Comments on: Anatomy of a Mario-Kart Brick, pt 2

By: bushing

bushing — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:22:46 +0000

@5-7 — yes, we are all talking about the same thing. It’s for wear-leveling but also probably to help with data integrity in case of a partial write. And at least I had hoped we could roll-back, but yes, all we can do is post-mortem. Oh well.

By: DisizDream

DisizDream — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:12:14 +0000

@nerdyone255/bushing/Mark : I would also be interested in this, just like nerdyone255 I need the 3.2u update because of a mkwii semi brick

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:09:47 +0000

@nerdyone255/bushing: without trying to detract from this important work, I’m also interested in this method of fixing a semi-brick. Maybe after you’ve worked this out?

By: Newbie

Newbie — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:10:31 +0000

@dorkbot
the metadata rotates to avoid flash device decay
If they write on the same spot they reach the x00000 times of write limit
This is called “memory wear”.
It’s interesting to know does Wii NAND perform “wear leveling” itself or does IOS takes care of it?

By: nerdyone255

nerdyone255 — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:55:58 +0000

@bushing: from another post you said;

“Superken7: The one “saving grace” here is that we can download the System Menu contents from the Nintendo server, including the valid, correctly signed TMD, and assemble a WAD that does not need to be fake-signed. If you want to install it using an update partition on a disc, well, yes, we will have to Trucha-sign that — but the part that gets installed on the Wii will have a real, intact signature.
I made one of these ISOs for NTSC for a friend — if people are interested, I could make some for the other regions, too.”

would said iso fix a mkw brick? ive got a semi, my nstc was semied with mkw pal. im guessing 3.2u would fix it, but obviously cant get online to dl it…

By: dorkbot

dorkbot — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:33:45 +0000

the metadata rotates to avoid flash device decay

If they write on the same spot they reach the x00000 times of write limit

By: wurst2000

wurst2000 — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:11:37 +0000

> They might had this idea in initial
> design and realized later they don’t
> have unlimited transaction log

I don’t think that they aimed for a roll-back feature (Aka SnapShot) while developing the FS.. They just wanted to create a filesystem for flash devices. (…and in the end, flash-filesystems almost always turn out to be WAFL/LogFS like)

By: Newbie

Newbie — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:57:37 +0000

Every time the filesystem changes, it rotates to use the next of the 16 blocks
Sounds like a circular transaction/redo log. Although the design is well known I don’t remember Nintendo being among leading database or even file system developers…

Background writes to the nwc24 stuff
Another conclusion from here – if nwc24 is disabled, would it stop changing NAND [every twenty minutes or so]? Sorry for distracting from main topic again…

Another idea … “roll back” … the damage has already happened.
They might had this idea in initial design and realized later they don’t have unlimited transaction log So it’s good for postmortem analysis only…

By: Jespertje

Jespertje — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:31:02 +0000

Yes, you could make a list with all thing nintendo did wrong! That would be fun to read…

By: svenk91

svenk91 — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:48:34 +0000

is there a list with all things nintendo have done right? (the list with done wrong would be to big to read i geus :X)

is there naything we noobs can do to help with finding out more about this?