Bricking

[Not Kuno]

This hasn't happened to me, just a random question that came to mind.

Why do consoles brick? I know it's because people (generally) fuck with them and they turn to crap but what actually happens? Can't people plug in something to mess with the harddrive? I'm pretty sure all consoles this gen have usb or some other option for external connection so what's the deal?

[Devolver]

Something along the lines of not being able to boot from the OS, and since consoles don't have a boot disk like a PC has to restore critical files, it just gets bricked.

If there was a way to put a boot.exe'esque or something on an external like I (think) your suggesting, that would be hot buttery tits.

[Blabj]

Most games consoles have inbuilt flash memory banks which store critical information about the system (think of a computer's bios and operating system rolled into one).

In terms of PSP modding, the custom firmware requires rewriting of the information stored on this memory within the device. If for some reason something goes awry during the flashing process (such as a power failure or read error from other storage in the device, etc.) then bad/impartial data will be written to these banks of memory, forcing the device to brick. In general, any normal method of undoing said operation would require a functioning device (ie, the original flash data) therefore making it impossible to restore the device to it's previous state - kind of like a catch 22.

[kuronosan]

Like he explained, consoles boot from a primary BIOS (and some a secondary one). If that BIOS is modded or corrupted it can't boot. Most softmods allow you to boot from a modified BIOS first, and this is the only way to recover from a brick.

Obviously the term just references the fact that your console is now about as useful as a brick (or using a brick as a paperweight). There are other ways to recover a console brick, but not that many.

[Spekkio]

bricking (at least non-hardware related bricking) happens when the boot code for the console can not bring the system into a state where it can be used or reprogrammed. to a degree we can brick a computer in the same way by flashing the bios with a bad flash. this will prevent the board from booting and thus prevent us from booting a bios flashing tool or booting any other software from HDD, CD, flash memory, etc.

most PSP custom firmwares include a "recovery console" that can be booted on startup by holding iirc the R button while the system starts. this gives us a solution if the standard bootup procedure has been rendered inoperable by a partial flash (ALWAYS ALWAYS charge your batteries before flashing!), a corrupted flash, or just something going really really wrong. in addition, the PSP has a "service mode" that can be triggered by a special device in the battery slot that will force it to boot code from the memory stick instead of from the boot flash enabling a repair of even the most bricked PSP. this device is generally referred to as a "pandora battery" by the PSP homebrew community and can be made either by a physical or a software modification to an official (NO AFTERMARKET!) PSP battery, like the one that came with your PSP.

if you have a specific question about a specific console brick, feel free to ask and i can probably go into more detail on it, but the PSP mods and bricks are in my experience the most common and the most easily recoverable, though with the boot2 replacement for the wii (assuming your boot1 is still affected by the trucha bug) and some forethought, you should be able to recover an at least semi-bricked wii. don't even get me started how easy those things are to brick with a small error...

[kuronosan]

Since Nintendo made just about every IOS they load essential to the Wii's function, it's ridiculously easy.

Spekkio, how would you go about rebooting an LU64+ system since they replace boot1 and don't allow boot2 replacement?

[Spekkio]

Timing is everything (the case of the “unsoftmoddable Wii”)
no time to explain more atm. can contact me later tonight (we're both on kujata) and can talk more if you like.

[Not Kuno]

Why is it that Twilight is the only game you can use for Wii hacking? Is it because its the only game with an input value (for Epona) so close to the stuff it overrides? Been really interested in console modding (not doing it, just the history and how it works etc is very interesting) but never figured out why it was just that game.

Thanks for the replies though, I just really like this stuff even if Im too much of a wuss to do it all myself.

[Spekkio]

Why is it that Twilight is the only game you can use for Wii hacking? Is it because its the only game with an input value (for Epona) so close to the stuff it overrides? Been really interested in console modding (not doing it, just the history and how it works etc is very interesting) but never figured out why it was just that game.

Thanks for the replies though, I just really like this stuff even if Im too much of a wuss to do it all myself.

twilight hack has been dead a while due to some truly ghetto kluges in the wii system menu. TP was selected b/c it had an exploitable glitch and was widely distributed i think. since i think wii system menu v4 they've used the system menu to make it impossible to copy an exploit loaded save to the wii save memory (the only place the game can access) rendering the glitch un-exploitable. in short, they basically check every TP save, check several exploitable buffers for bad data, and if it finds a trojan savegame, it deletes it. yes. it's really THAT ghetto.

fear not though, for there are many other glitches! at current, i know of 3 that work. the first and most commonly used is "Bannerbomb" which exploits a glitch in the wii system menu itself. Nintendo recently tried to patch this, but they failed hard at it and bannerbomb was modified to work again within about 2 days.

the second is called "Indiana Pwns" which exploits a glitch in Lego Indiana Jones which is almost identical to the TP hack. in theory, they could easily write a similar countermeasure to this as the TP hack, but then the developers just need to find a new game to exploit.

the final one seems to be the most insidious to Nintendo as i have no idea how they'd fix it besides a nasty NASTY patch to the IOS used by the game. this one is called "Smash Stack" and exploits an error in the handling of custom stages in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. now if you're paying attention, you'll be asking why this is more dangerous than "Indiana Pwns"? well, the file for the custom stage lives on an SD card. an SD card that can be inserted after the system menu is already unloaded and the game is launched. short of having the drivers for the SD card in the IOS check for this (oh boy wouldn't THAT be a great solution. let's lag all the games that access the SD card to check for that exploit...) i don't know how they could possibly patch this glitch.

all 3 of these exploits take control of the system and then proceed to execute a user provided payload which is usually a homebrew installer.

[Silenka]

I don't think the twilight hack is widely used or even useable anymore. (Or if it is, you have to use an old version of the wii firmware). There's a new safer way to mod your wii now, but I haven't done it. It will allow you to play games off your computer's HD iirc. I was pretty pissed when I made the stupid mistake of saving my TP game on the twilight hack's savefile and when I decided to unmod my wii by upgrading to recent firmware it wiped my twilight hack save.........

I was almost done with that game too ; ;

[edit] beaten XD

[Spekkio]

I don't think the twilight hack is widely used or even useable anymore. (Or if it is, you have to use an old version of the wii firmware). There's a new safer way to mod your wii now, but I haven't done it. It will allow you to play games off your computer's HD iirc. I was pretty pissed when I made the stupid mistake of saving my TP game on the twilight hack's savefile and when I decided to unmod my wii by upgrading to recent firmware it wiped my twilight hack save.........

I was almost done with that game too ; ;

[edit] beaten XD

there are many homebrew channel apps that let you load material from your computer or even web servers (check out homebrew browser.)

[kuronosan]

I use those ones. Pretty nice.