iPhone / iPad Accessories Reviews: How to hack a 4.2 Nintendo Wii

So what all can a Wii really do?

A LOT! Like you wouldn't believe, your Wii is a treasure chest waiting to be opened! Follow my guide and you'll be able to:

Play Wii games from an external hard drive or flash drive using usb loader gx
Watch DVD Movies on your Wii (Newer Wii's cannot play dvd-r's due to a different dvd drive)
Have access to literally hundreds of homebrew apps made just for the Wii such as custom music and movie players, homemade games such as QuakeWii and Super Mario War, and other neat stuff!
Use a wad manager to install all the cool classic games on the shop channel without having to pay for them!
Use emulators to play playstation, N64, sega genesis, nes, snes, and even sega saturn games on your Wii!
Use PriiLoader Hacks to customize your Wii, including the abilitiy to remove the background music and the annoying health warning screen, and you can even move the disc channel!
Play gamecube games burnt to a DVD-r on your Wii! (unless you have a newer Wii)
Hell, you can even run Linux on your Wii!
And much more...!

Click this picture to view it fullsize; this is what your screen will look like when you go to right click the rar file and extract it

When you click "My Computer", click your SD card, your screen should look something like this, if it does, you're ready to start hacking away!

What you need

Okay, so there is a lot of stuff that you'll need to download in order to properly hack a Nintendo Wii. Instead of making you go through all the trouble of locating all of these files individually, I've put them all together in one download, click here
I take no credit for all the hard work it took to create these files, I am simply providing them at your convenience. To view the original guide click here
Now, if you do not have a way to unzip .rar files, you'll need winrar or something equivalent, I recommend 7zip, because it's free and works just as well as anything else. Click here to download it.
Once 7zip is installed, you'll be able to right click the "4.2 Wii everything you need.rar" file and click extract using 7zip. Extract the contents of the .rar file to the root of an SD card, preferably a 2 gigabyte one or larger, since that's also most likely where your roms and other neat stuff will go. If you don't have an SD card, purchase one below, and you'll have everything you need. Watch my two-part video guide below or continue reading to start hacking your wii!

Time to hack!

Before doing anything, insert your SD card (with the contents of the .rar file on it) and remove any gamecube controllers and memory cards. Turn on your Wii and verify that it has an internet connection, because your Wii will need to download essential files during the hacking process. Also verify that your Wii has firmware 4.2. You can do this by clicking the "Wii Options" button on the bottom-left of the screen and then click "Wii Settings" on the right. Your firmware version will be on the top-right. Now you're ready to start:

On the Wii menu, click the "SD card icon" on the bottom. It'll load your SD card and then a message window will pop up asking you if you want to install boot.dol/elf? Click yes
After reading the disclaimer and pressing "1" to continue, press A and then scroll up to where it says homebrew channel and press A to install it. If you want to back up your Wii's NAND to insure it doesn't get bricked, click here for the guide on that (step 2). If not, press exit at the bottom to be taken to the homebrew channel screen.
Find the program called "Dop Mii" and click that to run it, once there, click "Install IOS36 with fakesign. Press A to continue and then press A again to downgrade (only works if your Wii is connected to wifi) After that, simply keep pressing A to confirm everything until it is done. It will ask to apply patches and to install more stuff, just click yes for everything.
After that is done, return to the main screen, or run "Dop Mii" again if you have to. This time, click the first option, "IOS 36", and then select "IOS." Scroll right until you see IOS 222 at the top. Press the "minus button" on your wii remote to uninstall it. Do the same for 223, 249, and 250. DO NOT UNINSTALL ANYTHING ELSE! Return to the homebrew menu screen.
Now it's time to install custom firmware, woo hoo! On the homebrew menu, find the program called "cIOS38-rev14 Installer" and run it. Press A to use IOS 36 and then select network or wad install. Either works fine. Once this is done, exit and return to the homebrew menu.
Find your "Wad Manager" program, it'll most likely be on the last page in your homebrew menu. Run that and select IOS249. Use the Wii SD Slot, and make sure NAND is disabled. You'll need to install the following wads:

IOS53-v5406 [TB].wad
IOS55-v5406[TB].wad
IOS60patched.wad
IOS70-patched.wad

7. The last step is to install "priiloader". Run it from the homebrew channel and press "+" on your Wiimote to install it. Keep in mind that this is optional and is only necessary if you want system menu hacks such as removing the background music or the health screen. You can configure your priiloader hacks by holding the reset button while turning your Wii on. The priiloader also comes in handy if your Wii ever gets "bricked," because you can access it before the Wii's critical files boot and possibly restore them.

Playing Wii Games from an external hard drive

Honestly, isn't this why you wanted to hack your Wii to begin with? Don't lie to me, haha. Playing Wii games from my external hard drive is honestly one of the coolest things about having a hacked Wii. No more inserting or scratching discs, just click and play! Just make sure you actually own the original copy of a game before you download it.
In order to do this, you'll need an external hard drive of some kind, I recommend the 320 gigabyte Western Digital Passport, as it is the one I personally use. You can easily fit 100 Wii games on it, so you don't need anything bigger than that.You could also use a flash drive if you wanted to be able to carry your games in your pocket or something. You can fit about 10 Wii games on a 32 gigabyte flashdrive. To read my full guide on how to play Wii games stored on an external hard drive or flash drive.