Step 1. Find the proper settings for USB Loader GX to properly load a game
A. Go to TPB for your torrent where all the comments are, and look for a solution there.
B. If it’s not on TPB, your best bet is Google. Try a search to find a solution like “black ops loading freeze”
Note: in this case, I need to change my IOS to 250 from 249 for COD Black Ops to work. You can watch the video if you want to specifically see this.
Step 2. Change individual game settings in USB Loader GX
A. Load USB Loader GX from the HBC.
B. Select the game you want to change the settings for, then select: Settings>Game Load.
C. Here you can change the settings. You should refer to TPB comments or the search results on Google. Just remember to save the settings!
D. Try playing the game. In this case, COD:BO fully works. Watch this step to find out how to play COD:BO online.
Step 3. Download cover/disc art for USB Loader GX.
A. Make sure your Wii is connected to Wi-Fi.
B. Load USB Loader GX.
C. Make sure this list display type is selected: 
D. Point to a game title with no cover art, then point to the missing cover art and press A.
E. Check off whatever you want to download then select OK>Yes.
F. Select OK. Take a look at your sexy USB Loader GX art.
Note: Some art may not be available to download. You can try the same process again, or check off other types of art to get them all.
{ 88 comments… read them below or add one }
I get an error saying “Exception dsi occurred when starting up usb loader”. any thoughts?
Click here for a possible solution.
arr pirate ^^ everything worked perfectly and i was able to softmod without any problems
but i downloaded a few games an put them on a usb stick, I tried one game (Just dance) and it worked 
but then i put zelda on and when i start the game through the usb loader, its like its starts but then it takes me back to to main Wii menu.. any thoughts??
You probably need to change some settings on USBLGX for Zelda. Look on Google for “zelda usb loader gx settings” or something.
I have successfully softmodded my black 4.3U wii using your AWESOME guide! Thanks AOLT!!! My oly question is how do I play videos on the wii from a usb drive? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
You can download MPlayer CE.
Cant get Madden 12 to work online. Everything else works. And the internet on the Wii works fine. Any ideas?
Thank you man!!!!!! It worked !!
Thank you very much for your hard work man. This is the best tutorial I have found. A+++
did these steps and now my wii plays downloaded games from usb, no problems, easy to follow, keep up the good work
Hy
firs of all i would like to thank you for this easy guide for softmoding wii. I wold like to say that everything works whithout problem, but I have a question. Do i always have to load USB Loader GX in HBC when i would like to play a game ? Is there a possibility to run it from Wii menu? If it is, can you please tell how to do it.
Tnx
Thanks for the instructions, I was able to get HBC working. I do have a question, I have a few games (in DVDs) I’d like to “backup/transfer” to usb HDD (used for HBC iso storage), how I do do that (or if it is even possible)?
Thanks again
Wanted to say thanks for the tutorial. It works like a charm and is easy to follow. But im having one big problem. I first got a backup copy of Mario Party 8 and after getting it loaded on to my usb stick and getting it to load the screen goes black. The sound starts but I get no video. So after doing some googleing I find that no one as yet gotten a backup of that game to work. So I got a backup of Mario Party 7 and tried that one. Same problem. Screen goes black but the sound starts. I tried updating usbgx and reloading the game on the usb and got as far as the controller screen and then the video goes out again. Any suggestions? Id love any help you could give. If I get this working I’ve got 3 other people that want me to help them to do it to their wii.
You may want to get the NeoGamma homebrew app and try to load the game from there via USB. You could also try the other USB loaders like WIiFlow and Cfg USB Loader.
can i also just drag the iso files onto the hard drive ?
No, you need your HD to be in WBFS format and import them with WBFS manager.
Hi again!
Again, thanks a million for this! I’ve read the replies, one thing I have to ask, just to confirm. I have the Black Wii 4.3e.. have all games running using USB loader no probs, but is the drive in my machine unmoddable u think? Just to get it to play DVD’s.. it seems I won’t be able to achieve this but if you have any info I’d appreciate it
That’s right, you can’t get it to play burned DVDs via softmod. Maybe hardmod? I don’t know anything about hardmodding
Just Dance 3 Best Buy Edition to be exact
I had recently downloaded a game but when i play it everything comes out to be black and white. I checked in TPB and Google and i found nothing. Can you please help me?
What is the game…? lol
I “love” you man,thanks a milion:X
I got Mario Kart and when I load it up thru usblgx it goes to the safety screen then goes blank helpp?
Click me
Your tutorial worked perfectly, and I’m playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 right now. Thanks so much!
There’s one little glitch. I’ve noticed that my Wii doesn’t go into “standby” mode when I try powering it off anymore. Normally, the power LED turns orange when you do this, but now it just stays “green”. My TV screen screen turns black, which tells me that the Wii is still outputting video. If there is no video, my TV normally gives me a blue screen.
Do you know if this can be fixed?
Thanks!
First off thank you for your tutorial. Awesome videos and instruction makes it easy to follow and it was very exciting to see it work! I am really confused about some things though.
1. When using WBFS Manager I noticed that converting ISOs to WBFS and playing the game with the gx loader is straight forward. But then I downloaded a game which was already converted to WBFS. Trying to put this on an already WBFS formatted drive using Windows 7 seems like a pain when using WBFS Manager. After searching I found comments that “WBFS is outdated” and I should use FAT32 or NTFS formatted drives, use wiiflow or cfg loader because the file play/management is easier and to use Wii Manager instead. What do you think?
2. Also (and maybe the same question as above but less vague) is gx loader limited to playing WBFS files on a WBFS formatted drive?
Seeing that you put so much time and effort into explaining how to hack a wii I totally trust your input over any other sites out there. Again thank you so mucg for all that you do!
1. You don’t need the games to be in .WBFS format, you want them to be in .ISO format when you import them onto a WBFS formatted drive (I didn’t even know you could play .WBFS on a WBFS formatted drive). I only used wiiflow or cfg loader if USB Loader GX didn’t play a game. All the USB loaders are pretty easy to use. I don’t really have a preferred one.
2. Already answered in #1 but you can play .ISO on a WBFS formatted drive.
Mate, thanks a bunch for this tutorial. At last it’s exactly what the likes of me needs – an unambiguous self-contained guide in layman terms. It worked like a charm (the hack pack is perfect) and is a vast improvement on other guides. Thanks for your efforts. I first soft-modded a very early Wii back in the day… and it took about a week to iron out all the curls – lots of late nights, dozens of different websites, the stress of the kids wanting to play it while it was up on blocks and the worry I might brick it! This was a breeze in comparison and, for the record, here are the HW details:
4.3E (white case)
Panasonic 2gb SD
ASTONE portable external HDD (1TB)
Thanks again!
I’m still deciding if I should mod my new (black) Wii that I got for Christmas.
All I really want to know if it can go back to it’s original form if I need it to. If I decide to un-mod it, is it possible to delete everything and be able to download a Wii update without bricking it?
Yeah, you can simply uninstall the homebrew channel (unmod, or making it original) if you need to before updating.
Man i fuckin’ thank you! This was the tutorial i searched a long time
Thanks !
I had a great bonding session with my teenage daughter (I don’t have a son) when we tried to softmod our Wii on the day after Christmas. I gave her the idea to do it for her little sister. She did everything while I was on the side appearing to coach her. She didn’t know I’m a newbie myself. Everything’s working fine after she followed your easy-to-use guide.
The little sister is grateful to her big sister. The big sister is grateful to me. I am in turn grateful to you. THANKS A LOT! And merry Christmas.
Haha, I’m glad it worked out. Merry Belated Christmas to you too!
I’ve read through the comments so I apologize if this has been answered before. How do I get the the USB Loader to be it’s on channel so my kids don’t have to go to HBC first?
You can download the USBLGX forwarder files here. Put them on the root of your sd card and the USBLGX channel should be available through the Wii menu.
plz help, my wii is saying to update in order to play newer games (fifa11 and mario and sonic at the olympic games 2012) but if i update my wii will brick what should i do in order to play those games and the hard drive ones?
If it’s just a disc update, you’re fine. If it’s a System Menu update, don’t do it.
Hi, I have just got a brand new wii remote plus but the problem is that this remote doesn’t want to connect with my wii immediately by pressing 1 or 2, it connects after i manually reconnect wii remote. Is it somehow connected with 4.3E version, do i have to update my wii? and also if i update wii, which version would it be than and would hacks still work? but anyway i am very happy with this hacks and i must say it works perfectly, thanks you.
Looking forward hearing from you. Thanks
I’m not sure why your Wii Motion Plus Wiimote isn’t auto-connect like it should, but I’d advise against updating, unless you don’t mind re-softmodding again.
All steps complete.
Thankyou for this great tutorial and the advice.
Just 1 more question, how can i get a usb loader channel ?
This wii is for my 5yr old, and i think it may be too hard for her to boot games.
Thanks.
Not to worry, sorted it, i just removed all over apps from sd card, she cannot go wrong now
Thanks again for this tutorial
After installing HBC, I realised that I will need to buy a External HDD since my console has the damned D3-2 (Is there any workaround?). So, in the meantime, can I use the original games that came with the Wii or do I have to wait for the HDD to start playing again?
Nevermind, just tested it and it works.
What color is your Wii? Some people just bought new Black Wii consoles and I wanted to confirm that it can/cannot play DVDs.
It’ a black Wii, the one without the GC controller ports. Backup DVD’s don’t work, even after softmodding.
homebrewpirate,
I need some help with one of my games. I downloaded Fifa12 and it starts, but as soon as the ea logo is shown it crashes. I tried changing the iso to 249 and 222 but had no luck. Any further suggestions? Also, I have other games and on my usb flash drive they appear as NTSC but the Fifa 12 appears as PAL does this have anything to do with it or do I need to change the format if so how do I do that? Thanks in advance
Tony
If it’s a PAL game, you may need to use the Force PAL setting to play it. I’d recommend searching on Google or something.
Thanks bro, by any chance do you know to flash an Xbox 360?
I do, but there are so many freaking different DVD drives in that thing… (each drive requires different flashing steps).
great tut dude!!!!!
im a novice and im from holland so i had to transelate evrything xD
i got it all done that all thnx to you so thnx you saved me a hole lot of money thnx
Yeah, no prob
Just wanted to say thanks for this guide. I was able to mod my Wii from start to finish in around 20 minutes with this. I used a Transcend SDHC card and 500GB WD passport HD and it worked just fine. I was also able to add N64, SNES, and NES roms with Wii based emulators to the SD card and those work fine as well. Haven’t tried any game cube games yet, but the 50 or so Wii games (and countless older Nintendo games) I have now should keep me and the kids busy for a while. Anyway, thanks!
Hello mate , i just have some questions , some of ‘em stupid.. :
1. I have PAL version, i see that usbglx uses NTSC by default , is the enforcing to pal bad or not safe ?
2. How do i make a copy of NAND ? If not, how can i restore the original OS later ?
3. IS there ANY WAY to brick it if we use exactly u’re guide ?
4. I see in u’re guide that we need to remove any accesorries eg: like wii motion plus. Is there any problem if i have only built-in motion plus remotes ? Will this be a problem ?
5. Thanks for your time .
1. It’s not bad. By default, all Wiis can play PAL and NTSC, but Nintendo limited its region playback capabilities to the region it was sold in. Priiloader removies this limitation.
2. You could make one in BootMii. I will make an update to include how to do this soon.
3. For the past 6 months there was only 1 person who reported their Wii bricked, then the next day said he fixed it. So no, you can’t brick.
4. It could be a problem if you run into errors while installing LetterBomb or get a DSI error in part 3.
5. No problem!
I have built in motion plus wiimotes, And this still worked perfectly ^.^
I have only got a wii remote plus, no standard wii remote. But I do have an official Nintendo Wii Classic controller. Will this be any help if I run into problems?
Try the classic controller. If it doesn’t work, you’re gonna need to either borrow a regular Wiimote or buy one to complete the softmod process (parts 2 and 3).
Quick question: can you also use burned DVD-R’s, or are USB’s a must? I can find out how to use them on other sites, I just need that answer.
All Wiis can load games from USB, which is why I chose to base my guide around that. However, newer Wiis with the D3-2 chip CANNOT play backup DVDs. You need to make sure your Wii can play burned DVDs here:
How Do I Know if a Wii Can Read DVDs
ihave a hug yet weird bug …games work fun and normal but i have no color in them all games or black an white any idea on what to do on how to fix??? ive played 2 different games sonic riders zero gravity and prince of persia both same effect…. thanks for the mod tho nd in advance if you reply
Yeah, as mentioned in the guide, you will probably end up running into glitches. Certain games need different settings, like changing the IOS to 249, or forcing the video to run NTSC. You should check the pirate bay torrent because people usually post their working settings on there. You can also do a Google search like “sonic riders zero gravity usbloader gx” and you’ll probably find the settings you need to use.
Hey I was just wondering, would doing this delete game save data?
If the data is on the SD card, yeah.
Hey, i just wonder, can i play downloaded games on disks ( i have a new wii with the new dvd i think) i don’t have an external hdd and neighter a usb stick right now . Can i still run the original disks that i already own ?
You first need to find out if your Wii can play burned DVDs here. If your Wii can support burned DVDs, then you can download NeoGamma (Homebrew application) and load them from there. Yes, you can still run original games.
Dear homebrewpirate,
Thank you man!! together with a friend i hacked my wii yesterday and it worked!! GREAT!
i asked my brother to give you the 2 dollar donation because i don’t have pay pal myself.
so I think this will be my final question
. I live in europe so i have the pal version. is it with the USB loader GX also possible to play NTSC games?? one other question… sometimes if i want to download a game i don’t get an ISO file but i see that the torrent consists out of let’s say 30 rar. files that are each for example 46 MB… can i download these files and what should I do to play these games from the usbloader GX?
thanks for everything!
I am glad this guide helped you.
1. USBLGX can be forced to run under NTSC and PAL under the game settings, so you can play both.
2. I made a note in the guide that if you have a bunch of .RAR files, just open the first one (or any of them) and extract the .ISO. Once you extract the .ISO, you can import it into your USB drive with WBFS manager. It’s all in the guide!
I also have 0ne other question…. I see that you have the NTSC version and i got the PAL version… is it still possible than to hack my wii or is your hack guide only suitable for NTSC WII’s???
Michel
This guide works for 4.3U, 4.3E, 4.3J, and 4.3K, (basically all 4.3 lol).
dear homebrewpirate,
do you also have movies to hack a wii 4.1??
greetz michel
For now I’d recommend that you just update to 4.3 (if your Wii hasn’t been modded before). Then use the 4.3 tutorials.
So I manage to softmod my 4.3E Wii and started off with back-ups of Donkey Kong Country Returns and EA Grand Slam Tennis which I copied to a 16GB USB stick using WBFS manager, and everything seemed to be going great. I copied a few more games on the stick as well, but all of a sudden I started not being able to play Grand Slam Tennis, kept getting a black screen right after I loaded the game. I tried removing it from the USB stick and re-copy it, but after a while I started getting the same problem with other games. It came to a point where the only game I could get to work was Need for Speed: Carbon, so after scouring the web for hours, messing around with ISO and video settings, I finally decided to remove and re-install USBLoaderGX. I don’t know if that was a good idea or not, but now I’m at a point where there’s no USB Loader GX channel on my wii (I can only find and load it via the HBC, and none of the previous games work at all, I keep getting the black screen freeze right after I click on the spinning disc, for any game I have on my stick (I currently have 4 of them, all of which used to work fine at the beginning).
It’s clear to see I’m pretty hopeless, so any help would be appreciated.
I guess we’ll take it once step at a time. You can restore the USBLGX channel back to the Wii menu if you download these two .dol files and place them on the root of the SD card here. As for suddenly not being able to play the games, we’ll look into that later, but you can see the USBLGX compatability list here.
Thanks for getting back.
It turns out my USB device problem was probably due to excessive WBFS deleting and recopying and formatting via the WBFS manager, or some ISO file not correctly written and/or deleted. A good old-fashioned format via the windows utility fixed it and all is back to normal.
Thanks for the dol files as well.
Keep up the noble cause!
If I want to play wii games from the hard drive that I actually have (load from disc to usb) what part of this hack do I need? I have seen other hacks that include some file for adding the game to the usb from the wii. Does this one have that option?
Thanks
Yes this has that option. In part 4 you can import games from your computer to a USB device with WBFS manager. But you would need to finish parts 2 and 3 first.
i haven’t read everything on this site but i would like to know two things before i’m gonna hack my wii…. is it after all these steps possible to download games, burn them on a
dvd-r and than play the games? i see the comment of Ann and it looks like she did all the 6 steps and still can’t play burned games… my second question is… i haven’t got a Internet connection in my crib. is it usefull to hack my Wii or is it only usefull if I have a decent connection in my crib… the signal is too bad to get my Wii connected… i hope to hear from you soon!! keep up the good work!!
New Wiis that have the D3-2 chip (Black Wii) cannot play burned DVDs. You can check if your Wii can play burned DVDs here. Loading from USB is possible for all Wiis after softmodding, so you could download the games from a friend’s house or someplace with a decent connection. If your internet is too weak to get the Wii connected but strong enough to get your laptop/computer connected, you can maybe download SNES, SEGA, N64, and PSX games, and play them through an emulator homebrew application. These games download much quicker than Wii ones, especially the SNES and SEGA games.
What should I download onto my wii if I want to play the games from a burned disc. I will burn the game onto a dvd-r using imgburn and then how can I play that on my wii? Do I need to install anymore hacks onto the wii?
New Wiis that have the D3-2 chip (Black Wii) cannot play burned DVDs. You can check if your Wii can play burned DVDs here.
Once confirming you can play burned DVDs, you need to download NeoGamma, and put it into your apps folder of your SD card, stick it into the Wii, and you should be able to load NeoGamma and play your burned Wii game.
Is it at all possible to burn backups to discs and play from burnt discs? Or is it impossible for the Wii to read DVD-Rs through softmodding alone?
Check out the reply below Ann’s comment.
hi , if im gonna do all thesee steps would i can play black ops and mw 3 from dvd a mean ( disc channel) ???
Yes, you can still play original games. Even if for some reason you can’t, which is highly unlikely, you can always download the game onto your USB drive and play it from there. I got CoD:BO to work, and others are saying MW3 works as well through USB.
i am a novice and i was able to softmod my game so easy using this tutorial only problem i encounter was when i was loading the YAWMM file and i follow the comments make by deleting the config file in the wad folders using my computer then install the files over and now i am downloading and playing games. THANKS A LOT!!!!!!! CONTINUE WITH UR GOOD WORK.
Glad to hear you were able to easily softmod your Wii
For some reason, the images wont show up? i see them in the directory in the sd card (sdcard/config/images) but they wont show on usb loader gx. I had a lil trouble with gettin usb loader to work before, it wasnt reading my 8 gig usb stick. i switched to a 500gb verbatim now it reads it and all works without changing any settings, but the images wont show up. i downloaded em from usb loader, but nothing. I have black ops and just dance 3.
Thanks, any help will be appreciated.
Have you tried deleting the images from your SD card and re-downloading them? If that doesn’t work you can try reinstalling USBLGX. I couldn’t find an easier solution