Please forgive me if I missed this issue covered elsewhere, a brief search did not find quite the same issue...

The Wii U I purchased recently, confident that I could recover it with UDPIH and the recovery menu:
Model: Black, 32GB, not paired with current gamepad

Initial indications: Machine shows "Wii U" startup screen and stays there.  Power light is solid blue.
Amplifying testing: UDPIH fails to interrupt startup if inserted immediately after Wii U screen comes on, or immediately after second disc drive cycle during power up.  Inserting UDPIH between disc power up cycles results in interruption of boot, with black screen and solid blue power light.  Expected purple power light to show successful recovery menu load. Pressing eject to move through recovery menu options instead causes disc drive to attempt to eject non-existent disc.

I previously tested both my SD card and UDPIH (on pico) successfully on a working Wii U.

Any suggestions for the next step forward?

I would suggest trying Defuse. It sounds like the eMMC on the console is too far gone to use UDPIH and the recovery menu. The black screen/blue power light is a good indication that its not able to successfully load.

Without the UDPIH exploit it wouldn't be possible to blindly load ISFSHax, so the only remaining solution is to defuse the console. It will require soldering tiny wires to specific points on the Wii U motherboard and a Raspberry Pi Pico.

  It took me this long to notice your reply, sorry about that.  I have been able to use Paid the Beak to access that particular menu.  I'm not sure where to go from there.  I was hoping to dump the logs to verify the eMMC failure, more for the experience's sake than anything else.  However, it occurs to me that the SD card imaged for use with PTB is not in a windows-readable format, so dumping the logs, if that can even be done, is pointless.  Or, can I just hotswap the SD card with a FAT32 card for the dump, like an old floppy drive-driven PC?

  Otherwise, I'm planning on either doing a MLC2SD/NAND-AID mod, or just solder a microSD/SD card adapter on if I can find a pinout, as the shipping on NAND-AIDs is atrocious right now: no one in the US is selling the kit, so it's $18 from Canada or untold riches plus a month and a half delay from Germany.  I'm a neophyte at console mods, but I've been doing tiny soldering for a couple decades, so I'm not intimidated by some solder work, as long as I know where to connect the wires.

     It does occur to me that, if it can be done, it may be useful to save the contents of the MLC, as it may have various games unlocked which will add resale value, but if not, whatever.

Perhaps a new thing to add: when booting to the PTB minute menu, my Wii U, which displays the frozen start screen just fine over HDMI, was giving me a black screen on my TV, which is capable of 1080p display.  Connecting to my 1080p computer monitor showed the menu, however.  It may be that some 1080p TVs showing black screens on a purple power light may just need to connect to a different screen.

Quote from: Goolash on Aug 29, 2025, 04:05 PMPerhaps a new thing to add: when booting to the PTB minute menu, my Wii U, which displays the frozen start screen just fine over HDMI, was giving me a black screen on my TV, which is capable of 1080p display.  Connecting to my 1080p computer monitor showed the menu, however.  It may be that some 1080p TVs showing black screens on a purple power light may just need to connect to a different screen.

Is this a 4K television that supports 1080P input?

Have you gone back and tried using the UDPIH/Recovery Menu to see if works with your computer monitor? That would be the best way to go about this as dumping the logs from the recovery menu is easy to view on a computer.

It is a 1080p TV that supports 720p and 3D.

This is a question I have next: I have verified that the machine works with PTB, what then?  UDPIH does not work on its own, as mentioned, but is there a way to bring up the recovery menu once booted to minute?  I'm fairly convinced the MLC is failing, but I would like to confirm it via log dumps for the learning value, if nothing else.  I don't see a whole lot written on what to do after booting to the minute menu using PTB.  Most guides seem to assume the operator is simply plugging the PTB process into an otherwise well-known recovery process in place of more invasive methods.

Disregard that last message.  I completely misread your response in a hurry this morning.  No, I haven't tried that, yet, although, during the UDPIH attempts before, I don't think the light ever turned purple.  I'll give it a shot to make sure.

Quote from: Goolash on Sep 09, 2025, 06:45 PMDisregard that last message.  I completely misread your response in a hurry this morning.  No, I haven't tried that, yet, although, during the UDPIH attempts before, I don't think the light ever turned purple.  I'll give it a shot to make sure.

Got it. Will wait for your response