After following the previous guide, we now have our Wii U fully softmodded with Aroma. We now have the ability to run unsigned code and all future updates (If there are any) from Nintendo are now blocked.
So, what can you do with a modded Wii U? I am going to list out some of the cool things you can do here: –
How to back up your Wii U games to USB
We shall be installing the latest version of WUDD (Wii U Disc Dumper). As you can guess, the name is pretty self-explanatory, it converts your disc-based Wii U game to an application file that you can launch like a digital game.
Backing up your Wii U games means you will always have them on hand and don’t have to bother finding the game disc, this not only saves time but also helps preserve your game discs.
Launch the Homebrew AppStore and Search for WUDD and install the latest version.
For demonstration purposes I will be dumping my copy of Super Mario 3D World.
Launch WUDD, insert your game disc to be dumped and select dump as partition .app with the DPAD. Make sure that the SD card is selected below and press A.
WUDD will start dumping your game. How long this takes depends on the size of the game. Super Mario 3D World is one of the smaller games at a size of 1.7GB and takes about 12mins to dump.
Most Wii U games are between 8 – 12gb, however, some like Xenoblade can be as big as 20gb so will take a lot longer to dump
Once the dump is completed you can close the app and remove the disc.
My copy of Super Mario 3D World is now dumped to my SD card inside the wudump folder. The game itself is stored in a folder within ‘WUP-P-ARDP’ but this will vary depending on the game title ID. The folder you want will have inside it a bunch of .app files along with a .tik and .cert files.
If you would like to keep the backup of your game, this is the folder you want to keep.
How to Install and Play Wii U Backups
To install your dumped content, you’ll need to use a program called WUP Installer GX2. You can download the latest version from the Homebrew AppStore.
Before installtion, dumped games need to be moved from the wudump folder to an install folder on the root of the SD card.
Create a folder called ‘install’ on the SD card and copy the dumped game folder from the wudump folder to the install folder. This needs to be the folder with the dumped .app, .tik and .cert files.
Reinsert your SD card into your Wii U and launch WUP Installer GX2. You should now see you game folder ready to be installed.
Click the + button to select all and select install. The following screen will allow us to choose either to install the game to the Wii U’s internal memory (NAND) or an attached hard drive or USB thumb drive.
I would recommend installing to the USB and leaving your NAND alone.
Once selected, the game dump will start to install.
Once installed, you can close Wup Installer GX2 and you’ll notice that the game icon is now on the Wii U’s main menu with no disc inserted.
You have now successfully installed your disc based game to your Wii U and can keep your original copy safe and sound with no need to change discs again!
How to softmod your vWii
You probably know this already, but there is a Virtual Wii console living inside your Wii U! The original Wii is such a great console with a great library of games, it was always very popular (and easy) to mod. This would allow for backups, Homebrew and all that fun stuff.
On the 30th of January 2019, Nintendo shut down the Wii Shop channel for good, unfortunately making a lot of good games unavailable. They are still out there; people have been hard at work archiving this software, but if you want to find them you will have to look elsewhere.
Luckily, with a few pieces of software, we can mod the Virtual Wii (vWii) and regain access to all the cool features of the Wii including the loading GameCube games.
We need to get a few files downloaded and on to our SD card, so if you have done it yet, put your SD card into your PC or SD card reader.
First up we need wuphax, this will let you back up your Mii Channel on your vWii and inject wuphax to it. You can always restore your original Mii Channel later from the SD card by running this program again. You can find a precompiled version of wuphax here. Extract this to the root of your SD card.
Next, we want the Installer, to be precise, we only want the file ‘boot.elf’. Download Installer v1.2 from here https://bootmii.org/download/ and extract the boot.elf file to the root of the SD card. This is the main exploit file and will allow us to install the Homebrew Channel within our vWii.
If you have followed part one of the guide you should already have the Wii U Homebrew launcher installed.
Download the following two files and extract them to the root of your SD card: –
These apps will let you patch your vWii to allow running of Wii backups and will also allow you to make a NAND back up of you vWii in case anything goes wrong!
Step 1
Insert your SD card into your Wii U. Boot up and head over to the Homebrew channel, Find and load ‘wuphax’.
Step 2
With wuphax open press ‘A’ to make a back up of your vWii Mii channel and the installer will replace it with HakMii.
Step 3
The Wii U will reboot to the main menu, from here open up the vWii launcher and select your Mii maker channel which will load up the HakMii installer.
There will be a splash screen that shows for about 30 seconds explaining that this software is free and if you have paid for it you have been scammed! Read the message and when prompted press ‘1’ to continue.
Select continue and then select ‘Install The Homebrew Channel’. Confirm that on the next prompt and the Homebrew Channel will begin to install. When complete you can exit out back to the vWii main menu. You should now have the Homebrew Channel installed on you vWii.
Step 4
With the Homebrew Channel now successfully installed on your vWii, we will want to restore the Mii channel. Head back to your Wii U’s main menu and select the Homebrew Launcher. Once again launch Wuphax but this time select ‘B’ to restore the Mii Channel back. Once completed we can exit out.
We can now some Homebrews from the vWii, however, I would recommend patching it using cIOS to run more complex homebrews like backup managers and GameCube games.
Backing up the vWii NAND
This is optional, but I would highly recommend it. If anything goes wrong and you have a backup of your NAND, you can probably fix it.
First, launch your vWii, head over the Homebrew Channel. Launch the Homebrew channel and select the Homebrew ‘Dump Mii NAND’. Thankfully the vWii’s nand is a lot smaller than Wii U but do be prepared to wait while the NAND is dumped.
Once it is dumped, I highly recommend taking the newly created files ‘keys.bin’ & ‘nand.bin’ from your SD and backing them up to your computer. Keep these files safe as we are going to patching some of the system files shortly and this could possibly save you from any issues going forward.
Installing Custom IOS files
cIOS are basically patched software that allows us more access to the inner workings of the vWii. This is what will allow you to install ‘Unofficial’ channels to your vWii menu, as well as backup loaders.
We want to install 3 custom IOS so boot up the vWii’s Homebrew Channel and launch d2x cIOS Installer. Set the options to match the following before pressing ‘A’ to install: –
Select cIOS : d2x-v10-beta52-vWii
Select cIOS base : 56
Select cIOS slot : 249
After that has installed do the same for this: –
Select cIOS : v10 beta52 d2x-v10-beta52-vWii
Select cIOS base: 57
Select cIOS slot: 250
And then this one: –
Select cIOS : v10 beta52 d2x-v10-beta52-vWii
Select cIOS base : 58
Select cIOS slot : 251
Once that is installed press ‘B’ to exit. Now, there is only one last step to be done before we are fully modded. We need to patch system IOS80.
To patch IOS80 we need to head back over the vWii Homebrew Channel and launch ‘Patched IOS80 installer for vWii’. Read the giant wall of text and press ‘A’ to install.
Once that has been completed you can press any button to exit out of the app and return to the Homebrew Channel.
You now have a fully modded vWii that can load homebrews, Wii backups and GameCube games!
You can find part 3 of this guide here where I will show you how to use USB Loader GX to play your Wii game backups, Inject custom games into the Virtual console and how to run GameCube backups.
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Hello Cheaper Gamer, im following your WiiU Modding Guide and im looking forward the part 3. Its very well explained and it has been very helpful. May I ask you when will it come the part 3? Thank you in advance.
Very soon! I planned to finish it up in part two but it has become quite the project.
I hope to be finished either by the end of this week or early next week.
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dying for part 3 bro also can you do a tu on how to convert loadline games to wup games or how to install vc games on wii u channel part thank you again for this bro really loving your work respect
Thanks, Brendan! You can find part there here
In part 3 I show you how to install Wii U games to as Wup games and how to inject your own games into the Gamecube virtual console as homebrew.
I’m putting together something today on how to inject GBA games and Snes games to VC.
hi, thanks for this guide, keeping me busy during lockdown. I am trying to restore my wiichannel, after applying homebrew on vwii, but it says missing file, but i cant see where i have missed anything? (homebrew for vwii has Installed ok) I carried on with further steps and all is fine, just cant get my michannel back thanks again for the guide.
You won’t need it to continue with the rest of the guide but it is annoying! Double check your SD card to see if the backup is on there.
You can, at your own risk, try downloading the latest version of NUS downloader and install it that way. Setting this up should let you find the latest version if the Mii Channel.
You’ll want to tick the ‘Create decrypted contents” box then when downloaded rename the app from ‘00000018.app’ to ‘WuphaxBackup.app’ and use Wuphax to install it.
Let me know how you get on!
Hello for the SD Card steps here in part 2 do I use the same SD card from part 1?
Yes, use the same SD card. You can use another if you like but we already have all our folders set up 🙂
thanks for my reply, think i will leave it, as it wont cause problems not having my vwii mii maker. Im not that tech savvy. will continue with part 3 tonight when the kids are asleep. great guide thaks millions for this, keep up the good work, much appriciated. i will applaud u at 8pm,outside my front door ???
Glad to have helped! 🙂
Good guide. Just a question. Do you have how to make the backup files of a wiiu available to me? I lost mine and I have a bricked wiiu. I’m trying to fix it.
Thanks for the guides Greg. Had to get the Wii U out during lockdown to give us something to do.
I would ask, as you going to mention USB Helper at all? Probably the best tool out there for getting games. They seem to have a lot of “custom” options for creating fake eshop versions of Game Cube games. Tbh, I really only needed the first page of your guide plus a bit of page 2 for what I wanted to play. Tried one of the “custom” games (Viewtiful Joe) and all I had to do was point USB Helper to an ISO and it converted it. It set up nintendon’t as well. I was thinking of following the guide anyway to get Monkey Ball working, as there’s no custom option for that in USB Helper, but after seeing how rubbish Viewtiful Joe looked I don’t think I’ll bother.
Yeah, I have been tinkering around with USB Helper recently and it is really good! And you are right, this is something I will add to the guide (at some point!) 😀
Glad I helped with a fun project for while you’re in lockdown!
Stay Safe
Hiya
Patched IOS80 Installer says I need ios80-64-v7200.wad. There doesnt seem to be a download on this page for it though. Is it required? Thanks again.
Hi.
Not sure if last post worked as nothing displaying. In Patched IOS80 Installer it says need file IOS80-64- v7200.WAD
Is this required? Cheers
Hi Tim,
Just go ahead, it will grab the IOS from NAND 🙂
The “apps” link doesn’t seem to be working.
Hi Jamie,
Thanks for letting me know. That should all be fixed now.
Thanks
I’m stuck on the cIOS; I am unable to select “d2x-v10-beta52-vWii” in the d2x Custom installer. I was able to install the other two, “v10 beta 52 d2x-v10-vWii” in both the base 57 slot 250 and base 58 slot 251.
I figured out my mistake. reading comprehension is hard. sorry!
Hi Greg, Thank you so much for this guide. everything has been super smooth and easy up until now. the problem i am having is at the step of trying to make a nand backup for my vWii. When i pull up the homebrew channel on the vWii menu nothing comes up. its just a blank homebrew channel page. do you have any idea what im doing wrong? i tried moving the files for the vWii nand dumper, cIOS installer and the patched IOS80 installer to different locations beside the root menu on my SD card but i still could not get them to show up when i launched the vWii homebrew channel. anything you can suggest i try? Also, you are the best! this resource has helped me so much feel comfortable starting my adventure into the homebrew/modding community and i cant thank you enough!
Sorry for taking so long to come back to you, i’ve been away for a couple of weeks. I would suggest trying a different SD card if you can. Sometimes the vWii can be a little picky. Give that a try if you can and let me know how you get on.
When I try to install with YAWMM I get the message HW_AHBPROT is disabled
Do you want to load another IOS anyway?
Of course I have not done so out of fear something went wrong. Any thoughts? I have tried reinstalling the IOS with beta 53 as well with no luck.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Cheaper Gamer, must say thank you first and foremost – your guide is the only one that has enabled me to get homebrew up and running!
This is probably a daft question but step 1 of the Wuphax when i extract to root of SD am I overwriting the files already in there, wiiu, manifest and info?
any help is greatly appreciated – Cheers!
Sorted – seems to have worked
thanks again!
Hi,
I am stuck on Part 2 Step 2 where to inject wuphax. It said it was successfully injected the wuphax then it just went back to Menu without showing anything or asking to continue so there is no vWii installed and i tried different SD Cards.
Thanks
Hi Cheaper Gamer, I have a small problem while trying to convert discs to app using disc2app v1.0. I loaded it up in Homebrew Launcher and used a 128gb SD card, then I chose SD FAT card as storage, and after this it says that the IOSU Exploit Done, but I am stuck here. I have to reset the WiiU to be able to do aynthing and have even tried different SD cards but still nothing. Everything has worked up ´till now, but nothings happens when I insert a disc. Is there something I can do? Thanks, and also great job on all your effort to create this guide!
I am also having the same problem, you could try downloading The Homebrew App store https://github.com/fortheusers/hb-appstore/releases/ run it , then install dumpling it runs for me BUT i just found out my disk drive dont work so have to fix it before I try myself.
Hi Martin, this is in case anyone else has this problem, disc2app does not work with Tiramasu you need to use wudd which is in this link https://consolemods.org/wiki/WiiU:Dumping_Wii_U_Games which does work. Link to wudd is in the link too although I got mine from the home brew app channel