Welcome to my guide! This will teach you to "backup" your games that you TOTALLY legally own. Right?
This guide is completely compatible with Windows, Mac (Wine), and Linux (Wine). I do not have access to an Apple machine, but theoretically, it should work. Please note that this guide requires you to format your HDD, however you can still use it for storage after we're done, so just back it up before we begin.


NOTE BY A MODERATOR :

There are different methods to play Gamecube games off a USB HDD, and this outdated guide will only tell you ONE method.
It will not explain to you how to run gamecube games from USB HDD, but instead will tell you to do things blindly and install specific outdated files and use a specific outdated USB Loader version.
It doesn't cover other USB HDD methods or other Gamecube loaders.
Don't follow this guide if you want updated informations, updated loaders or if you want to use a different gamecube loading method.

You can follow it only if you want DIOS MIOS 2.8 (outdated) and CFG Loader v70 r36 (outdated).
Thanks for reading,
Cyan

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You will need:

Spoiler

-An SD Card
-A USB HDD
-Wii Mote
-GameCube Controller
-A Wii with Homebrew Channel installed
-A GameCube iso

Download Links:

Spoiler

WiiFlow: http://code.google.com/p/wiiflow/downloads/detail?name=WiiFlow v4.1.zip&can=2&q=
DIOS MIOS v2.8: http://uploaded.net/file/1zrie6yr
EaseUS: http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html
MMM: http://www.4shared.c...od-Manager.html

COMPUTER:


1.) Download WiiFlow from the Download List above. Put it in the apps folder of your SD Card.

2.) Download the DIOS MIOS v2.8 RAR. Go to 'DM', then move 'DIOSMIOS_2.8' to the root folder of your SD card, or for easier installation put it in a folder on the root titled 'wad'.

3.) Download MMM, and put it in your apps folder.

4.) In the DM folder in the RAR, there will be a file named DMToolbox.exe, run it, select your games iso file, and choose where you want the game's folder to go (Desktop will do.). Hit 'Install', and the folder will appear where you wanted it to, it will be named the game's ID, which will, to you, appear to be a bunch of random characters.

5.) Download and Install EaseUS Partition master, and open it. Find your HDD, and right click it, and select 'format'. Format it as FAT32 with 32KB Clusters. *DON'T IGNORE! Press OK, and then "Apply".

6.) Look at your empty HDD, and make a 'games' folder. Put the folder with the Game ID in there.

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WII:




1.) Plug in your HDD in USB Slot 0. Turn on your Wii. Launch Homebrew Channel. Then launch MMM.

2.) Choose WAD Manager on the menu and install DIOSMIOS_2.8.wad

3.) After you're done, exit MMM. Launch WiiFlow.

4.) Go to Settings, and change game partition to USB1

5.) Press 'B', and select the Gamecube icon

7.) Choose a game and press Start. Every time you add new games, you have to hit the home icon, and hit update cache, and your game list will refresh.

Congratulations! You can now play GC games from your USB HDD!

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CFG USB LOADERv70 r36:

COMPUTER:
Follow steps 3-7 in the COMPUTER guide above.

WII:

1.) Follow step 3 in the guide above.
2.) Install DIOS MIOS using MMM.
3.) Launch CFG USB Loader.
4.) Click the icon with tools on it
5.) Set "DML Version" to DM.
6.) Launch your game!

 

[ct_bolt]

Not sure about it saying you need nand emulation but just make sure to check this list & this list if you haven't already for the game you want to play & make sure nmm (No Memory Mode) is not red... although I suppose you could still try it anyway and see.

Also for me the disc tray also moves but I don't need a game in for the games I play. I believe it is normal for it to move to check for a disc.

Just to be clear the setting you mentioned is in Loader Settings>DSL NMM correct?

 

[RareKirby]

Not sure about it saying you need nand emulation but just make sure to check this list if you haven't already for the game you want to play & make sure nmm (No Memory Mode) is not red... although I suppose you could still try it anyway and see.

Also for me the disc tray also moves but I don't need a game in for the games I play. I believe it is normal for it to move to check for a disc.

Just to be clear the setting you mentioned is in Loader Settings>DSL NMM correct?

I only see DML NMM. I set it to on. How does having memory card on Wii works? What do I need to do and why do my games crash when I pause it for like 1 minute. I mean I know why now but ow do I fix this. Did I do something wrong installing DIOSMIOS? All I did was install the wad that's all.


I tested all the games. They work 100% except for the ones I downloaded and not install. The 3 I downloaded have the same problem. They crash when loading or if you pause for a min. They work fine when you play nonestop

 

[Maxternal]

I only see DML NMM. I set it to on. How does having memory card on Wii works? What do I need to do and why do my games crash when I pause it for like 1 minute. I mean I know why now but ow do I fix this. Did I do something wrong installing DIOSMIOS? All I did was install the wad that's all.


I tested all the games. They work 100% except for the ones I downloaded and not install. The 3 I downloaded have the same problem. They crash when loading or if you pause for a min. They work fine when you play nonestop

To be clear NAND emulation if for emulating Wii stuff on the Wii. There's a separate version to use with that to add GameCube functionality to THAT.

BOTH the real NAND and emulated NAND ones can emulate a memory card (NMM) but it doesn't work with all games. Turning that option off and just putting a real GameCube memory card in your Wii is the best way if you happen to have a memory card.

If you already have the latest version of DM(L) (2.6) and it's still turning your hard drive off and crashing when you pause, a lot of hard drive manufacturers will have a settings utility you can download from their website that will let you set it to always be on and never turn off or set it to wait longer before turning off. You'd have to look that one up.

 

[ct_bolt]

I'm trying to play "Simpsons_Hit_and_Run_USA_PROPER_NGC-CUBESOFT" size 867mb, and it loads the game but doesn't get past the splash screen (the very first thing)... any help?

Do I have to find a different one?

 

[RareKirby]

I'm just gonna give up on this. I mean games like SADX Mario Sunshine were installed cause I had the disc. When I pause for those games and wait 1 minute or more everything works fine when I unpause. For the games I downloaded and used DiscEX for or renamed and put on the drive has that pausing problem. So I doubt it's the Hard drive. Plus I played a lot of Wii games on it as well shouldn't it effect those as well if that was the case?

 

[Maxternal]

I'm just gonna give up on this. I mean games like SADX Mario Sunshine were installed cause I had the disc. When I pause for those games and wait 1 minute or more everything works fine when I unpause. For the games I downloaded and used DiscEX for or renamed and put on the drive has that pausing problem. So I doubt it's the Hard drive. Plus I played a lot of Wii games on it as well shouldn't it effect those as well if that was the case?

Some games are constantly reading background music from the disk so they never give the hard drive a chance to go to sleep. Those games are find no matter what hard drive you use.

There's an option to turn on the drive activity light that makes the drive light flash when it's reading. That way you can test it for yourself and see which parts of the game it's still reading and which parts it stops and see if that's where it's dying on you.

 

[RareKirby]

Some games are constantly reading background music from the disk so they never give the hard drive a chance to go to sleep. Those games are find no matter what hard drive you use.

There's an option to turn on the drive activity light that makes the drive light flash when it's reading. That way you can test it for yourself and see which parts of the game it's still reading and which parts it stops and see if that's where it's dying on you.

I know on some games I have to have a disc to make the game work. But that isn't the problem. If I find what making it died what do I do next?

 

[Maxternal]

I know on some games I have to have a disc to make the game work. But that isn't the problem. If I find what making it died what do I do next?

Sorry, when I was talking about reading the disk I was actually talking about the hard drive, not the physical disk. You're right, this does not have too much to do with games that need or don't need a disk in the drive.

If it does end up being this that causes it to die you would search the website for your brand of hard drive and find a configuration utility for that drive. Running it connected to a computer you should be able to make it stop going to sleep ever again.
(the only other option would be to buy another hard drive but at least just changing the setting is free if it's an available option.)

 

[ct_bolt]

I'm trying to play "Simpsons_Hit_and_Run_USA_PROPER_NGC-CUBESOFT" size 867mb, and it loads the game but doesn't get past the splash screen (the very first thing)... any help?

Also I wanted to add that I've been playing Mario Kart Double Dash and so far it's working great! Saves without a GameCube Memory Card and everything. Thank you all for this excellent thread.

 

[Maxternal]

I'm trying to play "Simpsons_Hit_and_Run_USA_PROPER_NGC-CUBESOFT" size 867mb, and it loads the game but doesn't get past the splash screen (the very first thing)... any help?

Do I have to find a different one?

One thing that could do it is the format it's in. Basically there's 3 formats.
- There's the full sized, raw, 1:1 format
- There's the extracted, GCReEx, FST format
- and there's the DiscEX format (shrunken, trimmed, compressed, etc)

For the first one basically you just copy the original ISO/GCM into a folder inside the /games folder in the wii and name it "games.iso". It will almost always be about 1.4gb in size (like 1.36gb) so if what you have has already been trimmed down in size you could use something like GCIT to make it into a full sized "scrubbed" ISO image which would be the closest in that case.
http://www.wiibackupmanager.co.uk/gcit.html

Either that tool I liked above or the toolbox that comes with the DM(L) download (if you have Windows Vista or higher) as well as the original DiscEX and GCReEx apps and some other tools can put these into those different formats. The second two formats are smaller but the first one is usually most compatible (except for a rare game that actually NEEDS to be in GCReEX format to work.)

 

[ct_bolt]

Thank you so much for all your help , unfortunately I still cannot get it to work. I ran it through GCIT and it made the ISO 1.35gb.
I tried every option in DMToolbox but none changed what has been happening... I'm going to try a different ISO now. I'll post back and let you know how it goes.

 

[Maxternal]

Thank you so much for all your help , unfortunately I still cannot get it to work. I ran it through GCIT and it made the ISO 1.35gb.
I tried every option in DMToolbox but none changed what has been happening... I'm going to try a different ISO now. I'll post back and let you know how it goes.

Good luck. At least I can tell you that game works for me. I'm still back at v2.3 or v2.4 if it makes any difference (can't remember which ... just never saw the need to update after that.)

IF you find a full sized ISO, you can always see if it's really in good shape comparing it to redump.org.

 

[ct_bolt]

Must have been a bad ISO, using a different ISO it works great now (optimized and everything)!
Many thanks again for the help.

Edit: 100th post! Woo-Hoo! I am now a real member.

Edit #2:
I paused The Simpsons Hit & Run for a little while and when I unpaused it froze just like mentioned above. Luckily for me it had just been saved.

This may happen with other games too but I have never paused them lol.
I will try it from a USB Flash Drive instead of a USB HDD & see if that changes it.

Edit #3:
Nope... it's actually slightly worse with the USB Flash Drive (16gb SanDisk, FAT32 with 32KB Clusters). Also I've had to restart the game 3 times now because it corrupted my save data while saving (once after level 2 & once after the Cletus mission in level 1).

Any idea as to what might be going on?

 

[Flood]

Hey guys i could use some help.
I only get the black screen. and before that I would pick the game and the drive would spin and just reset the wii.
I followed the instructions and made sure that the HDD was 32k using minitool as a user suggested, since i couldnt pick the cluster size with easeUS.
Im using the 1205 beta and I turned on the activity light but it doesnt turn on when im on the black screen.
So far ive tried Mario kart and Pokemon Colosseum. Im able to choose "load from usb" with Mario kart and then it goes to the black screen and Pokemon just goes straight to the black screen after i click play no "save to sd", play from usb" or "copy to sd" just turns black.

 

[ct_bolt]

You did install DiosMios 2.6 USB (not the lite one) using a wad and a wii program such as MMM (Multi-Mod Manager) correct?

If you did all that make sure you HDD complatible by checking this list.
If that is compatible then you might want to try a newer version of USBLoader GX, here is the one I'm using (Mario Kart works great): USBLoader GX r1209
I use IOS 249 but I don't know what you would use. Hope you get it working. Good Luck.

Edit:
Also I should ask were you able to play wii games with USBLoader GX?

 

[Flood]

You did install DiosMios 2.6 USB (not the lite one) using a wad and a wii program such as MMM (Multi-Mod Manager) correct?

If you did all that make sure you HDD complatible by checking this list.
If that is compatible then you might want to try a newer version of USBLoader GX, here is the one I'm using (Mario Kart works great): USBLoader GX r1209
I use IOS 249 but I don't know what you would use. Hope you get it working. Good Luck.

Edit:
Also I should ask were you able to play wii games with USBLoader GX?

Ah now i see that my HDD isnt compatible with gcn games but is compatible with wii games.
i didnt bother searching that since i thought if it was compatible with one it would be compatible with the other.
sorry for not researching it
Oh well thanks anyway
Now i can stop trying it.

 

[daazzaa]

Hi great little doco on how to do this. i have a soft modded wii, with wii games on the external hdd formated wbfs and just about to follow this procedure, but have a few questions.
can i put the gc isos on the same drive, but different partition?
Can i convert the wii wbfs partition to fat32 and place the gc isos in the same partition as the wii games? if i do convert the wbfs partition to fat32 will i loose all the wii games off the hdd?
Can i use my existing sd card i have in the wii to load the wad etc or do i use a different clean sd card?

Many thanks

 

[Maxternal]

Hi great little doco on how to do this. i have a soft modded wii, with wii games on the external hdd formated wbfs and just about to follow this procedure, but have a few questions.
can i put the gc isos on the same drive, but different partition?
Can i convert the wii wbfs partition to fat32 and place the gc isos in the same partition as the wii games? if i do convert the wbfs partition to fat32 will i loose all the wii games off the hdd?
Can i use my existing sd card i have in the wii to load the wad etc or do i use a different clean sd card?

Many thanks

the SD card for the WAD can have any amount of other junk on it you want. As long as the WAD fits, too, you're fine.

You can convert WBFS to FAT32 and keep all your Wii Games with wbfs2fat.py

 

[daazzaa]

Thanks Maxternal. So wii games and GC isos can exist oin the same partition? Or shiuld they be on seperarate partitions?

 

[Maxternal]

Thanks Maxternal. So wii games and GC isos can exist oin the same partition? Or shiuld they be on seperarate partitions?

Same partition's just fine.