So I haven't taken a deep dive into the details yet, but apparently there's flash memory in (some) Wii U's that is prone to failure. Either data corruption, or total hardware failure. This results in error codes 160-0101 and/or 160-0103.
(quote from Reprise taken from another thread, that I didn't want to go off-topic in)
Reprise wrote:Yeah, that Wii U issue supposedly relates to the black deluxe models in particular (for some reason) and is mostly launch models, as a later revision used a different flash memory supplier/brand/whatever the correct term is.
Touch wood I haven't had any issues with mine (yet).
My brother has a black 32GB Wii U that I'm going to try and fix, it has error code 160-0103. But I'm pretty sure he didn't get it at launch. I can't recall exactly when he got it, if it was a short time before or after I got my own Wii U, but I have the Wind Waker bundle. I checked my Wind Waker Wii U back when this story first broke, and mine didn't seem to be affected (yet). I also have a 32 GB Wii U that I got refurbished from Nintendo, but I haven't taken it out of the box. So I have no idea if it developed this problem or not.
I watched this video back when it released... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14n5r1rRB9s
Voultar goes through the process of booting into a recovery menu and using it to refresh the OS. Well, I tried that on my brother's Wii U and it still doesn't work. So now (when I have the time) I'm looking into other possible fixes.
Voultar made a little mod board as a fix: https://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-nand- ... st.630798/
Basically, this mod board hijacks the connections going to the afflicted flash memory chip and replaces it with a micro SD card. So I guess the process is to try and dump the memory, fix whatever corrupted files there might be, then write them to the micro SD card and use the SD memory going forward. This has the benefit of a much easier solder job to fix the problem, since the flash memory is BGA or whatever (not able to hand solder). And also the ability to remove the micro SD card and read/write it on a PC (I don't know if this is part of the process, like I said I'm still looking into it). I've ordered the NAND-AID from OSH Park, but it will be some weeks before they come in.
Has anyone here had any flash memory issues with their Wii U ?
