Wii Startup Disc (found Wii software disc; 2006)

The Wii Startup Disc was a disc containing a system update for the Nintendo Wii console, seemingly intended to be shipped with the first released Wii units. While there exist large amounts of evidence for its existence, the physical disc or a rip of it have not been found.

The error message that shows upon boot on consoles that require the disc

Status: Lost

Status

While the Wii Startup Disc was rumored to be required for the console's initial startup in pre-release rumors, and the disc was shown on the initial versions of the Wii box under package contents, it never shipped to consumers.[1]

According to an old blog post on a now abandoned Wii hacking blog called HackMii, a developer discovered that very few early Nintendo Wii unit shipped to customers required the disc, even though no disc was provided- as such, these units were accidentally released, and had to be sent back to Nintendo to be made into working order. As most of the very few purchased by customers were sent back, there exist very few, possibly less than a thousand, Wii units that require it. [2]

While very, very few Wii units that required the disc were shipped to customers, a substantial number more were shipped to retailers to be used for kiosk demos- there are reports of sightings of the screen on store kiosks in late 2006.

While the Wii Startup Disc error message is not lost and has been throughly documented, the disc itself is lost. While it is known that the disc was just a software system update, the disc did not ship with any systems that were purchased by consumers (as far as is known), and it is unknown if any retailers are still in possession of the disc. No concrete info, physical copy, or digital rip of the disc has surfaced, although it is likely that Nintendo is still in posession of copes of the disc.