"Please insert USB key"? If we're unlucky the complete drive is encrypted and this USB key is a dongle for decryption. But still, I hope the drive will be preserved correctly. Do backup the complete drive, don't strip away any free space it may have. If you're lucky there may be even more interesting things in there.
I'm more than happy to back it up, ideally Id love to somehow save the files and upload them in case someone is able to use them in some way, someone out there might have interest in adding a small PC with the files to allow their kiosk to work in their initial state before the working units got to stores. I don't plan on doing anything that might corrupt or wipe the drive. I wish I knew a manager of one of the stores that might have more info or someone from Nintendo that might actually have a key. Update: Someone on Nintendoage had suggested installing a Wii u menu changer, I mentioned my unit doesnt have an update feature in the menu and seems to mention (PC) which I dont see on anyone else`s demo unit on youtube. I wonder if this was like a first generation unit that used both the PC and a small amount of internal storage in the working unit. Does anyone else here own a demo unit they can compare their menu to.
I wouldn't install or run anything before you successfully backed up the drive. Something may be overwritten in the process.
That wont be happening anytime soon as I dont have a spare HDD. Im still holding out hope I can unlock the drive and use it.
The only way to acces the menus or the system is by using the USB key ( provided by Nintendo) they're two different ones and only Nintendo marketing managers had them. They also had to be signed in and out from Nintendo. It's highly unlikely anyone will ever get them. But time will tell I guess.
I gave it to a buddy that cracks hard drives and systems for a living, working for the police and he also used to do a little hacking back in the day. He seemed pretty confident he could remove the encryption, guess I`ll see next week when he checks it out.
I did not see your posts on NintendoAge, though admittedly, I've not kept up with Wii U kiosk stuff for a while. It sounds like you've got the drive into the hands of someone who can help, which is good. I am hopeful that we can see this preserved, and then maybe work can be done to extract any data from copies of the original. Personally, I would create a copy of the drive using a Linux boot disk and the dd utility. This will make an exact byte-for-byte copy of the drive. You'd need an empty disk with 320+ GB of space (based on what you've said about the size of the drive). However, after reading some more of this thread, this is probably out of your comfort zone. I use Ubuntu a lot, but I've never seen the prompt to insert a USB key upon boot. I do wonder if it is as someone else suggested that it could be related to encryption. However, I am really wondering if it is because the system was configured to restore some of its config from USB (while this is not a liveCD, this is often done with liveCDs). If this were the case, I'd suspect that this was done to rapidly deploy custom config changes to these units (presumably there were others). I'm wondering if the holographic terminals (Control + Alt + Fn key) are accessible from that screen with the prompt to insert the USB key. Since the drive is out of your hands now, I guess we will find out more when he's done with it!
The weird part of it all is my demo unit does not have an update feature within the menu like Ive seen on other demo units. Where most units in the menu have a Cat-something label, mine was Cat-Ses(PC). Im assuming the unit must be updated through the pc maybe. Also, several demos like smash bros, mario party 10 and kirby give the error about usb storage, so perhaps the pc was meant to stay with this demo unit to act as extra storage as there is a usb cable running from the demo unit to the pc, it was detached when I got this. If the guy I gave the drive to cant figure it out I doubt it ever can. This buddy works for the government now after working for the police cracking criminal hard drives which I would assume would have a higher encryption than this drive. He wont touch the drive other than copying it and trying to mess with the image, so if anyone really needs the image file for some reason Im sure I can get a hold of it off him and upload it through torrents. Like Conker stated above its unlikely the usb key will ever surface, Im guessing this pc getting out might have also gotten someone in trouble. It would just be interesting to see how the puzzle fits together as I havent seen anyone else show pics of this pc in their kiosk.
Tried working on this again after a long break, posted on gbatemp and discord to try and get further advice as I really want to try and figure out what the box is for and will it fix some dead demos on my console. Setup the silver box a bit differently, it appears that when connected to my Wii U demo console by usb cord and the ethernet is plugged in, it logs into the silver box and the silver box lands on this Wii U splash screen. Anyone have any ideas on how to view what is on the hard drive from this point? I haven't tried hooking up a usb keyboard or opening the Wii U console to see if it is different than others I've seen in videos. Ignore the mess with the kiosk, I took everything out.
On GBATemp, you mentioned that there's a USB cable running from the Wii U to the Ubuntu box. Can you take a photo of where the USB cable runs into the console? Your particular console has an HDD inside (in addition to the one in the Ubuntu box). It emulates a disc drive and has a USB port on the back. It's possible that the USB cable runs from the back of the Wii U disc drive emulator to the Ubuntu box and the decryption key is stored on a chip on the Wii U. After booting the Ubuntu box, do you see anything before the Wii U logo shows up? I'm also not clear on which unit is being displayed on the kiosk screen. Do you switch between inputs to see the Wii U and Ubuntu box, or does the Ubuntu box do all the video output?
Well I feel slightly stupid, I've assumed the usb coming off the back went down directly to the silver box below. It actually first travels in behind to the left where the controllers are, then another cable, could be the same I dont want to tug on it, travels back out the hole then down to the box. I guess I'm opening up the kiosk? The Wii U definitely unlocks the box, I've posted the two screens above that show up before the splash screen and when I unplug the usb cable from the box it goes back to the ubuntu screen. The Wii U splash screen is the silver box, it just sits on that screen after logging in. I questioned whether the silver box needs to be hooked up to the internet, but I'm scared to try. The kiosk came with 2 hdmi cables hooked up to the tv, the guy said it came from the store like that. So I would assume the silver box was always hooked up on the second hdmi input.
The plot thickens... This is such a weird setup. There are so many cables running everywhere I can't even begin to visualize what's going on. To clarify, the Wii U console is hooked up via HDMI and shows you the standard kiosk menu. The Ubuntu box is hooked up via a second HDMI cable and shows all the Ubuntu stuff? Maybe the silver box is used to load demos onto the kiosk unit. I remember reading that there was a key used to load demos onto the kiosk systems and that it was really hard to find.
Pretty much. There are 2 hdmi's, one to the console, one to the box. The box seems standalone, there aren't any other cables running between the two other than an ethernet. If the ethernet is running from the box to the console, how does the box connect to the internet? The box appears pretty standalone and definitely Nintendo, someone also suggested it can be used to update the console but how? There's tons of cables but none would seem to fit that task. In addition only half of the demos work, that's my main motivation for all of this, but I have no idea if that's related.
Is this data useable to any particular group of people? I don't want to going through the hassle of trying to back this up if this is already out there. Linux is way out of my comfort zone. The data is also able to be copied, I copied a file to the desktop.
