Test went OK.
The SD card is brand new, but you never know... lol
Formatted the thing again in FAT32 using guiformat and is back in the NAND-AID.
I checked for shorts again between the pins and for continuity/resistance from solder points to test pads. Nothing suspicious found.
Can one of the files in the front SD card be wrong?
I´m not great at soldering, but I think the nand-aid is ok.

Excellent. That rules out a defective SD Card for the NAND-AID.

It is possible that a file on the front SD Card could be corrupt. Wafel_Setup is required to erase the MLC. If you suspect the files on the SD Card are corrupt, download another copy of it and copy it over and try it again. If it continues not to function, then we need to verify the NAND-AID is installed properly.

Did you use a Microscope to inspect the joints? Can you post a high resolution picture of the NAND-AID?

Just to double check some other things. The most often forgot steps are the 3V wire, DSB pad and cutting the R26 trace to disable the original eMMC. If those steps have all be double checked and are fine then the next thing to do is to double check the data connections from the NAND-AID to the Wii U board. As outlined in the blue box in this picture

I missed bridging the DSB!!
Sadly, after putting a beautiful blob of solder on it, there was nothing different. (I had so much hope!)
After the failure, I went back to the soldering station, re-flowed and re-checked every connection.
Everything seemed to be physically fine, but still had the same problems in Minute.

I took the opportunity to take some pictures with my incredibly amazing 10€ microscope.
My soldering job is not as pretty as yours, but I promise it´s all solid!!
While at it, I checked for continuity from all the tiny resistors and the cut trace to the pads and SD reader legs.
Again, good continuity and no shorts.
To be certain there was a connection to the resistors, I put the multi-meter lead ni the non soldered end of the resistors. They have very low resistance and that ensures me the soldered part has a good connection.

If we reached the end of the line, I think my next step is to remove the SD card reader from the NAND-AID and replace it. I don´t have a replacement right now, but I´m sure I´ll find a parts store somewhere in Paris.

The ground pads on the SD Card Slot in the picture look like there is no solder on them. I cannot tell if this is accurate or not due to the picture. Please make sure they are soldered in place, or at least 3 of them are. If you put your multimeter in continuity mode and touch the ground pad on the SD Card Slot and put the other lead on the Wii U Ground point you should get a beep. If you do not then its not connected to ground and the SD Card Slot isn't going to work.

See picture I have marked the ground pads with a black box.

Yeah, I didn´t use a lot of solder on them, but all 4 legs are soldered on and I´m getting a good ground connection to the slot.
I can add a bit more, but the connection is there.

We need to summon SDIO. He has more knowledge than I do as hes the one who did alot of work to make the NAND-AID Possible. I am likely overlooking something here and he would probably notice right away. 

I don't think replacing the SD Card Slot without being able to test/validate that is the problem is the way to go. Honestly I am not convinced that is the issue. I would think the problem would likely be elsewhere considering the console turns on and boots into the minute menu and the problem only shows up when attempting to rebuild the MLC.

That being said I believe if no eMMC or SD Card in this circumstance is detected the Wii U wouldn't post at all. I was trying to find the documentation for this, but for some reason I cannot find it.

Edit: I sent SDIO a PM and asked him if he would be able to take a look.

Are you able to boot into the recovery menu? I am curious what the system information page would show and if it would detect the SD Card. That would be a great way to verify that it atleast is detected and showing up.

QuoteI believe if no eMMC or SD Card in this circumstance is detected the Wii U wouldn't post at all

This gave me an idea.
Removed the SD card from the NAND-AID and power on the console.
It booted to Minute and it gives the same errors/timeouts than before.

I think this might be it. Maybe there´s a bent pin inside the card reader or something?
There´s no possible angle to inspect it while it´s on.

I should have done it before soldering...

Quote from: tzirf on Jun 25, 2024, 05:32 PMAre you able to boot into the recovery menu? I am curious what the system information page would show and if it would detect the SD Card. That would be a great way to verify that it atleast is detected and showing up.

As soon as I turn on the console it boots into Minute.
Is there an option somewhere to go back to Recovery?
Or do I have to change something in the frontal SD card?

I think ISFShax would have to be uninstalled in order to boot into recovery menu. DON'T DO THIS THOUGH. Leave it there until the MLC is rebuilt. I think we narrowed down the problem to the SD Card Slot. I am just looking over some things to see if you can test and verify this, so you don't waste time replacing it.

No matter how I look at it, there has to be a bad solder joint someplace. It is the only explanation. I would triple check all the solder joints and makes sure you are testing with your multimeter from the correct location. I would think the issue is either the data connections from NAND-AID to the Wii U or the SD Card Slot. Unless there was physical damage to the SD Card Slot I doubt there is anything wrong with it. I would expect the issue to be a bad solder job on one of the pins.

Yes, I can´t find anything else to go on with.
It´s 2am and I´m half dead now. Tomorrow I´ll re-check the solder joints. I´m 100% certain that the NAND-AID PCB is correctly soldered. I think I might have damaged the slot while soldering the pins (I hate plastic parts).
Just in case I ordered 10 replacement card slots for a grand total of 3€ that will be arriving in about a week.
I hope I don´t destroy all of them! lol

Thanks again for all your guidance.
I´ll post something as soon as I get some new results!

Quote from: jmgatti on Jun 25, 2024, 06:53 PMYes, I can´t find anything else to go on with.
It´s 2am and I´m half dead now. Tomorrow I´ll re-check the solder joints. I´m 100% certain that the NAND-AID PCB is correctly soldered. I think I might have damaged the slot while soldering the pins (I hate plastic parts).
Just in case I ordered 10 replacement card slots for a grand total of 3€ that will be arriving in about a week.
I hope I don´t destroy all of them! lol

Thanks again for all your guidance.
I´ll post something as soon as I get some new results!

Sounds good. The trick to protecting plastic parts during soldering is use plenty of flux where you want the solder to flow, also make sure your soldering iron is hot enough. The idea is to quickly heat what you want the solder and get it to flow using plenty of flux and then remove the soldering iron from the component. Most plastic used on surface mount components and PCB can withstand 100C. If you touch it with a soldering iron its obviously going to melt. However most of the heat is absorbed and transferred by the metal surrounding plastic components which protects them. I run my soldering iron at 850 Degrees. I don't know what iron you have, but better irons make soldering easier because you can control the temperature and also change out tips. For example large tips make soldering large ground points that absorb a ton of heat much easier. On the other hand smaller tips are better for micro soldering, because you can concentrate the heat on the component you wish to solder and not accidentally touch something else in the process. Either way, don't give up! The more you solder the easier it becomes and the better you will be at it. 

Quick update:
I was able to see in the installer that the card WAS being detected (card size 60kk), but timed out.
So I re-checked the pins in the NAND-AID SD card slot and found that PIN 2 was solid, but the leg looked to be further back than the others.
Without DAT3, I read that the card will only be able to operate in 1-bit data transfer mode.
Maybe this is causing the issue??
So I removed the slot and... yeah. The PIN was bad.
Waiting for the replacements now and hoping a good slot will fix it!!

Nice job finding the the problem with the SD Card Slot!!!

Happy update!

The micro SD card reader replacements arrived and I soldered a new one to the NAND-AID.
This time, Erase MLC worked!
Strangely, Delete scfm.img didn´t work at all. It just gave a single line message of failure.
I decided to ignore that and went ahead to Patch (sd) and boot IOS (slc) and to my surprise, it actually worked this time! (kinda. The LED started blinking orange at some point before being still)
I removed the front SD card, turned on the console, Wii-U logo (excitement!) and... Error code 160-0101.
This means I need to change the region to the correct one on my Wii-U, but for that, I need to boot into recovery_menu which I can´t do anymore.
Should I uninstall ISFShax to boot into recovery_menu or is there some way to change regions in Minute?
I´m currently reading how to uninstall. It looks simple, but I really don´t want to screw up anything else now

EDIT:
I just thought of a method that worked to boot recovery_menu!
- Keep the front SD card out.
- Start the console.
- Wait for first disc drive noise to push the SD card in.
- Wait for second disc drive noise to plug in the pico.

BAM! You´re in !

Buuuuut, when I try to Set Coldboot Title to EUR, I get an error message:
Error! Make sure the title is installed correctly.

I guess the MLCRestorerDownloader gave me the wrong titles.
Maybe because coldboot was already wrong when I dumped the otp.bin ?
It´s very likely that I changed it by accident while navigating blindly through the menus at the start of the project

EDIT 2:
Checked the MLC downloader output and the titles are there, so it´s probably a problem from the rebuild process.
I might try to do all of it again