Hacking USB Harddrive with 2 Partitions

[supagusti]

Hi,

I've got an 1TB USB Disk with 2 partitions on it.
1st partition: WBFS 900GB for Wii games
2nd partition: FAT32 100GB for any other stuff like NES, SNES, WADs,etc.

First of all USB Loader in any variation works like a charm
My problem is, that none of the other homebrew stuff finds my 2nd partition.
When I start the homebrew the HDD-Led is blinking, so its accessed by the programm i start. But i'm not able to read from it.

I've only installed IOS249
IOS 222 installer aborts with a dump.

Do I need another IOS to get this working, or is it simply not possible now?

 

[Creqaw]

I'm pretty sure that homebrew and wads and stuff is loaded from a SD card and not from a Ext. HD.

 

[exoskelett]

I'm pretty sure that homebrew and wads and stuff is loaded from a SD card and not from a Ext. HD.

He means that homebrew like MPlayer and stuff can't read the files from the external HD.

Sry I just wanted to correct him, I can't really help you =(

 

[MikeyTaylorGaming]

surely it will be possible at somepoint.

i mean, the loader can find up to 4 partitions upon first load right? coz you get to choose which to format.

so it could check for all existing WBFS partitions and ask which you want to use first

however, why would you want to choose between 2 different WBFS partitions? couldnt you just use a large WBFS?

i relise that any partition over 500GB can cause problems on some loaders, but thats just an issue that will surely be resolved soon.


hope that helps

 

[supagusti]

Thanks for your input - tested this issue with another 100Gb HDD with FAT32 and one partition.
WAD-Manager 1.3 returns ret=-1 when selecting USB
snes9xGX does't find the HDD
fceuGX finds the HDD, loads the directory listing with the roms, but when I try to run a rom it stops responding - but the wiimote pointer on the screen still works, so the programm is still working a bit.

Has anyone got a USB-hdd with a single partiton in conjunction with homebrew (and i mean NOT the USB Loader) working ??

 

[Blue-K]

I've said this before, and will say it again:

MPlayer-CE recognizes and plays my files fine from my Two-partitions HD (150GB FAT32, 730GB WBFS). GeeXboX also works. Never tested other things like Emus/Wads...maybe I should, but I'm too tired...-.-

Give the Homebrew a little more time, I'm shure once when BootMii is out, some things will change...maybe this one too...

. Homebrew needs time to envolve to 100% perfection, and this day will come...it's already pretty good yet, but not perfect.

 

[supagusti]

however, why would you want to choose between 2 different WBFS partitions? couldnt you just use a large WBFS?

hope that helps

Please read carefully - my disk is partitioned in this way

Partition1: WBFS for Wii ISOs
Partition2: FAT32 for Homebrew

Listing of Partition2 in Windows is:

\NES .....NES Roms
\SNES....SNES Roms
\WAD.....VC/WiiWare Games for installing with Wad Manager

understood?

 

[Mark McDonut]

You can format the 100gb to ntfs and geexbox will see it, I'm streaming a dvd rip right now from a second 250gb partition (with my first partition formatted to wbfs with games) and it's playing without a hitch. Feels good man.

Posts merged

however, why would you want to choose between 2 different WBFS partitions? couldnt you just use a large WBFS?

hope that helps

Please read carefully - my disk is partitioned in this way

Partition1: WBFS for Wii ISOs
Partition2: FAT32 for Homebrew

Listing of Partition2 in Windows is:

\NES .....NES Roms
\SNES....SNES Roms
\WAD.....VC/WiiWare Games for installing with Wad Manager

understood?

i think all 3 of those need to be on a primary fat usb partition, like a usb jumpdrive.

 

[supagusti]

...from my Two-partitions HD (150GB FAT32, 730GB WBFS). ....

so your 1st Partition is FAT32 and the 2nd one WBFS?
am i right ? - Didn't know that this could work.

 

[Blue-K]

...from my Two-partitions HD (150GB FAT32, 730GB WBFS). ....

so your 1st Partition is FAT32 and the 2nd one WBFS?
am i right ? - Didn't know that this could work.

Mhm...I think it doesn't matter if the first one is FAT/WBFS...but yeah, that's my setup..^^. Maybe I'll try now some Emulators/etc..out..

EDIT: Great..now nothing works anymore...even MPlayer now won't recognize it...I'll give up

 

[benny99]

Just FYI, I have a Iomega USB HD (which is seen only by Loaders with LoPsT retry fix) with the following partitions:

1) 180 gb FAT32
2) 70 gb WBFS

which is proprely seen by Mplayer_CE and USB loaders (I didn't try yet Geexbox)

This on an Wii with FW 3.2E ciosRev9

hope this helps

B

 

[Wiisel]

tried this with all sorts of configuratiuons and nothing would work for me in the end i decided to just give the whole drive to wbfs and plan on a second with a switch.

some time ago i had a pendrive with an ext2 and fat32 partitions and nomatter what order they were in MPlayer looked in the ext partition

 

[supagusti]

Just FYI, I have a Iomega USB HD (which is seen only by Loaders with LoPsT retry fix) with the following partitions:

1) 180 gb FAT32
2) 70 gb WBFS

which is proprely seen by Mplayer_CE and USB loaders (I didn't try yet Geexbox)

This on an Wii with FW 3.2E ciosRev9

hope this helps

B

Is the 180gb FAT32 partition also seen by some sort of emulators, that have USB support ?
And are you able to start roms from ?

 

[foobar]

I would have guessed homebrew FAT libraries wouldn't detect the second partition. Correct me if I'm wrong since this could be very handy.

 

[urherenow]

WBFS shows that you 'could' choose from 4 partitions but it just doesn't work that way. I had to move my wbfs partition around so that it was the first, primary partition for it to work.

 

[dck]

Some homebrews like mplayer ce can only use the first partition and the partition has to be FAT32 formatted. I parition my 400G USB disk this way:

partition 1: 230G FAT32.
partition 2: 150G WBFS.

All the loader, geexbox and mplayer work for me. I previosly put the WBFS partition first and only the loader and geexbox worked. mplayer could not see the second parition. You will need special tools to format a FAT32 partition bigger than 32G. I formatted mine on Linux.

 

[TroyTheZombie]

Its as simple as having the first partition in FAT32, 2nd in WBFS. All my apps recognize my fat 32 partition that way, SNES9x, VBAGX, HUGO, the nes emulator, all of them.


Only reason your apps don't see em is because the fat32 partition isn't your first one.

And yes, the usb loader sees the 2nd partition if it is formatted in WBFS. thats how I have mine set up.

 

[Wiisel]

Only reason your apps don't see em is because the fat32 partition isn't your first one.

tried as first and second neither worked

 

[TroyTheZombie]

here, use this tool to format.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mizwnzjawdm

Make sure the partition on the far left is your fat32 one.

If this doesn't work, then it seems your usb drive is not supported by other apps.

 

[SonyUSA]

I know for a fact that USBLoader will work whether the WBFS is first OR second on the disk. If you use the free PM program (see my guides in my sig for partitions) you can just drag the partition to re-order it, then hit Apply (this took about 2 and 1/2 hours to move my WBFS to the front of the disk on my 120gb hdd) and you won't lose any data, not even games already on the WBFS partition!