Wii U Transfer: Hung on Loading Data From SD Card Screen

Question

I just purchased a Wii U yesterday and after the initial setup I wanted to transfer my Wii data to my Wii U. I had to do some preparation for the transfer because I have a hacked Wii. I hadn't used it in a year in a half so I hadn't updated the system at all. My Wii was on System 4.1u, and in order to get the Wii Transfer Tool I had to have 4.3u and the Shopping Channel v21.

After too many hours of research I finally figured out that I should be using DOP-Mii to install updates to the system. Before I did anything I did a NAND backup using Boot-Mii. I then went into DOP-Mii and installed IOS80, and IOS62 and then I updated the system to 4.3u. For some reason I was not able to get into the Shop Channel; when I hit Start it would act like it is loading and then go right back to the Wii Menu. I restarted the Wii to see if that would help and the same thing happened. As a last ditch effort I went into DOP-mii and when through and installed any IOSs that were not installed and not required for Korea, restarted the Wii and it let me in. Great I though, now I can get all of my data transferred.

I had an SD card that I had formatted FAT32 and worked in my computer. Loaded it into the Wii U and let it do it's thing, both machines were online btw. When the Wii U was done preparing the SD card I ejected it, and inserted it into the Wii. The data transfer was successful to the SD card from the Wii. I then ejected the card and put it back into the Wii U and went to finish the process of transferring the data to the Wii U, or so I thought. I was on the screen that says Loading Data from SD Card... and a warning to not turn the power off or take the card out or you will lose data. An hour went by and then two hours went by; I left it on overnight night and it was still on this screen. I did turn my Wii off after the first hour, which both machines were supposed to be on, but from what I have read the transfer shouldn't take an hour.

I am at a loss as to what I should do now. Will I really lose the stuff that is on the SD card if I turn the power off? Can I just turn the Gamepad on and get back to the Wii U menu and start the import again?

If I do lose the data here is my other dilemma. I did a NAND back up of the 4.1u system before updating to 4.3u, but in the hustle of trying to do this I was also attempting to be a decent parent and wrangle the kids for bed and such with my wife and forgot to do a NAND backup up the 4.3u system before I did the transfer which wipes the data from the Wii. Will I be able to restore the 4.1u NAND backup to a system that has been upgraded to 4.3 so I can start over? If not will I be able to extract all of the save data, Miis and anything else from the .bin file?

Answer 1

I'm posting this as an answer as there is not enough room to post as a comment.

Honestly, this question is out of scope since you're talking about troubleshooting hacked hardware.

1) I'm surprised that your system wasn't bricked when you connected to Nintendo for the license verification faze.

2) If you're not even getting to the Pikmin transfer then it's likely refusing to process the data which if it can't authenticate licensing it might do.

3) For reference my transfer of a 32GB SD card of Wii content to the Wii U took nine hours.

4) You can not turn off either system during the process as they are both doing licensing checks with Nintendo during the transfer.

All hope is not lost however on undoing a failed transfer. I found some info over on the Nintendo Forums where someone had info for undoing a failed transfer. They said "Tech support suggested trying to unpack the .bin files and then copy the save data manually back onto Wii And try the transfer over again". And there is further discussion in the forum about people doing this recovery.

As for pulling off this migration from a hacked Wii to an unhacked Wii U, I suspect you're going to have to take this off Stack and post it to a group associated with the hack mods you're using.