Wii DVD insertion/ejecting mechanism dead... help!

[Breetai]

So, my Wii didn't take the trip from Japan to Canada very well. It will not accept discs. The physical loading mechanism does not load. It does halfway, then spits it back out. Worse still, my PS3 does the same thing!!!

I've contacted my favourite mod/repair shop, modchip.ca, and am still waiting for a response. Failing that, I'm pondering buying a North American Wii and swapping the DVD drive out of it with my Japanese model. Would that work??? The Wii is not region-free. Would that limitation be based in the DVDs, the DVD drive, or on the motherboard? If I can just do a DVD drive swap, I might just consider that.

It is not worth it to ship the Wii back to Japan for repairs, as it would be the same price to just buy a new one. I have the homebrew channel installed on it and some VC stuff. Rather than figure out how to get the homebrew channel again (I did it with the Zelda hack a couple years ago), try to play imports on an NTSC-US system via a homebrew program and loose my VC stuff (fudge it, if that happens I'll just download torrents from the net... screw Nintendo and not letting you load your VC games on more than one console!!! Sony lets you do it...), I'd much rather just swap drives.

Please, please, please let me know this is possible! I have already opened my Wii and tried messing around with it to no avail. Same with the PS3, which at least is region-free in regards to PS3 games.

[Niode]

I can't help with the other stuff but getting HBC on a Wii is trivial now thanks to Banner bomb. You just put the files on the root of your memory stick, and then click the SD icon, the screen flashes a little and you're taken into the HBC installer. Easy as pie. Hope that helps.

[sneth]

Isn't there a drive reset button like on all cd trays?
Look for a pinhole sized opening.

Maybe it's just jammed?

[Hobie-wan]

Isn't there a drive reset button like on all cd trays?
Look for a pinhole sized opening.

Maybe it's just jammed?

Slot loaders have really weird mechanisms that keep the disc centered when you put a disc in compared to tray loaders. I'd say its worth opening up the Wii at least and see if something is jammed. With the cover off, take some junk CD and see if you can see anything jamming up when you try to put a disc in.

[Breetai]

Isn't there a drive reset button like on all cd trays?
Look for a pinhole sized opening.

Maybe it's just jammed?

I don't think you read the post or have used a Wii before.

I'd say its worth opening up the Wii at least and see if something is jammed. With the cover off, take some junk CD and see if you can see anything jamming up when you try to put a disc in.

I've already mentioned that I tried that. I've opened the drive up, basically disassembled and reassembled it, and it didn't change a thing.

The new info about how easy it is to load the HBC on the Wii is encouraging, though! Does anyone know if it's easy to get it running games from other regions on it? I wouldn't mind buying a North American Wii if this was the case.

Niode, have you run imports on your Wii before? I'd never bothered with that feature before. I was running Japanese games on mine (Japanese Wii), a few VC games (mostly PC Engine CD stuff), and emulators running games I own hard copies of.

[Niode]

Yeah but I've got mine softmodded which is a little more involved than simply putting HBC on it. It's not difficult though and there's plenty of guides out there. I've lost the bookmark to the website I used, I'll have a hunt around to find it again. I'm pretty sure I've got the link posted on this forum somewhere so you could search for posts by me with keywords: wii softmod guide that should bring it up.

I don't have any real imports (all my games are PAL) but i've played a bunch of NTSC-J (tatsunoko vs capcom) and NTSC-U games on it (NSMB and Silent Hill) without having to faff around with it. The softmod I used simply changes the region on the fly or is, more accurately region free.

[Breetai]

Yeah but I've got mine softmodded which is a little more involved than simply putting HBC on it. It's not difficult though and there's plenty of guides out there. I've lost the bookmark to the website I used, I'll have a hunt around to find it again. I'm pretty sure I've got the link posted on this forum somewhere so you could search for posts by me with keywords: wii softmod guide that should bring it up.

I don't have any real imports (all my games are PAL) but i've played a bunch of NTSC-J (tatsunoko vs capcom) and NTSC-U games on it (NSMB and Silent Hill) without having to faff around with it. The softmod I used simply changes the region on the fly or is, more accurately region free.

So, I guess it might be worth getting an NTSC-U Wii then? It's easy as pie to install HBC and get it region-free without having to buy an English copy of Zelda?

Maybe that's the best option, then, if I can't get the disc drive loading mechanism working (I assume it would still read discs, if it would physically load them!).

[sneth]

Once you have HBC installed, you can play anything you want, including DVD's.
It's all soft mods at this point, chips can actually be a hindrance.

Grab latest compatible IOS
Patch with waninkoko
install NeoGamma or USBLoader into HBC
Burn or load games from USB drive

[Hobie-wan]

I've already mentioned that I tried that. I've opened the drive up, basically disassembled and reassembled it, and it didn't change a thing.

Sorry, I somehow glazed over that bit.

[Breetai]

Once you have HBC installed, you can play anything you want, including DVD's.
It's all soft mods at this point, chips can actually be a hindrance.

Grab latest compatible IOS
Patch with waninkoko
install NeoGamma or USBLoader into HBC
Burn or load games from USB drive

I have no idea what IOS or wininkoko is. I want to play my NTSC-J games directly from disc. I assume it can be done?

I'd actually tried watching DVD movies on the Wii before and, while it worked, it wasn't perfect so I never bothered again.