2

Our Wii Family Edition (RVL-101 USA) has stopped reading the game disks we put in. All other functions work well. Following some manuals I found online, I opened and cleaned up the internals (down to the laser lens), but it did not help. A few replacement drives are available for purchase online, but it seems like there are multiple variants of the part (and title usually say D2A D2B D2C etc., which I understand is the code of the decoder chip).

One page lists many of the known drive and controller board versions. The most similar is the very last one, on the right side (which they name as D3-2/D3S/D4). The PCB is same shape, but our console has just the two larger chips instead of all three:

enter image description here

Of all the replacement drives I could find, the best match (visually) are similar to the one in the page I linked to above.

Can anyone identify this board revision?

Are the various DVD replacement drives that are in the market compatible?

Note: If you think there is a better forum for this question, please let me know.

Improve this question
11
  • id suggest the letterbomb exploit and other homebrew apps to install your disks to a thumbdrive....this is much easier to setup than the trouble you have already taken and cheaper than buying new parts that are due to fail not to mention risking damage to your disks every time you use them....by now im sure you have no warranty and wii live functions are already disabled so theres no reason to not put the homebrew fixes to use....
    – Firobug
    Jun 21, 2016 at 14:27
  • @Firobug - Thanks! This is certainly one of the options I considered. However, to the best of my understanding, you'd need a working drive to make the image, won't you? Given the cost of the replacement (~$20), I would like to try that path first and get to the soft-solution as a last resort. I also found used consoles in my area sold for some $50 on Craigslist. But, I don't want all the crap that comes with the CL ones.
    – ysap
    Jun 21, 2016 at 14:48
  • no all you need is a sd card and the letterbomb from please.hack.me then from your pc you can install the files with wii backup manager to a usb...there are some complicated steps if you want extra features and note if you come across a step that prompts you for a special cios install never agree to an option for piracy sake as it will often corrupt things on you....I had this when trying to get a gamecube emulator working...I think it was cios 136 or something...
    – Firobug
    Jun 21, 2016 at 14:53
  • remember please.hack.me ; homebrew channel; priiloader; configurable usb loader; wiiflow; and wii backup manager are most important...with some games like monster hunter 3 you will need the special installers to make custom merged cios files and assign the game to that cios
    – Firobug
    Jun 21, 2016 at 14:58
  • 1
    I would think it would be an oppurtune time then to start the thing at backing up your disks to at least 1tb as sizes range at 2-12gb maybe but if you have a substantial library still a softmodded backup would be fully advisible..I think wiiflow allowed backup or maybe it was cfg...sry I didnt respond sooner to you but I would have suggested rom sites would help give you the right direction for recovering your files...
    – Firobug
    Jul 19, 2016 at 16:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

After trying my luck in soft-modding the unit, attempt ended up unsuccessful due to the incompatibility of PC DVD drives with the Wii game DVDs. [used this site as a guide]

So I ended up purchasing a replacement DVD unit. It was not identical to my original one, but the board was of the same form-factor. The units are claimed by the seller to be cross-compatible.

After installing the replacement, my Wii now works as before, reading the various discs I tried throwing in.

For reference, here's the iFixit tutorial used to take the console apart for replacement.

enter image description here

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .