Hacking Having problems with games freezing?

[Shadic]

I've got a 1TB Buffalo drive that's partitioned, and I'm noticing that my harddrive will decide to randomly turn for a second or so, and when it does, I know that when the game needs to load something, it'll always crash afterward.

I tried using HDDScan, but can't seem to find any option to disable this slowdown... Any advice?

 

[hdhacker]

I've got a 1TB Buffalo drive that's partitioned, and I'm noticing that my harddrive will decide to randomly turn for a second or so, and when it does, I know that when the game needs to load something, it'll always crash afterward.

I tried using HDDScan, but can't seem to find any option to disable this slowdown... Any advice?

Would it be possible to take the drive apart and connect the internal drive to a PC?

 

[Shadic]

Perhaps, I've never taken the thing apart, so I can't say for sure.

Before I start pulling the thing apart, why?

 

[MikeyMike]

Hey, thanks for this guide. However I still require some help since my games are constantly freezing.
Here's my info:
* Console: NTSC
* Game: NTSC-J and NTSC
* Firmware: 3.2U
* Preloader: Skip Disk Check, Region free GC Games, Remove diagnostic disk check, Region free channels, Remove NoCopy protection.
* USB Loaders: Original, GX, Gamma, CoverFloader. Tried all kinds of versions, all give identical results.
* Hard Drive: Not sure about the exact model, will get it a bit later. It's pretty old, 160gb internal HD with an external case.
I went though all steps in the begging. Tested everything on both Rev9 and Rev13b. Identical results.
Basically, when I play a game, in my example : Naruto Shippuuden Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX 3, the game loads fine. But about 10 seconds into the intro cinematic, the game just freezes. The video no longer plays and I have to reset the console. The same thing with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. During the intro cinematic, around the time when link shows his sword(close to the beginning), the game just freezes and all I can do is reset. But if I skip the cinematic in any of these two games, then at one point the sound cuts out during a game and then the next loading screen never ends. It just keeps loading, or the contrary, loading nothing I suppose.
I haven't tried any other hard drives, but I will soon enough try my current PC hard drive.
However as I noticed, this doesn't happen with all. With the Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat or Excite Bots :Trick racing, the entire game runs fine without any errors at all. But both of these games are under 1gb in size, so perhaps that has something to do with this problem?
Anyway, I'll get more info later today, but if someone can help, then please do. It seems like I'm the only one who can't get this thing to work..
Thanks.

 

[hdhacker]

Perhaps, I've never taken the thing apart, so I can't say for sure.

Before I start pulling the thing apart, why?

Because the only way to definitively know whether the sleep feature can be turned off is by connecting it directly to a PC through the native SATA or ATA connection.

Before you start doing that, I'd suggest you try a different CIOS like Hermes to see if it stops the sleep issue.

 

[hdhacker]

Hey, thanks for this guide. However I still require some help since my games are constantly freezing.
Here's my info:
* Console: NTSC
* Game: NTSC-J and NTSC
* Firmware: 3.2U
* Preloader: Skip Disk Check, Region free GC Games, Remove diagnostic disk check, Region free channels, Remove NoCopy protection.
* USB Loaders: Original, GX, Gamma, CoverFloader. Tried all kinds of versions, all give identical results.
* Hard Drive: Not sure about the exact model, will get it a bit later. It's pretty old, 160gb internal HD with an external case.
I went though all steps in the begging. Tested everything on both Rev9 and Rev13b. Identical results.
Basically, when I play a game, in my example : Naruto Shippuuden Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX 3, the game loads fine. But about 10 seconds into the intro cinematic, the game just freezes. The video no longer plays and I have to reset the console. The same thing with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. During the intro cinematic, around the time when link shows his sword(close to the beginning), the game just freezes and all I can do is reset. But if I skip the cinematic in any of these two games, then at one point the sound cuts out during a game and then the next loading screen never ends. It just keeps loading, or the contrary, loading nothing I suppose.
I haven't tried any other hard drives, but I will soon enough try my current PC hard drive.
However as I noticed, this doesn't happen with all. With the Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat or Excite Bots :Trick racing, the entire game runs fine without any errors at all. But both of these games are under 1gb in size, so perhaps that has something to do with this problem?
Anyway, I'll get more info later today, but if someone can help, then please do. It seems like I'm the only one who can't get this thing to work..
Thanks.

How did you rip the games to your USB hard drive? The lockup of SSBB has got me thinking it was a bad rip. I've ripped all my games from ISOs using WBFS Manager 3.01 on Windows XP. Did you rip ANY games on that hard drive from your Wii?

Try deleting the problem games and redo them on a PC if you haven't done it before.

 

[MikeyMike]

Thanks for the fast reply, all help is always appreciated.
I've tried all kinds of combinations with SSBB. I've tried the dual layer version ripped from the wii, a single layer version ripped from the wii as well as the dual layer version loaded though my PC.
And the naruto game was originally on my PC and hasn't seen a dvd yet.
I'm sure both of these are 100% functional.

EDIT: Here is the drive I'm using for all of this. Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB ST3160021A

EDIT2: Tweaked with the power management stuff, using the HDDScan. Changed it to 8-11 hours. Popped in the naruto game, cinematic loaded fine(twice!), played the story mode for roughly 10 minutes, got all excited and then the following loading screen never ended.

Going to try this with SSBB.

EDIT3: Alright, tried with SSBB. Everything works fine, for about 10 minutes. Then, the hard drive must be falling asleep or going idle or w.e., and files are no longer loaded from it, resulting in a never ending loading screen.
Any ideas as to what I should do?

EDIT4: Ok, so here's what I came up with after all these tests:
If I run on Rev13b, then the game freezes roughly around 10 seconds into the game. (Spinning down?)
If I run on Rev9, then the game freezes(and I timed it) at 4 minutes. (HD sleeping?)
(Both of these tested are with the HDDScan applied at 8-12 hours, or disabled.)
Any suggestion as to what I should try? Any suggestions for some good hard drives to buy? Ones that will avoid all of these problems?

I'm really lost. It seems that I have tried literally everything possible with this god damn hard drive. There must be something I could do.

EDIT5: At the USB Devices Compatibility List, my enclosure is listed as not working, tested by 1 person. Ugh, fml. I have no idea what to believe or do anymore.

EDIT6: Okay, played Donkey Kong for long enough, it froze also. Same as SSBB.

 

[hdhacker]

Did you try a newer CIOS? Did you try Hermes?

 

[MikeyMike]

Tried practically everything.
There's nothing to fix my problem, I suppose some hard drives just aren't meant for this sorta thing.
I got a new 1tb hard drive since, used the same enclosure, everything works fine.
Thanks for the info though, surely there will be others luckier than me.