Bricked unmodded WiiU during update, no backups - next steps?

[CrazySquid]

Yes, good suggestion, I'll ask on the other thread. I'm glad you were able to make progress on your device. I'm not sure how to get those logs unless I can bring up that recovery menu unless there's some other method.

Hm... I did read what you put in the other thread, it's weird that you machine suddently doesn't connect to the GamePad anymore. One person suggested that you have a IOSU brick, but I don't think that's the case if your machine was at least connecting before... unless your NAND maybe is dead, but I don't know if data corruption works like that.

In my case I just ended up disconnecting the U and putting away in it's box, I managed to manually install Tiramisu again by injecting it via wupserver and then modify the system.xml to boot it, my best result was to get vWii working again, but I did not get more progress than that.
According to Cafe OS my problem resides in the disc drive apparently, but it works perfectly fine in vWii so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Honestly, if I could restore my NAND backup via software I would definitely try it, I have one backup form 2020 and other from 2018.
Not an expert on this, but the Wii and Wii U system arquitecture share some similitaries afaik, I remember BootMii can restore a NAND via IOS... I think then it could be THEORICALLY possible to restore the Wii U NAND via IOSU using the recovery menu.
It was more dangerous than restoring it as boot2 though, but I think as long you don't have a power cut or something there shouldn't be any problem.

 

[Urbanshadow]

How do you not have backups of anything? That should be the first thing people do when exploiting a system.

From the looks of it nintendo managed to brick its own systems with an official update. This is top notch software development right there, happening in front of our eyes.

 

[Squeaky]

@CrazySquid I'm glad you got your system somewhat up and running.

I think I'm stuck for now on this, and will keep checking in from time to time to see if there are any new ways to try and solve the issue. It was certainly weird to have the gui slowly taken away fairly quickly - from having a "please wait" a few times, to just the WiiU title, to nothing.

I have a Wii with a broken disc drive and I can look into modding that to see what I can get working virtually without bothering to replace the drive. I'd like to get my fitness game up and running which came with a thumb drive needed to handle extra sensor input. At least I know to back everything up on the Wii before messing with it, and I'd feel comfortable enough to replace the drive if I had to.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for the input and ideas you've provided, and I hope this thread can help someone in the future.

 

[xxMAGRAOxx]

@Squeaky Do you solve your problem? I read your comments in many threads and your problem is exactly the same of mine. Stucks in 80% and the genius here shutdown while system 5.5.6 update. Now, when I turn it on, the gamepad doesn’t sync, the disc drive makes booting noises twice and there’s just a black screen.

 

[MikaDubbz]

From the looks of it nintendo managed to brick its own systems with an official update. This is top notch software development right there, happening in front of our eyes.

Hard to blame Nintendo, when the updates explicitly say do not turn off the power or reset your system during this update. Frankly such a brick shouldn't be shocking to see on any device that gets an unplanned user shutdown during an update, be it Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, etc. That message isn't a suggestion, it's a warning because you're literally overwriting important system files.

 

[Squeaky]

@Squeaky Do you solve your problem? I read your comments in many threads and your problem is exactly the same of mine. Stucks in 80% and the genius here shutdown while system 5.5.6 update. Now, when I turn it on, the gamepad doesn’t sync, the disc drive makes booting noises twice and there’s just a black screen.

For the moment, it seems like it's an unsolvable problem, which is why I'm following the other thread (same as you have been) to see if there is any coding progress. In the meantime, I put it away and fixed my classic Wii which just needed a disc player replacement. I did do backups on that machine...just in case.

 

[tiger1234]

For the moment, it seems like it's an unsolvable problem, which is why I'm following the other thread (same as you have been) to see if there is any coding progress. In the meantime, I put it away and fixed my classic Wii which just needed a disc player replacement. I did do backups on that machine...just in case.

im also on same boat buddy the wii u bricked during update ..lets hope some sd card based method arrives like it did recently for cbhc brick even cbhc related bricks were seen impossible to unbrick by softmod till recent till gary introduced his recovery menu method ..i have a gut feeling only gary can bring some solution to this issue if somehow he develops a soft mod program to enter recovery mode like in cbhc case

 

[tlalchitonatiuh]

Following this thread as it happened to me yesterday. Here's hoping someone gets it going

 

[godreborn]

@EyeKey is working on a way to use a dummy nand in case it's catastrophic failure.

 

[xxMAGRAOxx]

Hard to blame Nintendo, when the updates explicitly say do not turn off the power or reset your system during this update. Frankly such a brick shouldn't be shocking to see on any device that gets an unplanned user shutdown during an update, be it Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, etc. That message isn't a suggestion, it's a warning because you're literally overwriting important system files.

And if the power of your home down at the moment of update. Lost your console?There's no forgiveness for Nintendo. This is unacceptable!!

 

[Hayato213]

And if the power of your home down at the moment of update. Lost your console?There's no forgiveness for Nintendo. This is unacceptable!!

Other systems are like that when updating firmware, if you shut it down or lose power when updating you brick.

 

[CrazySquid]

Even so, I think the 3DS, PS4 and Switch have recovery menus if you have an issue like that.

 

[tiger1234]

Other systems are like that when updating firmware, if you shut it down or lose power when updating you brick.

its true but recovery option is surely responsibility of nintendo they shall have put some way to recover the bricked console during update

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2023

@EyeKey is working on a way to use a dummy nand in case it's catastrophic failure.

If that guy does manage to bring some breakthrough regarding unbricking while system update it will surely be a hard mod with donor files correct me if im wrong

 

[Gauacl]

Same here my wii u was updating for the 5.5.6 update, but my electricity shut off. Now I lost the only console I could play mario and sonic games on.