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There are different methods to play Gamecube games off a USB HDD, and this outdated guide will only tell you ONE method.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to you how to run gamecube games from USB HDD, but instead will tell you to do things blindly and install specific outdated files and use a specific outdated USB Loader version.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You can follow it only if you want DIOS MIOS 2.8 (outdated) and CFG Loader v70 r36 (outdated).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!

 

[Wisenheimer]

Good luck. Ask questions if you need help. It took me many hours to figure out how to get Dios Mios working.

 

[TudorBlue]

Is it ok to just place the entire wbfs folder onto the hdd or place each game on the root?.....................soon find out

 

[Wisenheimer]

Is it ok to just place the entire wbfs folder onto the hdd or place each game on the root?.....................soon find out

There should be a folder called wbfs on the root of the hard drive for your Wii games. There should be another folder named games on the root of your hard drive for your GC games that will be loaded with DiosMios.

 

[Maxternal]

Formatted to FAT32 via wii backup manager. Just transferring my games back onto my hdd. is it better if i just transfer each game to the root or the entire wbfs folder?? either way, its going to take while

USB loaders will look for Wii games in the WBFS folder so they'll need to go there. (GC games in the /games folder)
If you don't want to worry about getting the file names and folder placement wrong you could just tell Wii Backup Manager to "transfer" the games to the drive. (add your backed up wbfs folder in the "files" tab and set one of the "drive" tabs to your USB drive, select all in the files tab and transfer to drive)

 

[TudorBlue]

right ive formatted it to FAT 32 and have restored my games to it, however, when I try and use wbfs2fat, its still coming up as "ERROR not a wbfs partition (missing magic). Help!!!!

 

[Maxternal]

right ive formatted it to FAT 32 and have restored my games to it, however, when I try and use wbfs2fat, its still coming up as "ERROR not a wbfs partition (missing magic). Help!!!!

wbfs2fat.py should no longer be needed. It was only needed because we assumed your drive was formatted to WBFS format instead of FAT32 or NTFS. It should now be ready to go.

 

[TudorBlue]

Thanks Maxternal, so now that I have my games back on my hdd in a wbfs folder, all I need to do is transfer some gc games over to a games folder that I need to create?

 

[Maxternal]

Thanks Maxternal, so now that I have my games back on my hdd in a wbfs folder, all I need to do is transfer some gc games over to a games folder that I need to create?

Yes, exactly. Now you can start copying and renaming GC ISO's such that they end up looking something like this:
/games/mario/game.iso
/games/pikmin/game.iso
/games/metroid/game.iso
/games/zelda/game.iso
etc.

 

[TudorBlue]

Ok, I have the Gamecube ISO tool in front of me now on my pc. What options to I need to use? I can extract as GCReEX or DiscEx format, I can save the iso as full or trimmed. Think its only just over 1gb in size anyway

 

[Maxternal]

Ok, I have the Gamecube ISO tool in front of me now on my pc. What options to I need to use? I can extract as GCReEX or DiscEx format, I can save the iso as full or trimmed. Think its only just over 1gb in size anyway

Well, the most compatible is usually just to rename the full sized ISO to "game.iso" and place them in folders as I mentioned above. After that, once you're sure they're working that way you can always run them through that tool to save space.

(OR you could do it the other way around and just save them all as DiscEX and tell them to save in /games and it will create the other folders and files for you ... if any of them don't work at that point you could just swap out the game.iso file that the ISO tool created with a full sized one and see if that helps.)


EDIT : FYI, Trimmed is the same as DiskEX ... but it just puts it in a folder for you with DiskEX (the other files it creates there you don't really need.) Other than that, GCReEx is faster although it might take a LITTLE more space than the trimmed version ... and the full sized one you might as well just copy the file yourself because using the tool will also scrub it and the only reason to do a full sized image is for compatibility which probably means you'd want to mess with it as little as possible.

 

[Wisenheimer]

Ok, I have the Gamecube ISO tool in front of me now on my pc. What options to I need to use? I can extract as GCReEX or DiscEx format, I can save the iso as full or trimmed. Think its only just over 1gb in size anyway

Open the iso. Click save-as. If you want to use them with Dios Mios or Dolphin, you are probably fine with clicking "trimmed" which will save you potentially a lot of room.

If you want to use them with Devolution or are having issues, save the file as full. The tool should generate an ISO like WARIO WORLD [GWWE01].iso.

Create a new folder in your games folder. Use the ISO name to name the folder, i.e. /WARIO WORLD [GWWE01]/.

Then, stick that iso in the new folder and rename it to game.iso.

Technically, the folder can be named whatever you want, but since you are using the tool, you might as well use the "correct" name in case you want to figure out which version of the game you have at some point in the future, you can just search [GWWE01[.

 

[TudorBlue]

Can I use any backup manager to put handle my GC games like the way wii backup manager does or is it just as easy to do it manually???

 

[Maxternal]

Can I use any backup manager to put handle my GC games like the way wii backup manager does or is it just as easy to do it manually???

There's no backup manager to move them over in bulk so either way it would be one by one so it's up to you to decide if you find that easier than copying and renaming or not.

 

[TudorBlue]

Yeah I can live with that. Goin to try a GC game shortly. I will report bk

 

[TudorBlue]

The gc games are working fine, worked first go. Im using Dios Mios, will the games still work as well, if I trim them. Or should I leave them be?

 

[Maxternal]

The gc games are working fine, worked first go. Im using Dios Mios, will the games still work as well, if I trim them. Or should I leave them be?

I'd say most do work trimmed but some don't. It's up to you if you want to make the test depending on how many games/space/time you have, etc.

 

[TudorBlue]

I will keep the iso's as they are then. Noticed your MW3 sig, tell me more, Im interested. The burning questions is, can I play the game online through usb loader gx or do I need the proper game disc???

 

[Wisenheimer]

I will keep the iso's as they are then. Noticed your MW3 sig, tell me more, Im interested. The burning questions is, can I play the game online through usb loader gx or do I need the proper game disc???

For Wii games, I think most should usually work fine. I've never tried to play online with a Gamecube disk though. I don't think it is supported, even in the regular MIOS.

 

[TudorBlue]

For Wii games, I think most should usually work fine. I've never tried to play online with a Gamecube disk though. I don't think it is supported, even in the regular MIOS.

I jut saw the sig and thought I would have a go playing MW3 online (wii)

 

[TudorBlue]

had this working like a dream last week. Think my son may have done something. My games on my usb drive arent showing up in Mios Dios as they were last week. The same gc game in in the machine as it was last week. I have 7 games on my hdd, they are still there because I have checked the hdd, I definitely formatted the hdd as fat32 with a cluster of 32kb. Help