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The Basics

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Reading too much text is boring for you? Just skip it.

The Homebrew Channel is the main weapon in the arsenal. It puts the Wii into a state where it waits to load a boot.dol/elf of your choice, which is basically a program a developer writes (kind of like a .exe for Windows). These programs can range from playing media off your Wii, installing and updating IOS's, managing files on your USB drive or SD card, and much more. The possibility's with homebrew are literally endless. Having the Homebrew Channel onto your Wii will enable to run these custom made programs right off your own Wii.

The same people who created the Homebrew Channel, Team Twiizers, also created a powerful, and arguably essential, program called Bootmii. It allows you to take total control of your Wii, before any IOS, system menu, or other program loads up. Therefore, you can technically have an "unbrickable" Wii. It allows you to make a backup of your NAND, which internal memory of the Wii, which contains important files such as the IOS's and System Menu. If anything were to go wrong, you can just easily restore your Wii with the backup NAND.bin Bootmii creates. 

IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU CREATE A NAND BACKUP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER INSTALLING BOOTMII.

BootMii works by inserting itself into the Wii's boot process, which is as follows:
BOOT0 -> BOOT1 -> BOOT2 -> System menu

BootMii relies on a bug present in boot1 which allows it to be installed into boot2, meaning it can start up before IOS and the System Menu run. Boot1, while a part of the NAND, has its sig hashes stored in OTP (One Time Programmable) Memory and therefore it can never be updated once the console has been manufactured. Consoles made before mid-2008 have the older boot1 and can have BootMii installed to boot2, while consoles that were produced later on have an updated boot1 that will not allow you to install Bootmii as boot2. With these type of Wii's Bootmii can still function if you have a method of booting into the Homebrew Channel. It's not as brick proof as BootMii as boot2, but its better than have no brick protection at all.

Only for
  • System Menu 4.2 or Lower. For 4.3, go here.
Required
  • An SD card
    • Best results are with non-SDHC cards, (SDHC will only work on 4.0 or above) formatted to FAT(32).
    • If you want a backup of your wii memory, you need 520 MB of free space on the card.
  • [Optional] Gamecube Controller.
 
Result
  • Working Homebrew Channel (HBC) installed 
  • Bootmii for brick protection.
  • [Optional - Recommended] And a NAND backup.
Risk
  • Very Low, bricking is as good as impossible
Guide


Computer ---------------------- 


* Make a backup of the contents of your SD card

1. Bannerbomb loads files from the root of the SD card, so in this case, put the hackmii installer there.
Download the hackmii installer.
You can find the installer here: http://bootmii.org/download/

Extract the zip file from the download to your PC.
Open the folder that was extracted and you will see a file named boot.elf.
Copy this file to the SD card root (not in any folder).


2. Downloading bannerbomb from its official site.
Go to the bannerbomb website.
You will see some instructions there. They are basically the same as our steps, but we still advise you to use this guide.

Download the aad1f.zip file for 4.1/below or abd6a.zip for 4.2. Extract this zip file directly to your SD card root.



Wii ---------------------- 

3. Insert the SD card in the wii and turn on the Wii.


4. Executing the bannerbomb exploit.
  • On 4.1/lower: Go to the Wii options (the big Wii button on the bottom left). Choose Data management, then Wii, go to Channels and finally click SD card at the top right.
  • On 4.2: Go to the SD Card Menu (SD button in Wii menu)

5. You should now see the following prompt:


ERROR
It freezes/ Nothing pops up ~ Try another version of bannerbomb. Go back to the bannerbomb page for your system menu version and download the next ZIP file from the list on the bottom of the page. Then try again.

Choose Yes. It will boot the Hackmii installer.


6. You will see a Scam warning screen.

Wait for the message at the bottom to appear, then press 1.

ERROR
This installer can NOT continue, no Vulnerable IOS installed! ~ None of the IOSs on your system can be loaded by the installer. Either follow the Korean guide, or go here if you already softmodded your Wii before.


7.  You will see a screen like this one:
Depending on your wii, it will show different things behind Bootmii:. 
  • If you see Can be installed, you can get Bootmii as boot2 (which gives the best brick protection there is).
  • If you see Can only be installed as an IOS, you can only get Bootmii as IOS (which will give you NO brick protection on its own).

Press A to continue.

Now we get to the main menu, where we can install everything.


First install the Homebrew Channel (choose Yes, continue).

Then go to Bootmii... and press A. You will get another menu:




8. Before BootMii will work, we need to prepare our SD card, so do that first with the third option.


9. Install bootmii as IOS. This will always work.


10. If you're one of the lucky winners, choose install Bootmii as Boot2, then Yes, continue and let it install.

Once you're done, return to the Main menu and choose Exit. It will reboot the Wii.
If you installed bootmii as Boot2, the bootmii menu will appear every time.
  • If you don't want this, rename/move the bootmii folder on the SD card (also check the Bootmii Section under How To Use)

11. Now you have to delete bannerbomb of the SD card! (just delete the atkn folder inside private/wii/title/).
You can also delete the rest if you really want to.
Don't foget to restore your old private folder if you had one!



So, was that it?
It mostly depends on what you want to do. Many Wii applications will already work for you now.

However, if you want more, like backup loading, custom themes, etc; you will need to continue below.