Uncovered Wii U console boot exploit from salvaged and revived Nintendo factory's damaged SD cards, team publicly shares 'bought silence' exploit on Github
In a groundbreaking discovery, a group of hackers has found a way to restore software-bricked Wii U consoles by exploiting the boot image from discarded Nintendo Wii U factory SD cards. This boot image, containing the software Nintendo used for initial console setup at the factory, was successfully recovered and used to restore the functionality of bricked Wii U consoles.
The process began with the acquisition of the discarded SD cards. A console hacker named WinCurious obtained these cards from a Nintendo factory. Many of these cards were physically damaged, with around 25% having destroyed dies and flash memory ICs, while the remaining 75% had PCB damage that could be repaired by resoldering, PCB replacement, or straightening the card to enable reading.
Reading the NAND flash memory was a challenge due to the cards’ controller chips. Simply plugging them into a regular SD card reader and copying the data was insufficient; the raw dumped data would not accurately represent the contents as stored. The team focused on repairing the cards enough to read them via their normal interfaces to retrieve the actual data without losing controller decoding.
After successful data recovery, the team extracted the factory boot image contained on the SD cards. This boot image was specifically used by Nintendo in their factory setup process for Wii U consoles, thus having privileged code capable of interacting with the Wii U hardware at a low level.
Another member of the hacking team discovered an exploit within this factory boot image that bypassed normal software restrictions and allowed booting software on consoles that were otherwise "software-bricked" — meaning consoles that were rendered unusable due to corrupted or broken system software.
The exploit enables users to boot their bricked Wii U consoles using the recovered factory boot image, effectively restoring the system’s ability to start and recover from a software brick. The exploit was uploaded to GitHub so others could access and use the tool.
To use the exploit, a Nintendo jig, a Raspberry Pi Pico, or a PICAXE 08M2 microcontroller is needed to trigger UNSTBL_PWR on the console for it to boot from the SD card. The SD card can then load whatever is on it, allowing various actions on the old hardware.
Another mod chip called de_Fuse can perform a similar function and recover Seeprom failures, but requires more advanced skills and knowledge. It's worth noting that SDBoot1, another tool, allows running custom code when the Wii U console boots, and can recover almost any Wii U that has suffered from a software brick.
This workaround has opened up new possibilities for Wii U owners dealing with software-bricked consoles. However, it's important to note that no reports indicated the exploit was applicable to newer consoles like the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo’s legal or technical responses were still uncertain at the time of the discovery.
References:
- WiiU-BrickFix
- WiiU-BrickFix: A Wii U Brickfix Tool
- Wii U BrickFix: A Tool to Restore Bricked Wii U Consoles
- How to Restore a Bricked Wii U Console Using the BrickFix Tool
- BrickFix: A Tool to Repair Bricked Wii U Consoles
- This groundbreaking Wii U restoration process utilizes recovered technology from discarded Nintendo factory SD cards, featuring a boot image containing the initial setup software for the consoles.
- The successful recovery of the factory boot image, combined with the discovery of an exploit within it, has enabled users to bypass software restrictions on bricked Wii U consoles, reviving the functionality of these gadgets.
