Got these Nintendo SD cards, right? Some console hacker, goes by WinCurious, stumbled upon ’em. I mean, literally found them tossed out from a Nintendo factory. That’s like finding buried treasure but with video game stuff. Anyway, these cards? They were used for setting up Wiis and Wii Us. Sounds fancy, but really, they were just sitting there with all their secrets.
DeadlyFoez—cool name, right?—was with WinCurious. They say the cards had a boot image for Wii U factory setups. Imagine plugging in a memory card and seeing all the tech wizardry behind the scenes. But first, they had to fix these battered cards. Around 25% were just toast, like, demolished. No saving those. The rest? Just kinda bruised. Like needing a Band-Aid but for circuit boards. So, fix ‘em up, and they’re good to go, kinda.
Okay, techy moment—getting stuff off these cards isn’t just slapping them in a reader. Nope. I’m talking next level creativity here. DeadlyFoez didn’t have the gear to tackle those TSOP 48 chips, whatever those are. It’s like having a key that doesn’t fit any locks. But, hey, WinCurious had this wacky workaround—swap the NAND chips onto a good card. It’s like transplant surgery for memory cards!
But let me tell you, soldering those bits together sounds like it would drive anyone nuts. Can’t imagine trying to solder stuff so tiny! DeadlyFoez went on about them melting at low heat and all. I mean, why can’t these things just be easier, right?
Anyway—hold up, where was I? Right—the card magic worked. They revived 14 cards. And what did they find? Oh just some SDBoot1 image thing. Rairii, their teammate, got all Sherlock Holmes on it. Turns out, it helps run custom code on a Wii U. Tech-speak for “we can fix your bricked console, maybe.”
Right, so to actually do this magic trick, you need one of those rare Nintendo jigs or some other gadgetry. Probably something I’d accidentally break at first touch. They’re like the key to unlocking your console’s capabilities.
There’s also this thing called de_Fuse. It’s like next-level hacking, but seriously, unless you’re practically an electronics wizard, it’s a no-go. But, point is, all these shenanigans mean you don’t need to crack open your console like a walnut just to experiment a bit. Maybe this makes old Wiis and Wii Us cool again. Who knew, right?