Complete Wii Softmodding / Hacking Guide, Part 3: Start Hacking ^_^

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I apologize for the delay on updating this guide, but rest assured it is on its way to completion.  If you haven’t read part two or part one, you need to do so before continuing.  I also want to state that this part of the guide is based on larrylje’s excellent Wii softmodding guide, which can be found here on the AfterDawn forums. This was the guide that I first used to softmod my Wii, and was a VERY good resource.  These steps are virtually identical to the ones on that guide, and I give larrylje credit for that!

Let’s get on with it.  I’m going to assume that you followed part two and now have your SD card set up correctly.  The very first thing we’re going to do is install the Homebrew Channel.  To do that, follow these simple steps:

1. If you already put your SD card in your Wii’s SD card slot, take it out.
2. Turn on your Wii and press A to get past the health warning so you are at the front of the System Menu.
3. Make sure your Wii has been updated to 4.1 through the official Nintendo updater.  If you’re not running 4.1, update to it.
4. On the bottom left, you will see the Wii logo.  This takes you to the Wii Options screen.  Click it.
5. On the Wii Options screen, click the first box, which is Data Management.
6. On this screen, click the second box, Channels.
7. On the top right of your screen you will see two tabs: Wii and SD Card.  Click the SD Card tab.
8. Once you see the message saying that nothing is inserted in the SD card slot, insert your SD card.  The SD card slot can be found right by the disc tray, near the same place where the red sync button is.
9. A popup will appear asking you to load the Boot dol/elf.  Say yes.
10. A warning screen will now appear.  After a few seconds, press the 1 button to continue.
11. You should now see another screen that shows what can be installed.  Select Continue to move on.
12. Go up to where it says Install Homebrew Channel.
13. Select YES, Continue.
14. After it has finished, select Continue again.
15. Now go down and exit.  Your Wii should restart with the Homebrew Channel installed.

Congrats!  You’ve just used Bannerbomb to install the Homebrew Channel on your Wii!

WAD Manager, a commonly used homebrew application.

Now that the Homebrew Channel is installed, we will downgrade IOS35, which will enable us to install our cIOS.  I assume you have everything properly set up as instructed previously (including your network connection).  Follow these steps:

1. Turn on your Wii and launch the newly installed Homebrew Channel.
2. We want to run an app called DowngradeIOS35, so select it from the menu and Load it.
3. From the menu that appears, select Downgrade IOS35.
4. After it is done, you should either be able to exit the menu, or you should just appear back in the Homebrew Channel.
5. From the Homebrew Channel, load WAD Manager.
6. Select IOS35 as the IOS to use.  Your source device will be your Wii SD Slot.
7. Move the cursor to IOS35.wad and press the A button.
8. Install the WAD.
9. After it is installed, press A to get back to your list of WAD files.  Press the Home button to return to restart your system.

Now we’ll install the latest Revision 14 cIOS from Waninkoko.  Follow these steps:

1. From the Homebrew Channel, find cIOS38_rev14 Installer and run it.
2. Select IOS35 as the IOS for installation.
3. Perform a network installation.

After it’s done, your Wii will either go back to the System Menu or the Homebrew Channel.  If it goes back to the System Menu, then launch the Homebrew Channel again so we can continue with the next steps.

We’ll now install IOS60patched.wad.  To do this:

1. Load WAD Manager from the Homebrew Channel.
2. We won’t be using IOS35 for installation this time around.  For this and probably every WAD install after this, we’ll use IOS249.
3. The source device is still the Wii SD Slot.
4. Select IOS60patched.wad and install it like we installed the WAD earlier.
5. After that is done, get out of WAD Manager by pressing Home on the WAD selection screen.

Now we’ll install your cMIOS.  Follow these steps:

1. From the Homebrew Channel, load cMIOS_rev3.
2. Do a network installation just like we did with the cIOS.

Your Wii should now be able to load Homebrew software from the Homebrew Channel, and now has the basic ability to launch game backups from custom loaders such as USB Loader GX and NeoGamma (there will be extended information on both of these in part five).

We covered a lot of stuff in this part, and we’re almost done.  In the next part, we’ll hack your Wii so that it can launch backups from the ordinary Disc Channel without having to use a custom loader (that’s why we didn’t go ahead and install NeoGamma — again, more info on that in part five).  You can now continue to part four by clicking here!