Brick

A Wii "brick"

To brick a Wii is to damage the console beyond repair - as in 'A bricked Wii has all the electronic functionality of a brick'. To put it simply, fully bricked Wii consoles do absolutely nothing. The term is often used in situations where modifying a system's firmware (without necessarily making any alterations to the machine's hardware) has caused it to become inoperable.

Types of Bricks

Semi/Partial Brick

A Semi/Partial Brick occurs when the System Menu WAD (i.e. System Menu 4.2) has been damaged beyond use, but the System Menu IOS is in either working or non-working order (i.e. IOS70). This can be fixed if the Wii has previously had BootMii (as boot2) or Preloader installed, otherwise it's the hypothetical equivalent to a Full Brick.

Since boot2 is intact during a Semi/Partial Brick, any user who owns a pre Q4 2008 Wii with BootMii installed (as boot2) can access BootMii regardless of any damage to the System Menu WAD or its corresponding IOS (IOS70). From here they can access the HBC to repair the System Menu, or they can use the built in NAND recovery tool to restore the NAND backup they may have made.

Alternatively, if the user has Preloader installed, they can use it to access the HBC and repair their System Menu (and corresponding IOS should they need to).

Banner Brick

A Banner Brick occurs when the user installs a WAD with an invalid banner (wrong image size). With this type of brick the system will freeze after the Health and Safety screen and may display a "System Files are Corrupted" error message. This can be fixed if the Wii has previously had BootMii (as Boot2) or Preloader installed, otherwise it's the hypothetical equivalent to a Full Brick.

Since boot2 is intact during a Banner Brick, any user who owns a pre Q4 2008 Wii with BootMii installed (as boot2) can access BootMii regardless of any corrupt WAD installed. From here they can access the HBC to uninstall the broken WAD.

NOTE: Uninstalling the incorrect WAD may lead to further damage, so users should be careful.

Alternatively, if the user has Preloader installed, they can use it to access the HBC and uninstall the broken WAD.

NOTE: Uninstalling the incorrect WAD may lead to further damage, so users should be careful.

Full Brick

A Full Brick occurs when the System Menu IOS has been damaged beyond use (i.e. IOS70). Before the Wii takes any action, boot2 must load an IOS and if this process fails, the system will not be able to run, UNLESS it's a pre Q4 2008 model and the user has installed BootMii (as boot2). There are two typical symptoms of a full brick:

1. The Wii displays an Opera error message instead of the “WARNING SCREEN" when the Wii boots and does not check the disc drive for a disc before displaying the error. Because of this it's impossible to fix using software unless you have BootMii installed (as boot2), or you use a Savemii Dongle with an autoboot disc.

2. The Wii displays nothing and you are presented with a black screen. Because of this it's impossible to fix using software, UNLESS you have BootMii installed (as boot2), or you use a Savemii Dongle with an autoboot disc. In some cases the latter will be unable to fix this brick.

Low Level Brick (LLB)

A LLB occurs when part of the boot process is corrupt (i.e. boot2) and it's unable to load an IOS (i.e. IOS70). Since boot2 is required to be working and able load an IOS before the system can run, any errors in this process will render the system inoperable. A LLB cannot be fixed with software and requires hardware modification to be repaired.

Error 003 Brick

See Error 003

Black Screen of Death

A Black Screen of Death happens when the System Menu and its corresponding IOS are uninstalled, thus making the Bluetooth Module turn off, and freezing before the Health and Safety Screen shows.

Prevention

• Only install updates for your own region.
• Play your own region
  • Playing games or using Wii Menu channels from other regions shouldn't cause any problems, but in exceptional circumstances something could go wrong
  • Games and Channels from other regions will not function without modification
• DO NOT DELETE CRITICAL SYSTEM FILES
• DO NOT INSTALL SYSTEM FILE MODS
  • Unless, you have a VERY good reason
• DO NOT INSTALL UNOFFICIAL CHANNELS
  • Unless, they come from a TRUSTED source and REALLY serve a useful function
  • Malformed channels (especially the banner part) can make your System Menu crash on boot
  • Loading apps from a SD Card is much safer
• Ensure that you know what you're doing before you install or run any homebrew apps
  • Especially, those with the "Homebrew Dangerous if Misused" banner on their page
• BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN USING:
  • AnyRegion Changer
  • Starfall
  • FirmWare Downgraders
  • Any Other System Tools
• DO NOT TOUCH YOUR Wii's POWER SOURCE/BUTTON WHILE UPDATING/INSTALLING SYSTEM CONTENT
  • (e.g. BootMii NAND backup)
  • ESPECIALLY DURING AN ELECTRICAL STORM

Brick Vaccines

If a Wii becomes bricked, there may be a way to unbrick it.

Using a Recovery Disc

Requires:

• Modchip

OR

• Preloader

Preloader

The disc check can be bypassed.

Modchip

This allows you to boot Recovery Software from a disc.

NOTE: This method is outdated and has a lot of requirements:

1.) A semi-working System Menu.

2.) A fully working System Menu IOS.

3.) ILLEGAL copies of the old repair disc.

• Won't work on updated systems, because IOS16 was stubbed and homebrew discs require the Trucha Bug inside the correct IOS or that IOS has to ignore signing completely.

Indiana Pwns

If you do have a copy of the Indiana Pwns save ALREADY in the Wii, and an authentic LEGO Indiana Jones disc. You can use this to boot recovery software as well. This also requires:

1.) A semi-working System Menu.

2.) A fully working System Menu IOS.

3.) Some way to still boot game discs.

There's a method to get the Indiana Pwns savegame on the Wii NAND after a brick:

First, Spam the NAND with savegames until it's nearly full.

Then, try to install the Rabbids Go Home channel (maybe others work as well).

Then, get the option to go to data management and copy the savegame over.

Using Preloader

Requires:

• Preloader
  • Configured to boot something other than the System Menu

Simply boot a recovery program the way you would any other. if you have Preloader installed, but it boots to the System Menu then try holding down reset when you turn on your Wii, after a few seconds of holding reset the Preloader menu should appear.

Using BootMii

Requires:

• NAND backup
  • BEFORE the Wii bricks

It's advised to backup your NAND right after you install BootMii.

boot2

If you installed BootMii as boot2, then simply go to the second options screen and choose the second icon which can recover from the brick.

IOS

If you installed BootMii as part of an IOS, then you will need Preloader installed. Go to the HBC via Preloader, then select Launch BootMii from the main menu.

Using a NAND Programmer

Requires:

• Soldering many wires to the Wii's motherboard

In order to use a NAND Programmer/Infectus to rewrite the flash directly you will need to know your Wii's NAND keys.

Sending it to Nintendo

This option is the least desirable for homebrew users, as Nintendo will likely send back a different console, with your personal settings/VC account transferred and the latest updates installed.

Cause of bricks

Each region has its own version of the System Menu (1-2). For example, 3.2 of the System Menu available is v. 288 (NTSC/J), v.289 (NTSC/U), v.290 (PAL). The only difference between those three versions is two different files — the main executable for the menu (a .DOL file, more or less) and an ARC archive that stores compressed versions of the HTML / image resources.

All of this is fine and good, but why put them in separately named directories? (E.g. EU/EU/GER/Setup/ScreenSave.html above)? The path name could always be the same because there are different files for each version.

If there’s a specific path that the graphics need to sit at, you’d think they’d hard-code a pathname like that into the code, right? No…

The code’s pretty hard to tease apart, but they seem to be trying to determine the system region from the setting.txt file, and then building up a pathname to load like so: sprintf(filename, “html/%s2/iplsetting.ash/%s/%s/ENG/Setup/ScreenSave.html”, region, region, region). This is so silly, because if they had hard-coded the path then the system would have booted just fine.

A full brick is caused when SYSCONF is missing, damaged, or has the "reconfiguration" flag set. This usually occurs after certain updates. The Wii would usually show the settings screen on boot to let you adjust some settings, but since it is broken, you end up with an un-bootable Wii.

A banner brick is caused when a channel with a malformed banner (icon), is installed. Due to the poor error checking of the System Menu, the system menu cant handle the corrupted banner, so it crashes and thinks that it is a file corruption.

Trivia

In the System Menu 4.2 update, Nintnedo attempted to remove BootMii from Boot2 in older Wii models by overwriting Boot2 with a newer version (v4). This however didn't go quite as planned, as older Wii models weren't designed to run this version of Boot2 and in a large number of cases the update was unsuccesful, leaving not only BootMii users, but regular (non hacking) users with a Low Level Brick.