Installing Homebrew on your Wii is really easy and painless, why don't you want to? I was also kinda against it, but once I did, it's not very noticeable and it adds great functionality to the Wii.
As for getting an old drive ,I just put the first drive from
the dvd drive thread into ebay and got
this result
Often if you just type rawdump drive or friidump drive into ebay you'll see loads of example of people selling them but in a USB caddy. Now some people know which drives to go for, they're a little easier to find.
Still, it's much cheaper to buy a Wii and SD cards and maybe a game too and use cleanrip.
1) i don't want to ruin my system 2) i don't want to get in trouble for modding my system and 3) if i do this on my wii i don't want my wii u online account or my club nintendo account in general to get banned
1: You're not going to ruin your system.
2: You won't get in trouble for modding your system. That's legal (in most countries?)
3: Do you still use your Wii online at all? I've been using my softmodded Wii on wifi for years, and never been banned because I'm not cheating/using backups on wifi.
i'm not cheating online i just don't want this to effect my wii u online access to multiplayer and the online store and club nintendo. even though i'm only doing this on my wii not my wii u
As far as I know, you can't be detected you're running homebrew unless someone physically uses your Wii, so it can't accept your Wii U