How to play GameCube games off a USB HDD.

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There are different methods to play Gamecube games off a USB HDD, and this outdated guide will only tell you ONE method.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to you how to run gamecube games from USB HDD, but instead will tell you to do things blindly and install specific outdated files and use a specific outdated USB Loader version.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You can follow it only if you want DIOS MIOS 2.8 (outdated) and CFG Loader v70 r36 (outdated).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:
-An SD Card
-A USB HDD
-Wii Mote
-GameCube Controller
-A Wii with Homebrew Channel installed
-A GameCube iso

Download Links:

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!
 

shark2003

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I havent read through this post much...I got Gamecube games working off an SD card using GXloader woth DIOS MIOS installed...I even went out and bought another USB HDD just for gamecube games since I have another that is WBFS formatted for Wii games that I use with Configurable USB Loader with Wiird support but I discoverd that I cant play GC games directly off an HDD...if I missed something here please send me a link to a good turorial...I played GC games off an SD with no problem using an SD Card and Discex etc.. and even got Gecko.net and Wiird to hook to use cheats :)
As for other tutorials, there are actually two more here on this forum
http://gbatemp.net/t...b-simple-guide/
and
http://gbatemp.net/t...dios-mios-lite/ (the original one)

Other than that, when you say you can't get it to work, what exactly is happening?
Thanks for the reply Maxternal.
Hmm...well I can get the Gamecube games to show up up in "Configurable USB Game Loader" on my USB drive after swithching things around to FAT32 etc but then all it does is transfer the selected game to my SD card...takes about a half hour or so. If I try to use Usbloader GX..it will recognize the hard drive but doesnt display any games. Both UsbloaderGX and Config USBloader work loading games off the SD card.
 

shark2003

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Thanks again Maxternal. Those tutorials look like they will send me in the right direction. I am not a noob that is going to post a thousand questions...I spent some serious time learning this over this past weekend...:)
 
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Maxternal

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Thanks for the reply Maxternal.
Hmm...well I can get the Gamecube games to show up up in "Configurable USB Game Loader" on my USB drive after swithching things around to FAT32 etc but then all it does is transfer the selected game to my SD card...takes about a half hour or so. If I try to use Usbloader GX..it will recognize the hard drive but doesnt display any games. Both UsbloaderGX and Config USBloader work loading games off the SD card.
As for the transferring to SD part, you need a newer beta version in order to run off of USB. The latest "official release" of both CFG and GX was before USB loading for GameCube was even possible.
In GX there's two "customer paths" for GameCube. One is for SD and the other for USB so you'd have to be sure they're both set. It might also be best to turn the "all partitions" option on.
 

Maxternal

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Could it be that the USB loader GX mod is necessary?
If you just have the latest release version, v3.0 (r1180) it was released BEFORE diosmios existed so you WILL have to update to one of the latest betas (r1202 is the latest, I think, and you don't even have to do step #7, it decides that for you.)
 

ketosan

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Could it be that the USB loader GX mod is necessary?
If you just have the latest release version, v3.0 (r1180) it was released BEFORE diosmios existed so you WILL have to update to one of the latest betas (r1202 is the latest, I think, and you don't even have to do step #7, it decides that for you.)

I tried these builds r1202-r1198 and r1191 it seems that only r1191 works. The others just give me blackscreen stuck right after the DiosMios Logo when starting a game (Mario Kart Double Dash PAL in my case). The stupid thing is r1191 only works when the original disc is placed in the wii - otherwise it says 'apploader is zero blabla' or 'apploader_entry blabla' and the game won't start at all. I'm trying to solve this the whole day but no success. Is there ANY way to make this game to load from a USB HDD without having a disc in the wii?
 

Maxternal

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I tried these builds r1202-r1198 and r1191 it seems that only r1191 works. The others just give me blackscreen stuck right after the DiosMios Logo when starting a game (Mario Kart Double Dash PAL in my case). The stupid thing is r1191 only works when the original disc is placed in the wii - otherwise it says 'apploader is zero blabla' or 'apploader_entry blabla' and the game won't start at all. I'm trying to solve this the whole day but no success. Is there ANY way to make this game to load from a USB HDD without having a disc in the wii?
The problem is the reason why r1191 SEEMS to work is because it IS running the game in the drive. I guess you just happen to have the same game in the drive as you do on USB ... if you had a different one it would run the retail disk and ignore the USB settings sent to it. for DM(L) v2.2 you need to have AT LEAST r1197 or it will do just that. It should work fine (works for me).
Did you rip it with GX itself or with CleanRip? When in doubt it's best to start by turning all the GameCube options to OFF and just take the ISO you get from CleanRip and change the name from Blahblah.iso to game.iso and put it in the usb1:/games/blahblah folder replacing the old one. That way is generally the most compatible. That way you'll at least know it's not the game's fault.
 

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The problem is the reason why r1191 SEEMS to work is because it IS running the game in the drive. I guess you just happen to have the same game in the drive as you do on USB ... if you had a different one it would run the retail disk and ignore the USB settings sent to it. for DM(L) v2.2 you need to have AT LEAST r1197 or it will do just that. It should work fine (works for me).
Did you rip it with GX itself or with CleanRip? When in doubt it's best to start by turning all the GameCube options to OFF and just take the ISO you get from CleanRip and change the name from Blahblah.iso to game.iso and put it in the usb1:/games/blahblah folder replacing the old one. That way is generally the most compatible. That way you'll at least know it's not the game's fault.

I dumped disc with the GX, now going to try your way with CleanRip. I will also add r1197 and look how it works, thank you Maxternal. When it's done i will post the results in here.

Edit:
Damn it, it does not work. Just happens the same. When i start the game the DiosMios logo appears for 5 sec then it's getting blackscreen and stuck like forever... I'm getting mad damn it
 

Maxternal

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Damn it, it does not work. Just happens the same. When i start the game the DiosMios logo appears for 5 sec then it's getting blackscreen and stuck like forever... I'm getting mad damn it
You're not the only one.
http://gbatemp.net/topic/334142-dios-mios-issue/
I'll say to you what I said to the last guy we couldn't figure this out on ... Have you considered Devolution? (assuming it'll work for your circumstances.)
 

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Damn it, it does not work. Just happens the same. When i start the game the DiosMios logo appears for 5 sec then it's getting blackscreen and stuck like forever... I'm getting mad damn it
You're not the only one.
http://gbatemp.net/t...ios-mios-issue/
I'll say to you what I said to the last guy we couldn't figure this out on ... Have you considered Devolution? (assuming it'll work for your circumstances.)

I have good news i got this fuckin shit finally work ahahha! Sorry for vulgarity, but i'm so happy that figured this shit out. The key was to make sure that SD Card and the USB HDD (Partition) is formatted in FAT32 (IMPORTANT: you have to format the HDD in 32kb clustersize).I also recommend to use CleanRip to dump GC games + optimizing with GCReEx. Use the latest DiosMios 2.2 and USB Loader GX 3.0 Beta mod in my case it was r1202 which you can find here.


edit: Does anybody know how to turn turn off the wii after playing a gamecubegame without having the feeling that you are going to brick your wii?
 
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mythical77

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I followed all the instructions in the guide and when I started my game (LoZ: Four Swords Adventures), I got the 'fatal error apploader size is zero' problem. I scrolled through the posts in this topic to see if someone had the same problem, but I'm incredibly new to this and had no idea what was going on or what was being said. So I tried using USBLoaderGX 3.0, but I couldn't load my game off the USB and had to copy it to my SD. (I didn't want to, because my SD card's only 4GB). So what do I do?
 

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- Make sure that that your sd card is formatted in 32FAT clustersize=32kb.
- Then take the r1202 build you can download it here.
- Extract it and choose the right ios for you.
- Replace the boot.dol with the one in your sd:/app/usbloadergx folder

It should work fine.

Usually the 'fatal error apploader' happened to me when there is no disc in your wii at all. Try to start your game with any disc in your wii.
I am using DiosMios 2.2 the latest at the moment which works fine for me. It's important that you use DiosMios instead of DiosMiosLite to make it work off the USB (without the workaround).
 

shark2003

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Okay,this where I am stuck

"If you find that Cfg USB Loader wants to install games to your SD card instead of hard drive, you need a different version of Cfg (we're not sure what causes this bug yet). Perform the following
  • Replace sd:/apps/usb-loader/boot.dol with the latest version of Cfg Mod from here (rename the file)"
after reading this tutorial that is posted here---> http://gwht.wikidot.com/dios-mios I have tried several versions of CFG USB Loader and none of them will load a game from USB..it will always copy to the SD card USBloadergx is pretty much the same..it will ask me to load from USB but then its a black screen....
 

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- Make sure that that your sd card is formatted in 32FAT clustersize=32kb.
- Then take the r1202 build you can download it here.
- Extract it and choose the right ios for you.
- Replace the boot.dol with the one in your sd:/app/usbloadergx folder

It should work fine.

Usually the 'fatal error apploader' happened to me when there is no disc in your wii at all. Try to start your game with any disc in your wii.
I am using DiosMios 2.2 the latest at the moment which works fine for me. It's important that you use DiosMios instead of DiosMiosLite to make it work off the USB (without the workaround).
Thank you very much. Problem solved. Another problem though. I was playing Four Sword Adventures and everything was fine and dandy, until I put the LoZ Special Collection Edition on my USB. When I started it up, the game was in black and white, and I'm not sure why it was like that. I tested Four Sword Adventures again and it was fine. I checked my VGA cable and it checked out okay. My USB's in the 0 port and I have a disc in the drive (Mario Party 8). Is it a problem with DM (I'm not using DMLite btw), or is it maybe a problem with my .iso?
 

Maxternal

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Thank you very much. Problem solved. Another problem though. I was playing Four Sword Adventures and everything was fine and dandy, until I put the LoZ Special Collection Edition on my USB. When I started it up, the game was in black and white, and I'm not sure why it was like that. I tested Four Sword Adventures again and it was fine. I checked my VGA cable and it checked out okay. My USB's in the 0 port and I have a disc in the drive (Mario Party 8). Is it a problem with DM (I'm not using DMLite btw), or is it maybe a problem with my .iso?
Usually black and white means PAL on a NTSC only TV or visa versa. (Judging by the American flag under your avatar I'd guess your TV is NTSC) That could be because you happen to have a PAL version of the game or you accidentally set your video mode settings for that game to PAL. Either way to fix it all you need to do is set the video mode for that game to NTSC. If it IS a PAL game, the screen might go black (no signal) for a moment right when you start it up but it should come back on shortly. If it does, it also might just be waiting for you to press (A) or something but it should work fine.
 

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Thank you very much. Problem solved. Another problem though. I was playing Four Sword Adventures and everything was fine and dandy, until I put the LoZ Special Collection Edition on my USB. When I started it up, the game was in black and white, and I'm not sure why it was like that. I tested Four Sword Adventures again and it was fine. I checked my VGA cable and it checked out okay. My USB's in the 0 port and I have a disc in the drive (Mario Party 8). Is it a problem with DM (I'm not using DMLite btw), or is it maybe a problem with my .iso?
Usually black and white means PAL on a NTSC only TV or visa versa. (Judging by the American flag under your avatar I'd guess your TV is NTSC) That could be because you happen to have a PAL version of the game or you accidentally set your video mode settings for that game to PAL. Either way to fix it all you need to do is set the video mode for that game to NTSC. If it IS a PAL game, the screen might go black (no signal) for a moment right when you start it up but it should come back on shortly. If it does, it also might just be waiting for you to press (A) or something but it should work fine.
Thanks for the answer. I posted my problem in a different part of the forum, and I guess it was because my game was PAL. But I do have another question, which is how do you change the video mode for the game? I think I did that, and it didn't work, but I may not have been doing it right, so...yeah.
 

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Thanks for the answer. I posted my problem in a different part of the forum, and I guess it was because my game was PAL. But I do have another question, which is how do you change the video mode for the game? I think I did that, and it didn't work, but I may not have been doing it right, so...yeah.
That depends on what loader you're using but there should be an option like "DML video mode" in the general and/or per-game settings for it.
 

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Am getting this screen when I go to fire up USB Loader GX - any ideas?

IMG-20120920-00188_zps66b86eb9.jpg
 

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