So everything seems fine. The hard drive enclosure seems a bit finicky about the usb plug being seated properly. (what I get for buying a 2nd hand external drive) but when it's connected good, USB loader GX will see the games. (though I refresh with the 'wii' games checkbox selected, every damn time I start USB loader...)
My only issue now is WHY don't the covers show up in the game list? I downloaded all cover images from that one site, and put it on the external hdd AND in a covers folder on the SD card just for good measure.
When I run the wii file manager utility on the PC (when adding a new game to the HDD) it finds the covers just fine, but USB loader gx isn't. Is there a special folder path/cover image naming convention/usb loader setting i'm missing here?