After spending days following some obsolete or incomplete or just too long and specific guides, here is my take on setting up a Wii in the year 2020
- Format SD card with 1 partition of 32kb clusters:
sudo mkdosfs /dev/sdXX -s 128 -F 32. Up to 32GB SD-HC should work fine, despite what was said in old forums - Install BootMii + HBC with LetterBomb: https://wiibrew.org/wiki/LetterBomb
- BACKUP your NAND with BootMii to be safe from bricking: https://sites.google.com/site/completesg/how-to-use/bootmii This is mostly for peace of mind though
- Install cIOS 249 base 56 v10 beta52 on slot 249 and base 57 on slot 250. This is the most complex step, be careful to follow the instructions here: https://sites.google.com/site/completesg/backup-launchers/installation Note: Pre-download IOS56-64-v5661.wad and IOS57-64-v5918.wad into the SD to avoid errors. The rest is included in the cIOS installers.
- Install WiiFlow Lite 5.4.6+. I tried many other loaders, this is the one that works flawlessly as of July 2020. Instructions: https://gbatemp.net/threads/wiiflow-lite.422685/
- Copy your legit game backups into SD card folder
/wbfs/, named with their 6-letter codes. E.g. "R64P01.wbfs" for Wii Music PAL version. - Install WiiFlow chanel forwarder to access it more directly (from the main Wii screen)
Now game backups should work fine from forwarded WiiFlow channel, and I recommend:
- Make your Wii boot directly into WiiFlow with Priiloader or BootMii forwarder loader: https://sites.google.com/site/wiiflowiki4/installing-wiiflow
- Install latest Homebrew Browser to have access to a bunch of tools directly from your Wii
- Install WiiXplorer (from HB) to be able to edit and manage files directly on the Wii.