Dual NAND Flash hack on Wii attempted

Not exactly for those disinclined to meddling with circuit boards, but it definitely seems like an interesting project for serious Wii homebrew developers. You see, hacking the Wii to have two NAND Flash chips inside can seem like more possibilities have opened, but for ChipD at HackMii, it’s most essential if you’re a developer trying out new (and possibly dangerous) things on your Wii without actually threatening the original NAND Flash installed. Find out why at the full story.

 

ChipD of HackMii attempted to mount a second NAND Flash on a Nintendo Wii board by way of a proof of concept project. The NAND Flash chip found inside third-party NAND Flash drive was found to be identical to the one inside Nintendo’s next generation console, and using the Infectus modchip and amoxiflash, ChipD was able to clone the official NAND Flash chip onto the new one.

To keep both NAND Flash chips from conflicting with each other, ChipD made use of their Chip Enable line which, if supplied with the required voltage, will enable the chip for operation. With a 2-way switch employed, both NAND Flashes could be switched on and off in alternating fashion.

With this switch in place, the Wii could load the cloned NAND Flash instead of the official one and bear the threat of accidental bricking. It will not help in recovering from a bricked Wii (cloning a bricked NAND will still produce a bricked NAND), but it does appear to be a preventive measure.

ChipD claims that up to four NAND Flash chips could be mounted on top of the official one with room to cover the Wii’s internals.

But with anything that involves a soldering iron and your warranty-covered Nintendo Wii, we don’t suggest attempting the hack unless you’re in real need of it. We think that the only folk who’d seriously consider giving this hack a spin are those planning on testing a homebrew application with the fallout yield equivalent of an atomic bomb.

Still, you can’t discount the other possibilities lined up. We’ll keep you updated if any more derivations of the project crop up. Stay tuned.

Via HackMii