HELP!!! Does Wii work without DVD?

Hi- Everybody. Here's my story. I have a Hollywood version Wii 4.2U. I've been running games off an external HD with the wiiflow v1 for a long time . The DVD drive was broken, but for some reason, it still allowed me to play off the ext. HD. Yesterday, I decided to try to fix the DVD player. After opening up the case, I broke the plastic thingy that holds the data ribbon to the motherboard. Talk about stupid. I know, be careful. I tried reattaching the ribbon with tape, but I was getting the error message " An error has occurred, please remove disk" and now nothing runs.

I heard about the SNEEK project which "supposedly" works without the disk drive check. I still have had no luck. I also tried the new WIIFLOW with NAND option and POSTLOADER.

I downloaded a mod mii program. The only one I could find I'm not sure what version, tried making a NAND, and running the new wiiflow (because sneek won't install) on my wii.

I'm not having any luck. I could use some help. What is the best solution here? buy a new wii? buy a new disk drive? HELP!

here's my info:
2 GB SDHC card formatted fat32 with HB
16 GB Pen drive- right now I formatted FAT32 as well. but no access to the drive via WAD manager.
Wii 4.2U-NTSC

Sorry, you need to have a disc drive connected for the system to work. The drive doesn't need to work so long as it is properly connected.

Even SNEEK/UNEEK/neek2o and any other type of EmuNAND still need the disc drive to be connected, they merely bypass the NAND. The difference is basic EmuNAND (such as that used by USB Loader GX) will redirect NAND access (ie game saves and such) while SNEEK will do that as well as redirecting calls made to the disc drive. Your disc drive is still required several processes run by the system.

Example to help explain further: SNEEK cannot redirect a call made to the disc drive if the disc drive is not connected, the reason being nothing can call upon the drive if its not connected.

any suggestions how to reattach the ribbon cable?

Sadly no, I've never really looked into how to do that if the clip that connects it to the motherboard has been snapped off. I would say perhaps it could be sotered back on but I will NOT advise you to try lest you cause more damage. My best advice I can give you is to find someone with the know how to do it for you as it may require replacing the motherboard and disc drive. If you have a friend or family member with experience in that area or perhaps a local game shop offers that service (some game shops do...mainly the independently owned ones), there are also some online places that will fix it if you ship it to them.

Thanks for the valuable info. I was pretty sure that was the problem, but since the drive didn't work to begin with I was skeptical. i'm gonna try reattachiong the ribbon again.