Hacking 3TB, 4TB, 5TB, or 6TB+ drives with vWii, USB Loader GX, Nintendont

[element6]

Hoping someone can shed some light on this as I have just been beating my head against the wall for the last few days trying to make this work.

Does anyone have a single, successfully working external hard drive of greater than 3TB working with their vWii that runs both Wii and GC games?

If you do, can you please share how you partitioned the drive, whether you had to do anything special with the partition table, and how you are booting USB Loader GX?

I currently have a 4TB Western Digital Mybook. It is set up like so:

• GPT partition table
• Partition 1: 1.9TB FAT32 with 32k clusters - first formatted to FAT32 with Easeus partition master then formatted again to 32k clusters with Wii Backup Manager build 78. You can't specify cluster size under Easeus Partition Master.
• Partition 2: 1.7TB (all remaining space) formatted first to FAT32 w/32k clusters, and then to WBFS using Wii Backup Manager build 78. Used first formatting scheme in WBM (500 game limit).
• All homebrew apps such as USB Loader GX and Nintendont are on the FAT32 partition.
• All GC disc images are in the "games" folder on the FAT32 partition
• Wii Games are in the WBFS partition.\
• Using USB port 0 (top rear port at rear of Wii U when laying flat)

My Wii U/vWii is set up like this:

• d2x-v10-beta53-alt-vWii
• USB Loader GX v3.0 r1260
• Nintendont v3.400

Here's the problem: No matter what I do, I can never get USB Loader GX to play nicely with Nintendont and launch gamecube games properly unless I am using a MBR on my external USB disk OR a GPT scheme with only a single FAT32 partition.

1. Using an MBR limits the maximum "partitionable" space on the disk to 2TB and would be pointless with a 4TB disk because half of it would be completely unusable.
2. Using a single FAT32 partition means you are limited to the maximum size that any disk utility or partitioning utility can create, which is 2TB. If anyone out there is shaking their head and saying, "No, you can make a single, continuous 3TB or 4TB FAT32 partition", please explain how it was accomplished. FAT32formatGUI can't and won't do it. Nor will Easeus.

The only way that I have currently gotten the 4TB drive to work in my setup as explained above, is by placing USBLoaderGX on an SD card and launching it from Homebrew launcher that way. If I just plug my external USB drive into port 0 and open Homebrew launcher, it will not find any apps. If I hit 1 and select "USB drive" as my source in Homebrew Launcher (the only option), it will crash with a DSI Exception 50% of the time. I also have the WiiU USBLGX channel/forwarder - using this just returns me to the Wii menu after it times out. I get disk activity both ways, so it's not like it doesn't see the disk, it just doesn't seem to know how to approach the way it's partitioned.

So like I said, with 2 partitions (which is the only way to maintain GC and Wii backup compatibility with the same drive), Homebrew launcher will not find any apps on partition 1, the FAT32 partition.

Placing USB Loader GX on an SD card lets me launch USB Loader GX and it mounts the USB drive and both partitions just fine after starting up, but I can't launch Game Cube games from USBLGX when I try to start one. I get the error below.

"To run GameCube games with Nintendont you need to set your 'Main Gamecube Path' on the first primary FAT32 partition."

I have set my path to Nintendont and my main gamecube path several times. I have checked all other paths and settings to be correct. The setting stays correctly set to what I saved it as every time. It is pointing to the first primary FAT32 partition on my external. If it wasn't set to the "games" folder on my FAT32 partition, it wouldn't find the games to begin with. It clearly scans for and finds all my GC games on there so why is USBLGX throwing this error?


Also to note: I can run all of my GC games just fine if I use Nintendont from the SD card and select the USB drive when it loads up.

Any ideas? Anybody out there with a >3TB External working?

 

[element6]

PS - There are no hidden partitions on this disk.

 

[JaapDaniels]

1tb was enough for all i could think of, and a since some apps still need a certain clustersize and fat32 to work correctly they maight faile if there's more that 2 gb total disk space (all partitions together).

 

[pedro702]

are you using a ycable or does your hdd has its own power source?

 

[element6]

USB Loader GX says that it is compatible with MBR and GPT, can read multiple partitions, and can read FAT32, NTFS, WBFS, EXT2, EXT3, and EXT4. If that is all true, then I'm not sure what the issue is with my setup. For whatever reason, USB Loader GX can't correctly identify that my "Main GameCube Path" IS in fact, on the primary FAT32 partition and the path is set correctly.

Here is a link to my current GXGlobal.cfg
http://pastebin.com/cBYVfkfJ

I am using that one even on the SD card. Even with USB Loader GX and absolutely nothing else on the SD card, I get the message below whenever I try to launch a GC game.

Here are some more pics:

SD Card layout

4TB WD Mybook partition view (disk 7)

Root of drive Z (FAT32)

apps folder on drive Z

games folder on drive Z

wbfs folder on drive Z (empty)

Drive Y (WBFS) mounted in Wii Backup Manager

Launching Nintendont from HBC

Games show up just fine in here on my FAT32 partition

All games run fine

are you using a ycable or does your hdd has its own power source?

HDD is powered by its own power adapter. WD MyBook 4TB http://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN/dp/B00E3RH61W

 

[julienbdes]

Personnaly, for gamecube games and wii game i write only the game ID and not the game title.
Example: USB/games/GLZE69/game.iso
Maybe it can solve your problem with games.
Also verify if your iso are untouched.

 

[element6]

Personnaly, for gamecube games and wii game i write only the game ID and not the game title.
Example: USB/games/GLZE69/game.iso
Maybe it can solve your problem with games.
Also verify if your iso are untouched.

Thank you for the reply.

The games all work perfectly if I launch them from within Nintendont. Please see the pictures in the post right above yours. The last few pictures show me launching a game from the Nintendont menu. The problem is with USBLoaderGX giving me the error I posted above. It finds the games just fine.

When I was experimenting with alternate partition configurations for my external disk, USB Loader GX launched the games fine when I only had a single partition on my external. But as I said, max size for a FAT32 partition is 2TB.

My Gamecube games take up 864GB
My Wii Games take up 2.1TB

I need to be able to use the full hard drive.

 

[julienbdes]

You no longer need to have the wbfs format or ntfs to launch games on your hdd. You can format 4tb under fat32. You should post your settings in usb loader gx

 

[element6]

You no longer need to have the wbfs format or ntfs to launch games on your hdd. You can format 4tb under fat32. You should post your settings in usb loader gx

I am aware of that. WBFS was my last choice but FAT32 and NTFS don't work for the second partition. The problem is that if I create two FAT32 partitions, or one FAT32 partition and one NTFS partition, USB Loader GX does not read the games off of the second partition. (Yes, multiple partitions are enabled in the settings).

Also, you can not create a single, continuous FAT32 partition larger than 2TB.

My USB Loader GX global.cfg is posted above. Look for the pastebin link.

 

[GreyWolf]

Don't use GPT. Use MBR. The partitions should be at least one byte smaller than the maximum size.

 

[element6]

Don't use GPT. Use MBR. The partitions should be at least one byte smaller than the maximum size.

Maximum usable space on any MBR drive is 2TB. This would make no sense with a 4TB drive. I know MBR works, but obviously it cuts my usable space in half. USB Loader GX says it is compatible with GPT.. and technically it is, it's just giving me that error when I try to launch a GameCube game in my list.

 

[GreyWolf]

Use what you like, then. I'm just trying to tell you what works. The USB, partition, and filesystem code is all open-source and works enough if you use what it supports. It's not difficult to find a drive the proper size that homebrew works right with.

 

[element6]

I appreciate the reply but I am still hoping to that someone with a 3TB or greater drive will provide some input.

It seems like the only reason it won't work is because USB Loader GX is looking in the wrong place for Nintendont or some other path. I can put the entire GC collection and the entire Wii collection on the 4TB drive with two partitions. I just can't launch the GC games from USBLGX. I can launch them just fine directly from Nintendont though.

I know that smaller drives work. The idea was to have all Wii games and all GC games on one drive with two partitions. If there is no way to accomplish that, I will go back to my second option, having 2, 2TB USB drives that I could connect one at a time, each having half of the full collection on them. Having to keep yet another external drive in my media cabinet with all my consoles isn't what I wanted to have to do.

 

[g00s3y]

Wow, what a horrible problem to have...

 

[ca032769]

There are programs to format your larger 4/6/8/12 drives to FAT32/32k cluster size. Google FAT32Format or search for ModMii in the forums and it also has the FAT32 Formatter.

It might help to copy your WW & VC over to the drive first, then the GameCubes and then the Wii's. I've heard that some people have better success when the WW/VC/GameCubes are within the first 2TB range on the drive.

I'm not using WW & VC yet, just Wii & GC off my WD 4TB, but I'm going to try this on a 8TB next week when it comes in from Amazon.

 

[sroemr]

I'll go back and read everything in a moment but I had issues with Nintendont doing that for me with flash drives. I since switched to a HDD with y connector and it works flawlessly. I'm assuming it was an issue with the flash drives not getting enough power (I had the same problem on a standard Wii).

Also, I used to have a 2TB HDD that was partitioned but realized it was much easier to just make one giant FAT32 partition and it works great. I have my loadiine games on the SD and the vWii stuff on the HDD, no problems at all any longer.

EDIT: It's showing the FAT32 as Z: and WBFS as Y:. Right click on the FAT32 in EaseUS and make it the primary drive, if that doesn't work then change the drive letter to any letter before Y. If not, I recommend switching to all FAT32 for the entire thing.

You also need to go into settings and make sure the load settings are set to the proper destination

 

[element6]

1. Using a single FAT32 partition means you are limited to the maximum size that any disk utility or partitioning utility can create, which is 2TB. If anyone out there is shaking their head and saying, "No, you can make a single, continuous 3TB or 4TB FAT32 partition", please explain how it was accomplished. FAT32formatGUI can't and won't do it. Nor will Easeus.

There are programs to format your larger 4/6/8/12 drives to FAT32/32k cluster size. Google FAT32Format or search for ModMii in the forums and it also has the FAT32 Formatter.

I really don't understand why it is accepted so widely on this forum that it's possible to create a single,continuous FAT32 partition larger than 2TB. Please show me a working example of one in a partition viewer if it's possible.

FAT32FormatGUI will throw an error right away if you try to make a FAT32 partition larger than 2TB.

 

[element6]

Fledge68 replied to me with a pretty definitive verdict over in the USB Loader GX thread..

so you say your paths are configured correctly yet usbloader gx tells you your Main Gamecube path isn't. are you sure to went to custom paths in usbloader gx settings and set the Main Gamecube Path. well according to your global config file you did.

well the only thing i can think is nintendont just recently got gpt support and maybe usbloader gx hasn't been updated to get nintendont games on gpt and expects them to only be on a MBR FAT32 partition hence why you are getting the error.

That's exactly what I figured was going on as well. Mainly, I wanted to document this so it will potentially get fixed in an update to USB Loader GX someday.

Meanwhile, I ordered 2 x 2TB, 7200RPM Maxtor powered external USB3.0 drives over at Newegg.
Each drive has a 3 year warranty and they were $70 shipped a piece.
Good deal for anybody interested.

Thanks for the responses from everyone. Hoping this gets fixed in the future

 

[sroemr]

I really don't understand why it is accepted so widely on this forum that it's possible to create a single,continuous FAT32 partition larger than 2TB. Please show me a working example of one in a partition viewer if it's possible.

FAT32FormatGUI will throw an error right away if you try to make a FAT32 partition larger than 2TB.

Try switching the driver letters. I know when I had 2 partitions my Windows 7 computer would always list the partition for GCN games first (unless that letter was taken). As I highly doubt you have so many things that it's forcing the drive to the Z: then that may be the cause. If it's loading the WBFS partition as the higher drive in the computer then the Wii U is probably doing the same.

 

[Logan Pockrus]

Loadiine GX2 in Latest Wii U & Homebrew Launcher=>https://goo.gl/P8vBI4

This is a Wii discussion, not Wii U.