Preparing your system
Are upgrade packs safe?
fail

Do I need to downg--
No, please don't.

Do I need to uninst--
no

Okay, do I need to do anything at all to my system before running the HackMii Installer?
In general, no. You need a way to actually run the program; in practice, you usually will use Bannerbomb, the Twilight Hack or an existing installation of the Homebrew Channel. Unless you run in to problems, you do not need to take any other precautions. If the Installer detects a problem with your system, it will inform you and tell you what steps you need to take.

Installation
Why does the installer say "no vulnerable IOS found, can not install"?
The HackMii installer is the only program that can automatically make non-trivial system modifications on all Wiis. It has several different code paths (aka exploits) that it uses to do this; on any given Wii, the Installer will scan your system to find the most appropriate one to use (generally, the most stable or least invasive one).

If you have recently installed an official update, this may mean that all of our existing exploits have been patched; in this case, please wait patiently for us to update the installer.

In most cases, however, this means you have installed some sort of "mod pack" which leaves your system in a damaged state that interferes with our system scan. In particular, "cIOSCORP" is known to be problematic because some idiot decided it would be smart to take some old version of IOS, change the version number, and overwrite all other IOSes. Most other "packs" are less destructive, but we do not have time to test them all.

What does "The installed boot1 version prevents a boot2 install (-2) mean? Are you going to fix it?
No, it can't be fixed. Installing as boot2 is the most useful way to install Bootmii, but it requires that we Exploit a particularly silly bug in a part of the system that can not be changed under any circumstances. Nintendo finally fixed this bug in new Wiis that were released sometime in 2008. We have looked for a suitable replacement for this Exploit, but have not found one, and it does not seem likely that anyone ever will.

But "Preloader" is the same thing as Bootmii, and I could install it just fine!
No, it's not. The two programs achieve similar goals in completely different ways (which is why you can install both at the same time). We hope that someday, someone will use BootMii/IOS to make a bulletproof recovery system for late-model Wiis, but we won't be upset if someone else gets to that before we do; we will be concentrating on the code that will make that possible.
My WiiMote froze up in the installer and I can't continue!

This may happen if you've never used the red sync button to sync your Wii. Try exiting back out to the main Wii menu, sync your WiiMote, then try again. Also, try a GameCube controller if you have one.

What does 'WARNING: ECC failure at page XXX' in the installer log mean?
Nothing, it's normal; it's just there for diagnostic purposes.

Using Bootmii
I installed BootMii/IOS, but it doesn't come up when I boot my Wii.
It doesn't work that way. For the moment, the best way to launch it is from the home-button menu in the Homebrew Channel.

I installed BootMii/boot2, but it doesn't come up when I boot my Wii.
Try booting with no SD card inserted. If you see a brief set of flashes from the blue slot LED right after you hit the power button, try a different SD card. Make sure you have a directory named "Bootmii" with the "armboot.bin" and "ppcboot.elf" files inside.
If you do not see those flashes, BootMii/boot2 is not installed.

I installed BootMii/boot2, but I can't launch it from the Homebrew Channel.
The button in the HBC to launch Bootmii is only there for the BootMii/IOS users. If you are fortunate enough to have BootMii/boot2 installed, you can just reboot your Wii to run it.

How do I control the Bootmii menu without a WiiMote?
Use a GC pad in port 1 to navigate the menu. If you don't have one, you can use the Power button to cycle through options in the menu, and Reset to select. You just need to briefly press each button. Note: a bug in BootMii/IOS currently prevents this from working, sorry.

Why do I have all of these "bad blocks"? Can I fix them?
This is completely normal; in order to bring down the price of NAND flash chips, all manufacturers will allow chips to leave the factory with a small number of bad blocks. It's similar to bad pixels in LCD panels -- it would be too expensive to throw away the whole panel (or in this case, the whole chip) due to a few bad pixels. With NAND flash, software usually remaps these blocks so you don't even notice, but Bootmii works at the lowest level possible so we have to take these into consideration when writing our code. There are 4096 blocks; according to the flash chip manufacturer, at least 4016 blocks are valid (in other words, up to 80 blocks may be bad). Reference: datasheet, page 19

Bugs / Limitations
My WiiMote or Classic Controller doesn't work in the Bootmii menu. When will you fix this?
Probably never. It's an architectural limitation (which is another way of saying "It's really hard to fix"). Either use a GameCube controller, or the Power/Reset buttons on the front of your Wii.

My WaveBird controller doesn't work in the Bootmii menu. When will you fix this?
This is a known issue, but none of us actually has one of these to use to develop a fix. See the bug report for more info.

Why does my SD card work in the Installer / HBC, but not in Bootmii (or vice-versa)?
libogc and MINI use completely different sets of code to talk to SD cards, so a card that works in one may not work in the other. For reasons unclear, MINI does not work with a random 25% of all SD cards; we are constantly striving to increase compatibility, but in the mean time you might want to try another card.

Asking for help

General notes:

We can't help you unless you give us enough information to understand your situation. See ESR's guide on asking smart questions. Important things to mention:

* What version of the system software you have installed
* The exact contents of any error messages
* Any unusual aspects of your setup (IOS patches, etc)
* If your install fails, approximately when you bought your Wii or received it back from Nintendo after a repair ("early 2008" or "last week" is close enough)

The following info is usually irrelevant; please don't bother stating it, unless specifically asked:

* What sort of drive or drive-chip you have, if any (it's just purely irrelevant to anything we do except DVDX)
* What the serial number is of your Wii (it's too hard to match this with anything meaningful

This shit don't work! Now what?

If you are having trouble with the HackMii installer or Homebrew Channel, try the WiiBrew forums. Bootmii is still in beta; non-experienced users should just wait until the software is more polished. If you are an advanced user or developer and are prepared to discuss this at a technical level, try the Bootmii Beta forum.
I think I found a bug!

Great! Please head over to our bug tracker and see if anyone else has reported the same bug. If not, please create a new bug, but be sure to give us enough info. Also, note that if you can't tell us how to reproduce the bug, we may not be able to fix it (unless you have some very specific error messages).