Resurrecting a Bricked Wii U with a Raspberry Pi Pico
Several Nintendo Wii U systems have been experiencing mysterious failures, leading to common error codes such as 160-0101 and 160-0103. To address these issues, Voultar embarked on an investigation to determine if hacking could provide a solution. While unable to find a Wii U with the frequently discussed NAND failure mode, Voultar obtained several supposedly bricked units displaying the aforementioned error codes.
The hack involves exploiting a vulnerability in the Wii U’s USB Host Stack descriptor parsing module, developed by GaryOderNichts. This exploit allows the injection of a payload to run unsigned code on the Wii U, facilitated by a Raspberry Pi Pico. The Pico is utilized to boot from an SD card running a recovery program for the Wii U, ultimately resetting the console’s “coldboot title ID” and resolving the error. This process successfully fixed five consoles displaying the common error messages.
While not a universal fix for all failed Wii U units, this approach could prove beneficial for those specifically encountering the 160-0101 or -0103 errors.
Read more: Resurrecting a Bricked Wii U with a Raspberry Pi Pico
