If you have soft modded your Nintendo Wii and are running a System Menu lower than 4.2 its not safe to update using the standard Nintendo Update.
With help from a few other websites I have put this guide together to help you get your Nintendo Wii running System Menu 4.2. The guide is pretty straight forward as long as you follow every step to the letter and do not miss anything out.
You will find the need to upgrade to System Menu 4.2 to ensure you can play all the latest games with no problems. This guide is currently only for owners of a PAL Nintendo Wii at this stage. If you don’t have the Homebrew Channel installed you will need to do that first following my ‘Installing Homebrew Channel‘ guide.
Requirements:
- PAL Nintendo Wii running on a lower System Menu than 4.2
- SD Card (512mb or higher)
- Upgrade Files: PAL Wii – Download Here
- Homebrew Channel already installed
BEFORE WE START, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PAL NINTENDO WII. IF YOU TRY INSTALLING THESE UPGRADE FILES ON A WII FROM ANOTHER REGION IT COULD BRICK IT. I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
System Menu 4.2 Update Instructions:
- Copy the downloaded files to your SD Card, keeping file/folder structures.
- Insert SD Card into Wii.
- Run WAD Manager 1.5 by loading it through the Homebrew Channel.
- Scroll down the list to find and install IOS70-64-v6687.wad and System Menu-NUS-v482.wad
- Then proceed to install the remaining IOS files:
IOS9-64-v778.wad
IOS12-64-v269.wad
IOS13-64-v273.wad
IOS14-64-v520.wad
IOS15-64-v523.wad
IOS17-64-v775.wad
IOS21-64-v782.wad
IOS22-64-v1037.wad
IOS28-64-v1550.wad
IOS31-64-v3349.wad
IOS33-64-v3091.wad
IOS34-64-v3348.wad
IOS35-64-v3349.wad
IOS36-64-v3351.wad
IOS37-64-v3869.wad
IOS38-64-v3867.wad
IOS53-64-v5406.wad
IOS55-64-v5406.wad
IOS56-64-v5405.wad
IOS57-64-v5661.wad
IOS61-64-v5405.wad
Shopping Channel-NUS-v18.wad
That’s it you should now be able to restart your Wii and find yourself running system menu 4.2.
If you have any questions please ask instead of guessing.
I hope this has helped and was easy to follow, please post your comments below.
Related posts:
- Update The Wii Shop Channel Without Updating Your Wii
- New Nintendo Wii System Menu 4.3 Update
- Nintendo Wii 4.2 Safe Firmware Updater
- New Nintendo Wii 4.2 Softmodding Guide
- Ultimate Nintendo Wii 4.2 Softmod Guide
Tags: Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Softmod
Will work for Black WII Firmware 4.2E
You are already on 4.2?
Excellent..!!! very easy to follow..!! works like a charm…!!! thanks a lot….
hi when i have done the update to 4.2 will i be able to go on wii connect 24 as i was told i couldnt use it with the version i had when i brought it .cause if it updated at all it would wife the soft mod.hope u can answer this for me .thanx
You can go online as normal just don’t update your Wii with any updates. It will always ask you if you want to update.
Hi,
I want to play monster hunter tri on my wii, it keeps asking me to update so I can play the game so I update the softmod and now i am running 4.1E it still asks for an update. When I install this softmod update which you are talking about will it work?
Firstly you should have Priiloader Installed to Block Disc Updates. If it were me I would update to 4.2 using this:
http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/nintendo-wii-4-2-safe-firmware-updater/793/
Then Follow this softmod guide:
http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/new-nintendo-wii-4-2-softmodding-guide/985/
As for Monster Hunter Tri, it has been tricky for allot of people to get it working. You will need to do this:
1. Download this: Hermes_cIOS222_223_installer_3.0_(rev4).zip
2. Extract/copy it to your apps directory on your SD card.
3. Run the installer, and install IOS223 as 37 merged with 38.
4. Run MH3 (making sure to select ios223 in your loader)
5. Enjoy!
Hi Chris,
After installing all the wad files. Everything is going great. The only problem is that I can’t access “Wii Settings” is this normal?
Hi Chris,
On another note, I read some of the older questions and I noticed that it’s normal for the homebrew channel to be deleted after this upgrade. In my case, it did not get deleted, is this normal as well?
It sounds like an IOS file was either missed or not installed correctly, I would try installing them all again.
As for the Homebrew Channel, it varies with different Wii’s, sometimes it is deleted sometimes it is not.
just waned to ask a question that i cant find the answer anywhere. wat exactly will happen to my softmodded wii (4.2u) if i upgraded it using wii upgrade, will it get bricked! or does it still remain the same. thanks in advance
It shouldn’t brick (but may) but you will defiantly loose all your softmod stuff.
If you install Priiloader and enable the “Block Online Updates” and “Block Disc Updates” then you won’t be able to update.
It’s all included in this 4.2 Softmod Guide: http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/new-nintendo-wii-4-2-softmodding-guide/985/
Cheers for this. One question – Will doing an update this way remove cIOSCORP v3.1? It seems to be updating the core system files it patches. This would save me using the uninstaller
I think it does, but when you have updated to 4.2 you could also update to the lastest cIOSCORP (now called DarkCorp) have a look here: http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/darkcorp-v1-0-aka-cioscorp-v4-0-released/999/
Thanks, but I actually want to get RID of cIOSCORP
Any particular reason for this?
Due to it changing the core IOS’, I get errors when it comes to updating and installing various homebrew (noteably, the Homebrew Channel). I have no need for backed up games to load from the disc channel anyway!
Hi,
I am a new in this wii world, I would need your help as I have the system menu 3.4E, to get the Homebrew channel installed I need to upgrade to ver. 4.2. but you are saying that inorder to upgrade to version 4.2 it is required to have Homebrew channel already installed. so which on is first ??!!! I tried to run the SD that contains the files for Homebrew channel but simply my wii freeze.
Which one first please.
Thanks in advance
This Homebrew Channel Package will work on your 3.4 Wii: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZSKSKYRQ
Hope this helps
Hi Chris,
For some reason I can’t download ‘Upgrade Files: PAL Wii – Download Here’ from that site do you have an alternative download link I could use please?
PS:Going down this route as I couldn’t get the easy updater going on my Wii.
Thanks again
Ahh DL now, and on 4.2E yey. Thanks for the Help anyway keep up the good work going to join the Forum today
Excellent, glad you are sorted
Will this still update to 4.2 even with the 4.3 update out there?
Hi I appreciate your help in this. I have a 4.1u and I finally learned how to put the homebrew channel on it but only got bubbles. Maybe thats because I don’t have games loaded to the applications folder??? Anyway so I tried to upgrade to the 4.2 and followed all the steps but it said there was an error in one of the wad files from the updatepal.zip link when I tried to save the data to the SD card. Anyway I decided to continue and loaded it onto the homebrew. It let me do the wad manager download and I was able to load all of them except IOS34-64-v3348.wad which evidently was the bad file…because it didn’t show up on the list in wad manager…all the rest did. Well I restarted my Wii and now the homebrew channel is completely gone. I go into data managent>channels and all I see is a ?. Wont let me do anything. I’ve tried to reformat the sd card reload the early version of homebrew again and it still gives me the ?. Luckily it still plays reg. games in it. If I have 4.1U did i really need to upgrade to 4.2 to play the new games? Or could I have just stuck with the hbc that I had loaded? How can I get back HBC because now when I go to datamanagement>channels>sd card instead of it saying boot and loading hbc it has a ? Please help. Thanks
@ JD – Yes as the files you need are included in the download link above.
@ Alan – Try following this guide right to the end: http://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/new-nintendo-wii-4-2-softmodding-guide/985/ this will re-install Homebrew Channel and Softmod your Wii. Once you have followed this guide you will be ready to go.
Thanks that helped…but unfortunately before I read to the end I searched all day on the net for help and screwed things up a bit. Also I chose Pal when prompted because I didn’t know mine was NTSC so I think I got what they call a “soft brick?” Now when I go to wii settings it says “You tried to access the address marc: Fix/US/ENG/ index 0/html” and links to Opera that don’t work.. I haven’t found anyone that can answer me how to get it back to saying 4.1 or 4.2. Not sure what I have now. I was 4.1U NTSC and I think I softmodded to 4.2 Pal but it soft bricked. To make matters worse my wife put in a newly purchased super mario bros wii and ran the update. Now I have no clue what I am running and always get the message above of marc: FIX/ etc.. It only freezes on settings screen and I have to unplug the wii to get it working again. All my games play fine that are orig. Homebrew channel works fine and with your help I loaded the rest of what was missing. I can load iso downloaded back up games as well but all are coming out BLACK AND WHITE????? Please help me again. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.
Funny now that I am done installing I now know what your giant warning in red means. Prob. is when I started all this I didn’t have a clue. Can anything be done now? Thanks
OK so you still can’t access the settings menu? Have you tried running the updater again and choosing your correct region? That should overwrite and fix the wrongly installed files.
What is the updater? Is that one of the apps ie MIOS patcher or Trucha bug restorer? IDK all I used before was the newest Mario Bros. game. When I load that it doesn’t prompt to update anymore and it has the most recent version I guess. What updater? Thanks
I emailed you the updater as requested. It updates your system menu.
Ok I looked through all my emails but didn’t see an “updater program.” I saw some links to how to update ie installing files like..”Upgrade Files: PAL Wii – Download Here” or “# Nintendo Wii running System Menu 4.2 (update if not)
# Softmodding Files – Download HERE”
Am I supposed to try to download one of these files again? Which one? Or is there an actual program you sent but I didn’t get via email?
Thank you for your patience. This error marc: Fix/US/ENG/ index 0/html I think is one of the hardest things to get rid of. I will try anything. Please advise.
Here is the updater you need:
http://rapidshare.com/files/287098080/Firmware-Updater_4.2.zip
hey Chris, you think you can provide the appropriate Upgrade Files for NTSC….I just won’t want my system ending up like Alan’s system..Thank You very much……
Just use this updater: mhttp://www.chrislowthian.co.uk/nintendo-wii-4-2-safe-firmware-updater/793/ and make sure NTSC is selected before upgrading.
Thanks for the updater. I put it in on my sd card and popped it into the wii and selected sd card..but nothing happened. It didn’t prompt to load anything. I read under the prerequisites for the loader you need the internet. How does that work? Sorry I am such a wii tard but I know I’ll get it someday.
You need to load it from the Homebrew Channel, yes you need your WiFi setup as it downloads the files from the net.