Wii Nand Formatter

Overview

If you have bricked your Wii or have a severe issue that is causing things not to work correctly, you may benefit from using the NAND formatter. This really should be your LAST option after all else fails, as there are some downsides/side effects.

Side effects
Although the NAND formatter is a great tool and can fix pretty much any software issue, there are some side effects.

After using the formatter, the file permissions on the NAND are not as they were originally from Nintendo. This generally isn’t an issue, but if you are trying to format your Wii before sending the console to the Big N (not something I support, you voided the warranty by choice) they could possibly see this and reject your claim. Also Any Region Changer doesnt like these new permissions and will give you an error – ISFS_SETATTR -102.

If you wanted to region change a Wii that has been NAND formatted. You would need to reformat the Wii and create a setting.txt with the new region.

Formatting and Base System Menu 4.1 Installation
This guide assumes you have bootmii already installed as boot2 (you can do this with bootmii/IOS but its not recommended). If your Wii is bricked and bootmii ISN’T installed you need to follow Streamlinehd’s guide, which is found here:

See Source…

If you aren’t capable of doing this or do not have the equipment, both me and Erikie can do this type of work (for a fee I should point out).

You CAN use this guide if you have bootmii as an IOS, but if anything goes wrong you won’t be able to recover your Wii without a NAND programmer (or sending it to someone with one).

Now to the guide…

First, you will also need these files, download the right pack for the region of your Wii:

Click + to show download links

You also need the setting.txt creator.
SettingEdit.rar – See Source…

The NAND formatter does have the option to read your existing setting.txt from the NAND, however if there is something wrong with it and you use it, you will still have a broken system. So, this tutorial covers creating a new setting.txt file using the above tool to cover all the bases.

Format your SD card and extract the pack you downloaded first from above onto your SD card.

The run SettingEdit and you will see this:

Select the correct Area for your Wii (matching the pack you downloaded above).

Edit the Model to match your region, which will be RVL-001(EUR) or RVL-001(USA) for most people here.

Leave both DVD and MPCH as the defaults.

Enter your Serno (serial number).

Select your Video mode and Game region (again, matching the pack you downloaded).

Once done, you should end up with something like this:

Now press Save and save it to the root of your SD card, make sure it is named “setting.txt”.
When you are asked about encrypting the file or not you can press yes or no, the NAND formatter will detect which format it is in and encrypt it if required.

Put the SD card into the Wii and power it on, you will be welcomed with the Bootmii screen:

To navigate the bootmii menus, use the power button to scroll and reset to select. Scroll to the last option and select it to get into the NAND backup/restore section:

Select backup (first option):

Press start to begin, the NAND backup will complete in around 5 minutes:

Press any button to return:

Select the last option to return to the main menu and select the 3rd option which looks like an SD Card:

Scroll down to “NANDFO~1.ELF”

Once you start the formatter, it will greet you with the startup page, press A to continue (gamecube pad):

The formatter will now ask if you want to use the setting.txt from NAND or from the SD card, press B for SD card

The formatter will now display the serial number it read from within the setting.txt on the sd card, confirm this is correct and then press A and installation will start.

Once the installation has completed, the Wii will reboot.
You need to resync your Wiimote at this point, then you will get the setup just like when you first bought your Wii. Select your country, TV settings and name you Wii as normal.

Once the Wii has booted, you will just see the disk channel ONLY:

Installing the rest of the IOS’s and Channels

You now need to insert a game with system menu 4.1 for your region:
(if you do not have a game with 4.1 on it or your disk drive is broken, skip to the next section)

Let the update run:

Once the update has completed, the Wii will reboot and you will have the full system menu:

Your Wii is now repaired/unbricked or what ever else was wrong in the first place. You can now softmod the Wii or do whatever else you intended to do.

If you do not have a game with 4.1 or your drive is broken

Thanks to streamlinehd for the below pack and instructions.

This pack is for use with the Nand Formatter for those of you who don’t have an official game disc with SM 4.1. Loads via cBoot2, BannerBomb2 or HBC – Pack includes all standard IOS, MIOS, BC + Priiloader + DOP-Mii. Pack is configured to auto load IOS36 which is installed by the formatter.

MMM_IOS Pack_CB2_BB2.zip – See Source…

Directions

Extract contents to freshly formatted SD card
Load MMM (CB2, BB2, HBC)
Choose Wad Manager
Choose to install all wads (press 1)
Make sure everything installs successfully

Install Priiloader (optional but recommended)
Choose App Manager -> Priiloader and the installer will start.

Source: Wii Nand Formatter Guide Author: Bad_Ad84