodded to play games from external USD HDD. I tried to download Internet Channel from Shop Channel by installing "Wii Shop and IOS61 Installer" from wiihacks.com. Although I can successfully run shop channel & IOS61 installer, I can't access shop channel. When I click Wii Shop Channel, it says "The Wii Shop Channel is not currently available in your region"
ReplyDeleteDoes the DOP-IOS MOD can resolve my problem mentionsed above on my Wii 4.2J? I'm afraid to brick my Wii, are there any step-by-step instructions availabe? Thank you for your help.