Hacking NTFS USB loader...

[shadowtroop]

Is it possible for anyone to make/mod a USB loader for NTFS? I find it a pain to partition using my 1997 PC...

 

[Teh H4rRy]

I think the Wii can only boot the games off the special WBFS file system, which I think works in turn with the custom IOS's, Try and get your drive formatted on another computer, How bad is your computer?

 

[ThaKillerKlown]

Welcome to GBAtemp, prepare to be flamed!

 

[maddoc]

Why should it be easier for anyone to make a whole thing over than partitioning a drive?
People don't seem to understand the weeks of life lost by coders when it comes to such things.

Just format the whole drive using USB Loader.

 

[shadowtroop]

I would have If I were allowed to >_>.

But i partitioned it while my dad was asleep on his laptop.

 

[smf]

Why should it be easier for anyone to make a whole thing over than partitioning a drive?
People don't seem to understand the weeks of life lost by coders when it comes to such things.

Just format the whole drive using USB Loader.

A FAT32(*) loader would have been easier to write than WBFS. Some people like to do things the hard way. Making the source available would allow someone to fix it, but that won't happen. Eventually someone is going to have to redo it.

But today you don't have any choice but to use WBFS.

* USB Advance/Extreme on the PS2 uses FAT32, the iso's are split into 1gb chunks.

 

[zektor]

Welcome to GBAtemp, prepare to be flamed!

Why would that be? His question is valid...

It IS possible to utilize the NTFS filesystem to boot Wii games, but nobody has written a driver or a loader of such. I recall reading on Bushing's blog some time back that it would be possible (when he entered the "Dark Side" for a few hours), but of course he is completely against piracy and will never release something of such.

I archive my ISO's (after they have been scrubbed with WBFS manager) on an NTFS drive in an NTFS compressed folder, and the file sizes are nearly identical. That said, it would be possible to store our games on an NTFS compressed drive and retain the smaller file sizes we see when using a WBFS partition, but with that Windows compatibility. It would eliminate the need for a specialized manager, and would be a great thing. But again, nobody (that I know of) is working on it. Till then, WBFS it is!

 

[Elfish]

Welcome to GBAtemp, prepare to be flamed!


Why would that be? His question is valid...

It IS possible to utilize the NTFS filesystem to boot Wii games, but nobody has written a driver or a loader of such. I recall reading on Bushing's blog some time back that it would be possible (when he entered the "Dark Side" for a few hours), but of course he is completely against piracy and will never release something of such.

bushing didnt. marcan did i think.

QUOTE

I archive my ISO's (after they have been scrubbed with WBFS manager) on an NTFS drive in an NTFS compressed folder, and the file sizes are nearly identical. That said, it would be possible to store our games on an NTFS compressed drive and retain the smaller file sizes we see when using a WBFS partition, but with that Windows compatibility. It would eliminate the need for a specialized manager, and would be a great thing. But again, nobody (that I know of) is working on it. Till then, WBFS it is!

compressing isnt a good idea, since it requires to decompress the files on the fly. the wii shouldnt have enough cpu-power to do the decompress process...

 

[zektor]

compressing isnt a good idea, since it requires to decompress the files on the fly. the wii shouldnt have enough cpu-power to do the decompress process...

The Wii should absolutely have enough CPU power to perform this function. The PSP can decompress NTFS compressed ISOs on the fly (using irShell/usbhostfs) perfectly. I know this because I also store my PSP titles in NTFS compressed folders and play them via usbhost half of the time.

 

[Blue-K]

I mean, seriously there are tons of Topics like:

I wnT a FAT32 Lodr!!!
I wnT a EXT Lodr!!!
I wnT a NTFS Lodr!!!
I wnT a Lodr!!!

Use Search, and bump one of those useless topics.

@Opinion: I don't get it why you want that...what is so bad about WBFS? Why do you want something other? Only because you are too lazy to open an App, or partitionate something? That's an epic fail, sorry. If you can't/won't do that, than you don't deserve an USB-Loader. That's for me also a main point of WBFS: It keeps the "Hardcore-Noobs" away.

If you want a "Plug-and-Store" Solution, Linux and Mac OSX got their Apps with FUSE, which recognizes the HD like a normal one, and you can also use it like a normal one.

 

[zektor]

Well, while I am fine with WBFS (you HAVE to be if using a USB Loader), I do not think you get the full just of why NTFS would be a better solution:

1. There is very little we can actually *do* with the partitions, as the WBFS filesystem is of course not recognized by partition managers (they do not understand the FS). Thus, no resizing and so on.

2. WBFS is very limited on HD compatibility. You must consult a compatibility list that is very sparse when it comes to the larger (1TB+) drives. Many drives are not compatible. What happens down the road when you cannot find one of the old drives on the list? I guess you'll just have to bite the bullet, buy a new model, and pray it works.

3. You have to rely on a WBFS manager. There are a few for Windows, yes, but will they continue to operate under new operating systems down the road? I guess if you have the source you can compile under the new OS, or if you cannot you can wait and hope that at that time somebody will be interested in writing one for your OS.

There are many limitations to WBFS, so before you start calling it "Epic fail" and assuming that the only reason somebody would want to migrate over to a well established FS (that has a future with drives, operating systems) is because we are "lazy", please think a little deeper in its regard.

 

[FAST6191]

Thought I would join in.

I believe the main reason is that NTFS is a complex proprietary file system designed to work on PC doing modern PC things. WBFS does not require this (my reading of the requirements says you could probably get away with read and write and a trivial directory layout) and so can afford to be far simpler. Just for the sake of argument we are still waiting on a truly 1:1 compatible NTFS implementation in open source land (writing is OK and probably enough for day to day/general use although I still would not trust it for a mission critical device, compression and encryption is very much lacking). USB is also fairly CPU hungry (it is one of the major gripes with the performance hungry crowd) and taxing the ARM (IOS run on the ARM which also takes care of most of the donkey work within the wii leaving the powerPC as little more than a number cruncher) more than necessary with a complex file system is perhaps not a good idea.

re compression: I sense a crash course in the basics of scrubbing is needed: the vast majority of wii isos* pad any extra space between files with random junk that can not be compressed using conventional methods, isos now tend to be distributed in the scene junk and all but outside that is it not uncommon to see isos scrubbed. WBFS and similarly NTFS compression when used take this junk which would have been replaced with easy to compress 00's/similar by this point and compress them down leaving the actual game data untouched (NTFS compression is reasonable simple and so should ultimately follow the same idea give or take the header; for those reading from above the trick is getting it stable enough to be wound into a kernel and not sacrificing speed too much).

*it was an iso not using this random junk that was largely responsible for the birth of scrubbing.

Well, while I am fine with WBFS (you HAVE to be if using a USB Loader), I do not think you get the full just of why NTFS would be a better solution:

1. There is very little we can actually *do* with the partitions, as the WBFS filesystem is of course not recognized by partition managers (they do not understand the FS). Thus, no resizing and so on.

2. WBFS is very limited on HD compatibility. You must consult a compatibility list that is very sparse when it comes to the larger (1TB+) drives. Many drives are not compatible. What happens down the road when you cannot find one of the old drives on the list? I guess you'll just have to bite the bullet, buy a new model, and pray it works.

3. You have to rely on a WBFS manager. There are a few for Windows, yes, but will they continue to operate under new operating systems down the road? I guess if you have the source you can compile under the new OS, or if you cannot you can wait and hope that at that time somebody will be interested in writing one for your OS.

There are many limitations to WBFS, so before you start calling it "Epic fail" and assuming that the only reason somebody would want to migrate over to a well established FS (that has a future with drives, operating systems) is because we are "lazy", please think a little deeper in its regard.

Some points.

1. Fine.

2. It is more the USB loading code the on the wii, blame your hard drive and/or interface manufacturer for not properly following standards. Granted we have something resembling a near future/present byte limit but it is not like this is the first time we have had to deal with such things.

3. While I accept it could be a valid argument I doubt the way things are going it will be, if one day I stop being lazy a WBFS supporting version of http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ could be possible or at the very least a liveCD (I have been looking at stuff like puppy linux with an eye to making a "GBA/DS/GC/Wii/PSP hackers liveCD" for some time now) seen as a basic FUSE module exists.