Wii Disc drive spoof. Need help Emu_kid/Mega/Ashen???

[LOCtronicz]

So I am busy with a tiny wii board cut. As of yet I have been able to cut it pretty small while still retaining all of it's functions. Also been able to power it off a custom regulator, 3.3v and 1.2v. See my facebook album for pics on the discovery. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 64bf641ddd

The thing is I want to softmod the thing and use that to play games via sd or hdd. However if I want to play wii games via sd/hdd it needs to have a disc drive motherboard or modchip attached. Only then do the disc checks in games work and can you play the game.

Is there a way to make the wii think it has a disc drive connected even when there is not? Tried pin 23 to gnd and pin 29 to gnd but didn't do anything.... I'm not really sure what the wii needs to receive input wise to make it think it is reading or trying to read a disc.

Any thoughts???

[andre104623]

So I am busy with a tiny wii board cut. As of yet I have been able to cut it pretty small while still retaining all of it's functions. Also been able to power it off a custom regulator, 3.3v and 1.2v. See my facebook album for pics on the discovery. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 64bf641ddd

The thing is I want to softmod the thing and use that to play games via sd or hdd. However if I want to play wii games via sd/hdd it needs to have a disc drive motherboard or modchip attached. Only then do the disc checks in games work and can you play the game.

Is there a way to make the wii think it has a disc drive connected even when there is not? Tried pin 23 to gnd and pin 29 to gnd but didn't do anything.... I'm not really sure what the wii needs to receive input wise to make it think it is reading or trying to read a disc.

Any thoughts???

Maybe try to connect just the daughter board of the disc drive. What happens if you just connect the wasp fusion to the motherboard and leave the dvd side empty

[LOCtronicz]

Yeah you only need to connect the disc drive mainboard and you are good to go. A wasp will work aswell. But the whole point is to not connect anything so I can make the board smaller and cut away unneeded components.

[Air Conditioner]

From my understanding, the way that the custom software (i.e. Nintendont or WiiFlow) loads via SD or USB is they initialize the disc drive and then once the drive is "reading", the software, whatever it may be, loads the .iso from the SD or USB in place of the disc and needs the disk drive board to do that. I'm pretty sure the loading methods are the same fundamentally and the only reason you don't hear the drive going is because it obviously loading from SD or USB lol. What leads me to believe this as well, is that you can emulate the reading of the "disc" (.iso from SD or USB) to the Wii's front LED bar that surround the disc drive opening making me think it is just routing the data from the SD or USB to the drive board rather than a disk. Granted I'm no Wii expert, but from what I've read and seen, this seems to be what it's doing. I could be completely wrong because I'm not super into Wii and don't have one taken apart currently to goof around with. Maybe you could see what components/circuit/chip do the initialization and try to re-create it and wire it to the CPU? And since there doesn't seem to be any previous testing with this it's possible (but very unlikely) that it may be a matter of the Wii not recognizing any power draw from the Disc Drive and an LED or something that would draw power could trick it... I'm kind of grasping at straws here. One thing I would try for sure is putting custom boot software on it like BootMii or using one of the passive region modchips to see if it has to do with the BIOS.

https://hyperiris.wordpress.com/2010/07 ... chameleon/

Maybe check this out as well... they are probably unrelated but maybe the creator figured out how to spoof the disk drive to start his laoding method.

There could also be software written for the Wii that could do this it's just never been created because no one has ever done this.

[LOCtronicz]

Thanks for the info. As far as I know only wii loaders do a disc check. Gamecube loaders like nintendont work perfectly fine without a anything connected to the discdrive port.

I also believe it to be a set of pins that have to be either pull up or down voltages wise to make the wii think it has a disc drive connected. Cause that is all the disc drive board is doing.

I'll investigate some more myself. But anyone with some info regarding on how the pins work on the wii connector would be much appreciated.

[novenary]

I'm pretty sure there's data exchange during disc init. Can you remove the drive board once the game is running to see if it still works ? If it does then there may be a solution (just a very simple modchip that emulates the behavior of the drive on init). Can't do anything myself as I don't have a Wii.

[LOCtronicz]

Good idea! Just check it. Loaded a wii game via wiiflow with a wasp modchip connected and game boots up fine. Then in game I carefully removed the modchip ribbon cable from the wii. Game kept running and was fully playable. Even when I press home buttons and reset game title it just boots the game like it should and everything works.

I believe that wiiflow is only accessing the drive at init and then just leaves it. How would be go abouts making a init modchip?? Don't have any experience in that field I'm afraid....

[novenary]

It may also be possible to modify Wiiflow itself to remove the need for a disc drive. Need to ask FIX94 (I think) about it.

[LOCtronicz]

Yeah I was also thinking about that but I doubt it would be possible and still work. I assume it is needed to check for the disc and insert the iso when it is reading from discdrive.

Where can I find FIX94?

[novenary]

On Efnet IRC, in #gc-forever. He hangs out in there pretty often.

[megalomaniac]

If fix94 has not enabled such a feature by now, then there is reason for the drive to be present...


Modchip might be the only way / smallest way possible

[LOCtronicz]

Just spoke with Fix94 on gbatemp irc and it seems it might be possible for the disc check in wiiflow to be removed however he says that he hasn't been active with wiiflow in 2 years and that to remove it is not easy. He didn't comment yet on if he will bother trying so might never happen.

I'll be investigating further into a hardware disc spoof. Gonna do some pin testing and see if I can get any wiser.

If anybody has info that could be usefull please share.

[megalomaniac]

"disc check"
if he means it issues a command and awaits a response, then probing pins is unlikely to provide a solution....

but you could always try shorting pin31 to GND just to see if that clears the "busy" signal
i had to do that for something...i dont remember what since it was rare use occasions....but it was disc related and i posted the info somewhere in the plug n play adapter thread

along with this you may need the lid switch closed and pin29 to either gnd or 1.8v (whichever applies to the need for wii in this usage)

[LOCtronicz]

Wii cIOS works by initializing the discdrive then loading in the iso to boot the game. Then after that there is no communication with the discdrive (hense why I can remove it and the game still plays). But it seems there must be a discdrive present for the boot up. The right signals need to be sent otherwise it will not work. So probing pins will probably do nothing.....

Gonna try anyway though just for the heck of it.

[Air Conditioner]

I do wonder if a smaller spoof drive board could be designed that plugged into the 32 pin connector just to save space.

[emu_kidid]

Just fit a Wii drive PCB in there, it doesn't actually need to check a disc. I had a Wii with a dead drive for the last few years and that's the one I played most of my games on IIRC.

[Air Conditioner]

LOCtronics goal though is to remove the need for even the 32 pin connector so that he can get the Wii even smaller.

[megalomaniac]

i didnt think WASP took up so much extra room
even if a chip spoofer was developed, you would still need to use the FFC connector to communicate along the data lines unless you want to wire it up to bypass the FFC connector but is a waste of time considering the ease of FFC.


as for battery consumption, a WASP with SD card would be better than wiiflow with using a HDD...flash drive would be better but still adds some bulk and wiring for the USB slots.

considering Wii titles have to use the wiimote, how portable can this really be when you have to carry a bag of supporting accessories? im not sure if there is real bother there to make it really small since with a smaller screen comes more strict tolerance of movement of the wiimote during gameplay.


considering the fact there will have to be a bag of tag along accessories, why not carry a drive board also??
just make a connector where it can plug in externally during initial startup then removed and throw it back into the bag..






im not trying in any way to knock down this project, just pointing out the realities of a wii portable
maybe the external driveboard interface could be your best option if you want to keep things small....
or just use a WASP which is better solution to keep the connection internal and protected




any luck with pin31 ??

[Air Conditioner]

I wasn't trying to say the WASP took up a ton of room but it seems like the goal of this would be to cut away the area with the 32 pin connector for the sake of having the knowledge that a Wii can be cut there and use in a portable. And, if something can be developed on the software end, that's $25 off the total cost of build, and one less thing to possibly fry and replace

as for the Wiimote functionality and needed the extra accessories, several popular titles use Classic controllers and Gamecube controllers so a Wii mote might not be needed all the time. Not to mention GC functionality and the emulators.

[LOCtronicz]

Yeah the point it to reduce any additional components. Even is a disc spoofer was made I would still rewire the ffc port directly to the via's because I'm going to cut it off. More work yes but the point of this trimming is purely for development to see how small it can be made.

As for the wiimote. I have several idea's in place which will make the use of a wiimote inside a portable more feasible. I have already cut up a classic,nunchuck to a minimal size and have a switch between them so I can switch easily depending on the game I want to play.

Today gonna mess around with pin probing. I'll let you guys know what I get from it.