Hacking Best HDD for Wii Backups

[mrb1946]

Well, I don't take notes of the exact model numbers that I've played with and such, but I'm pretty certain I've come across that one a few times by now... or at the very least one extremely similar. I've probably modded over 100 wii's for people (no exaggeration there) and I always tell them to buy WD drives.

And come to think of it, that one time that I had an issue with removing the preinstalled shitware could have possibly been a seagate drive because it is rare that someone can't find a WD drive at best buy or walmart, but it does happen.

About people telling you to worry about the auto sleep function, that was fixed all the way back at like cIOS v9 or earlier. Spanky Wanky (waninkoko) had put in code that would make the cIOS try to read the drive every couple of seconds to prevent the drives from going to sleep due to inactivity.

Trust me, you'll be fine.

And I personally prefer a portable drive because it is only powered by USB, so that means less wires and less electrical sockets being taken up. And for whoever said that the portables may perform slower... I say so me proof of it, and show me that it is a difference that is big enough to warrant that being a deciding factor. No matter what USB loading is WAY faster than loading from a retail disc, and from just my experience with computers and hard drives I think that the portable drives would be faster, especially since that have a faster spin up time.

No matter what, the hard drives themselves are capable of transfering data at much higher speeds, but the drive's bandwidth becomes limited by the USB interface. Just take a glance at SATA2 speeds verses USB2 speeds. I don't even think that USB2 can fully saturate a SATA1 drives interface.... but that I may be wrong about... but I doubt it. I'd have to look at the specs to know for sure... but it doesn't matter anyways.

Alright. Well it looks like I am most likely going to be sticking with the Passport. How should I go about removing Smartware completely from it? Any tips?

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Honestly, what I have done most of the time is just format the drive as FAT32 and everything is good to go. Thats what I have done for like 2 years now without a hiccup. Prior to that when their software was more of an issue I would just google it and download a tool that would remove it.

Just try formatting to FAT32 first. If you continue to run into issues then look deeper into it. The smartware garbage sits on the partition itself as an autolaunch feature for when you initially plug the drive in on a windows OS (probably MAC too). When you reformat the partition to FAT32 then that autolaunch data gets removed.

Some brands of drives have the software loaded into the controller which will make your PC think that also a USB CD drive was plugged in when you plug in the hard drive, but that is not the case with WD drives...or at least the over 100 that I've used with a wii.

BTW, I always stayed away from the USB3.0 drives for use with a wii. It's only been about 4 times that someone has ended up not being able to find a USB2 only drive and I was stuck dealing with USB3.0 drives, but everything still went as smoothly and I've never had a person come back and say they are having issues with their wii that was hard drive related.... or really anything related... ever.

Also, a little tip that I have learned. Sometimes the connector on the hard drive where the cable plugs into it can end up being a little loose. I always pinch it a little bit with some pliers to make sure that it has a good solid connection and doesn't easily become detached.

 

[mrb1946]

Honestly, what I have done most of the time is just format the drive as FAT32 and everything is good to go. Thats what I have done for like 2 years now without a hiccup. Prior to that when their software was more of an issue I would just google it and download a tool that would remove it.

Just try formatting to FAT32 first. If you continue to run into issues then look deeper into it. The smartware garbage sits on the partition itself as an autolaunch feature for when you initially plug the drive in on a windows OS (probably MAC too). When you reformat the partition to FAT32 then that autolaunch data gets removed.

Some brands of drives have the software loaded into the controller which will make your PC think that also a USB CD drive was plugged in when you plug in the hard drive, but that is not the case with WD drives...or at least the over 100 that I've used with a wii.

BTW, I always stayed away from the USB3.0 drives for use with a wii. It's only been about 4 times that someone has ended up not being able to find a USB2 only drive and I was stuck dealing with USB3.0 drives, but everything still went as smoothly and I've never had a person come back and say they are having issues with their wii that was hard drive related.... or really anything related... ever.

Also, a little tip that I have learned. Sometimes the connector on the hard drive where the cable plugs into it can end up being a little loose. I always pinch it a little bit with some pliers to make sure that it has a good solid connection and doesn't easily become detached.

Great. You have been very helpful. Thanks a lot. I'll post back whit my results and how things go.

 

[the_randomizer]

Honestly, what I have done most of the time is just format the drive as FAT32 and everything is good to go. Thats what I have done for like 2 years now without a hiccup. Prior to that when their software was more of an issue I would just google it and download a tool that would remove it.

Just try formatting to FAT32 first. If you continue to run into issues then look deeper into it. The smartware garbage sits on the partition itself as an autolaunch feature for when you initially plug the drive in on a windows OS (probably MAC too). When you reformat the partition to FAT32 then that autolaunch data gets removed.

Some brands of drives have the software loaded into the controller which will make your PC think that also a USB CD drive was plugged in when you plug in the hard drive, but that is not the case with WD drives...or at least the over 100 that I've used with a wii.

BTW, I always stayed away from the USB3.0 drives for use with a wii. It's only been about 4 times that someone has ended up not being able to find a USB2 only drive and I was stuck dealing with USB3.0 drives, but everything still went as smoothly and I've never had a person come back and say they are having issues with their wii that was hard drive related.... or really anything related... ever.

Also, a little tip that I have learned. Sometimes the connector on the hard drive where the cable plugs into it can end up being a little loose. I always pinch it a little bit with some pliers to make sure that it has a good solid connection and doesn't easily become detached.

My USB HDD is "USB 3.0" but it loads all my backed up WBFS images just fine, and that's formatted with the FAT32 filesystem. The Western Digital MyPassport runs perfect with most homebrew.

 

[CookiesMilk]

I got that one, except for its 500GB. I remember I dropped it onto the floor from a height of not more than 20cm... It immediately died out >_> Got a new one via warranty.. It's seemed to be shock-prone to me, make sure you really take care of it...

 

[the_randomizer]

20cm?! That isn't very high at all (around 8") and it died out? Well, it's good that it was under warranty. I try to keep mine on top of two DVD cases close to the Wii .Also got a 500GB model of the Western Digital HDD.

 

[FIX94]

20cm is pretty much nothing and it died? Wow... Well I can always suggest to have the games installed on the internal pc hdd too if it's big enough or backup them to dvd.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Maybe the cios solution fixes the issue during gameplay, but when the wii is sitting in it's system menu, the disk can still spindown, resulting in the need to reboot your wii to get things working again. uneek and uneek2o aren't having such features either,
and homebrew programs normally don't use a cios either.
I explained my experience with the newer western digital passports (usb 3.0 compatible) Soon, this will be the only ones still available.

You still will experiment gameplay issues if your HDD has spin down feature built in,
CIOS will not fix that, the most common problem is the music stopping, hiccups, etc.
But I guess most of the "normal" people don't care about this details

 

[DeadlyFoez]

You still will experiment gameplay issues if your HDD has spin down feature built in,
CIOS will not fix that, the most common problem is the music stopping, hiccups, etc.
But I guess most of the "normal" people don't care about this details

Oh really? Then how come we don't see noobs making posts about this stuff all the time? Actually, I haven't seen a single post about issues pertaining to sleep mode ever since cIOS 9, or whatever version it was, but it was over 2 years ago. And we all know noobs like to make pointless posts instead of searching.

As I already explained the cIOS's have code in them that reads from hard drive every couple of seconds so the drive never sits idle so it never will go into standby/sleep/spindown.

But I guess most of the "know-it-all's" don't care to know what they are talking about before opening their mouths.

 

[OriginalHamster]

You still will experiment gameplay issues if your HDD has spin down feature built in,
CIOS will not fix that, the most common problem is the music stopping, hiccups, etc.
But I guess most of the "normal" people don't care about this details

Oh really? Then how come we don't see noobs making posts about this stuff all the time? Actually, I haven't seen a single post about issues pertaining to sleep mode ever since cIOS 9, or whatever version it was, but it was over 2 years ago. And we all know noobs like to make pointless posts instead of searching.

As I already explained the cIOS's have code in them that reads from hard drive every couple of seconds so the drive never sits idle so it never will go into standby/sleep/spindown.

But I guess most of the "know-it-all's" don't care to know what they are talking about before opening their mouths.

Yeah really!
I don't know why you get all defensive, but I agree with you! "know-it-all's" don't care to know what they are talking about before opening their mouths.
First at all, have you tested every game with an spin down built in HDD?
I guess not.
Test Sonic Colors in a HDD with built in spin down, with whatever cIOS you like, you will notice the music during the act selection stop for about 4 seconds, and then it restart. So yes spin down affects during gameplay, it doesn't matter what cIOS you have installed (I have latest cIOS 249 for instance)
Like I said: I guess most of the "normal" people don't care about those details.

I search it for you:

Yeah, i'm getting that same Sonic Colors sound issues, and massive load delay in Zelda Twilight Princess. I have a 1TB Western Digital My Passport SE HDD its portable (it has no external power.)
occurrs on wbfs format, and ntfs format, ive notice that the delay occurrs when the drive isn't blinking (the led indicator light) so it may have somthing to do with energy save settings or other useless HDD settings. i call these instances 'loading hiccups'

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Ok dude. That is not a 'spindown' issue. Learn to research what you are talking about. As I already fucking explained, the hard drives can't spindown because the cIOS doesn't allow them to. The issue you talked about is not related to spindown, it is an entirely different issue.
I don't need to test every fucking game and every fucking hard drive to understand how the anti-spindown works.

I fucking hate it when people don't fucking understand what is written and act as if they know what they are talking about when they obviously have no fucking clue.

Look at every other fucking game and tell me why those don't suffer the same supposed 'spindown' issue? I remember Mario Kart was one game that suffered from the real spindown issue. There were hundreds of games that suffered from the real spindown issue. So master fucking genius, why don't those games suffer from this supposed 'spindown' issue now? I'll tell you why... BECAUSE THE FUCKING SPINDOWN ISSUE WAS FIXED FOREVER AGO!!!

Just because some game has some random strange issue does not mean that it is spindown related. I mean really, where is your proof that it is spindown related. Fuck, going by your logic, why don't we just claim that the TinTin incompatibility is spindown related too.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Ok dude. That is not a 'spindown' issue. Learn to research what you are talking about. As I already fucking explained, the hard drives can't spindown because the cIOS doesn't allow them to. The issue you talked about is not related to spindown, it is an entirely different issue.
I don't need to test every fucking game and every fucking hard drive to understand how the anti-spindown works.

I fucking hate it when people don't fucking understand what is written and act as if they know what they are talking about when they obviously have no fucking clue.

It's related to the power management setting in every HDD, and that issue is related to it. I got no more problems with the sound in Sonic Colors after fix the APM setting.
The thing is, during gameplay (previous the fix) the HDD didn't spin constantly, it stoped for some time and then start to spin again, that delay affected the data transfer in the game.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzlqsAEDVx8

 

[OriginalHamster]

What do you mean by "real" spindown issues, Sonic Colors sound issue is related to the spindown period.
You can call it "not real", "fake", "minor" but it still existent issue.
I just show my proof, test Sonic Colors in a spindown'ed HDD.

It's not problem with compatibility, or problem with the loader.

Also take the chill pill man, it's just a gaming related forum, it supposed to be fun.

 

[akari212]

buy a HDD (laptop or desktop hard drive) and a enclosure. this will give you a 100% compatibility on most cases, specially if you are planning to use NEEK2O on your Wii.

 

[lexarvn]

I find this topic to be quite interesting since I've noticed that different cios revisions make AND break compatibility with some devices. In particular, since it's been mentioned here quite a bit, is a WD my passport essential drive I have. It never had any issues until waninkoko's cios rev9 (yes, the one that was supposed to fix spindown issues). It still has issues with the latest revision as well, so I still use rev8 for it since it causes no issues. There are many things that can potentially cause problems with games that are not related to spindown and can in fact be due to a certain cios just not working with a particular device.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

There are many things that can potentially cause problems with games that are not related to spindown and can in fact be due to a certain cios just not working with a particular device.

I already tried talking sense into OriginalHamster and it made no difference, I've since stopped wasting my time

But to add ontop of what you had said, certain games can just have issues with a cIOS's or certain revisions of cIOS's.

 

[the_randomizer]

Not sure what HDD you guys are using but mine never so much as had these issues.