Hacking USB Loader GX

[Cyan]

side question, is it possible to mass add games to a catagorie quickly rather than going into each game, selecting game settings, then catagorie, and clicking the catagorie, I'm just wondering as I want to set up a catagorie for just gh/rb games, which btw, nice easter egg with the hand icon changing for those games XD

yes, but ONLY if you want to mass add the correct and existing category.

If you want to mass add "super figthing game I love", it's not possible.
if you want to mass add "RPG" to a flight simulator, it's not possible.
but if you want to mass add "RPG" to a RPG game, then that's very easy!

1. download wiitdb.xml (settings>update>wiitdb.xml from gametdb)
2. enable wiitdb (settings>features>use gametdb : enabled)
3. reboot (just to be sure)
4. now import Wiitdb game category automatically to all your games (settings>features>import categories)


I don't know if Wiitdb.xml contains a category "guitare". if it's present, then your games will automatically have this category enabled, and you will only need to filter the category you want to display which matches this.

Edit--
I've managed to get it to run without crashing by unplugging the hard drive, and I can configure it to what I want, but when I plug in the hard drive and initialize it by selecting the multiple partitions feature and initializing the NTFS partition with the games it hangs. I'm letting it sit to see if it eventually recovers, but in the event it doesn't, what should I do?

Hmm, few things seems out of scope.

First, you cIOS setup is good. don't touch it.

now about your drive.

1)
you said you bought a BIG one. how big? 4TB or more?
you said only GPT is possible, so it's obviously bigger than 2TB.
Some homebrew will not work with GPT (EmuNAND, or maybe Nintendont ... I don't remember if it was added)

2)
You mentioned using NTFS.
Gamecube games will NOT work.
You need FAT32.

3) maybe you think FAT32 can't be used because the drive is too big, but it's false.
FAT32 can format partition up to 16TB. (not recommended, but possible)

4) you mentioned enabling multiple partition option.
why ? did you put Wii games on multiple partitions ? don't touch that option, that's NOT what you think. set it to OFF.


5) what you should do :
- use FAT32 partitions
- if possible, use only ONE partition (that's probably why it crashes, GPT seems to have a bug in USBLoaderGX if your drive have more than one partition. I'll fix that later)
- MBR is possible, with some limitation (max usable size is 4TB, by tricking the partition manager into creating the start of the last partition before the 2TB mark, but let's not try this for now)
- in the loader, do not enable multi partition option
- in the loader, set the Loader's IOS to 58
- in the loader, settings, hdd menu, click on the first option to scroll detected partitions and select the one where your Wii ISO are located (when I say iso, I'm talking about "game image", it should be .wbfs files and not .iso files)
- In the loader, select all your paths correctly (for gamecube games) in case you use multiple partitions, from the "user's paths" menu.

 

[jt_1258]

yes, but ONLY if you want to mass add the correct and existing category.

If you want to mass add "super figthing game I love", it's not possible.
if you want to mass add "RPG" to a flight simulator, it's not possible.
but if you want to mass add "RPG" to a RPG game, then that's very easy!

1. download wiitdb.xml (settings>update>wiitdb.xml from gametdb)
2. enable wiitdb (settings>features>use gametdb : enabled)
3. reboot (just to be sure)
4. now import Wiitdb game category automatically to all your games (settings>features>import categories)


I don't know if Wiitdb.xml contains a category "guitar". if it's present, then your games will automatically have this category enabled, and you will only need to filter the category you want to display which matches this.

well I guess rhythm games would work for sorting that, about the only other game I have in there that'll get sweped up in that it taiko no tatsujin but 1 game isn't as bad as a whole bunch of games separating them in the pages

 

[schooluser]

First of all, thank you for helping me!

yes, but ONLY if you want to mass add the correct and existing category.
Hmm, few things seems out of scope.
First, you cIOS setup is good. don't touch it.
now about your drive.

1)
you said you bought a BIG one. how big? 4TB or more?
you said only GPT is possible, so it's obviously bigger than 2TB.
Some homebrew will not work with GPT (EmuNAND, or maybe Nintendont ... I don't remember if it was added)

2)
You mentioned using NTFS.
Gamecube games will NOT work.
You need FAT32.

3) maybe you think FAT32 can't be used because the drive is too big, but it's false.
FAT32 can format partition up to 16TB. (not recommended, but possible)

4) you mentioned enabling multiple partition option.
why ? did you put Wii games on multiple partitions ? don't touch that option, that's NOT what you think. set it to OFF.


5) what you should do :
- use FAT32 partitions
- if possible, use only ONE partition (that's probably why it crashes, GPT seems to have a bug in USBLoaderGX if your drive have more than one partition. I'll fix that later)
- MBR is possible, with some limitation (max usable size is 4TB, by tricking the partition manager into creating the start of the last partition before the 2TB mark, but let's not try this for now)
- in the loader, do not enable multi partition option
- in the loader, set the Loader's IOS to 58
- in the loader, settings, hdd menu, click on the first option to scroll detected partitions and select the one where your Wii ISO are located (when I say iso, I'm talking about "game image", it should be .wbfs files and not .iso files)
- In the loader, select all your paths correctly (for gamecube games) in case you use multiple partitions, from the "user's paths" menu.

1) Yes, 4tb WD -amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQHBNU/
2) I have two partitions, one NTFS for Wii games @ 3tb, one Fat32 for Gamecube @ 900gb.
3) I suspected I could format it as fat32 when I was setting it up, but for some reason it would not let me make a partition of 4tb in fat32 no matter which program I used. I will try again.
4) I enabled the multiple partition option because I thought that would allow me to run Wii games from the NTFS and gamecube games from the fat32
5) I will try to redo it all as one partition, but what program can I use to format it as fat32 all the way through? I'm on windows 7. I will disable multi partition, I currently have the loaders IOS on 58, I do have the loader settings for the hdd set to the first partition, NTFS, with the wii games/wbfs files, I did not set any paths as I wasn't sure what to put.

I also have all the covers and such from using it with my CFG USB loader, I'd like to use those if that's possible. I've never used nintendont but was hoping to be able to set everything up when doing this. I read you could set up game lists and such so that you can choose Wii games or Gamecube games with a button on the screen, and would like to set it up that way, but I've got some reading to do before I can figure that part out. I also wanted to use the extra space to install emulators for NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Atari, Colecovision, Gameboy, GBC, and GBA if possible.

 

[Cyan]

I think your issue is caused by the GPT bug I mentioned. Strangely, it seems it detects twice the amount of partitions, so 2 NTFS, 2 FAT32 in your case, when it tries to access FAT32 it looks for partition 3 which you don't have.
I'm not sure it only triggers when multiple partition is enabled or not, so first just disable that option.
this option only affect wii games (not gamecube games), so it might fix your problem without modifying your drive's partitions.

edit:
if you want one big FAT32 partition, you can use this program to format the partition :
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

but nothing wrong using ntfs+fat32 like you did. (except for the current bug; sorry)

 

[schooluser]

I think your issue is caused by the GPT bug I mentioned. Strangely, it seems it detects twice the amount of partitions, so 2 NTFS, 2 FAT32 in your case, when it tries to access FAT32 it looks for partition 3 which you don't have.
I'm not sure it only triggers when multiple partition is enabled or not, so first just disable that option.
this option only affect wii games (not gamecube games), so it might fix your problem without modifying your drive's partitions.

edit:
if you want one big FAT32 partition, you can use this program to format the partition :
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

but nothing wrong using ntfs+fat32 like you did. (except for the current bug; sorry)

Ok, thank you for the guifat32format. If I can't get the nintendont working with my current setup I will try to format the whole drive as fat32.
I will try changing that partition setting when I get home, any advice on how to do the other things I need like with Nintendont? I tried to download the version of USB loader GX that came with the nintendont settings in it and the page was a 404. Is there a guide on how to set it up so that you have one tab for wii games, one for the channels, one for nintendont titles, and one for emulators?

 

[Cyan]

I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Just get both latest version of USBLoaderGX (in my signature) and nintendont (in nintendont thread's first post).
- put USB Loader GX files (boot.dol, icon.png, meta.xml) in sd:/apps/usbloader_gx/
- put nintendont's boot.dol in sd:/apps/nintendont/

- in USBLoaderGX, go to settings > loader settings > gamecube mode : nintendont
- in USBLoaderGX, top menu, 4th icon, enable gamecube games listing
That's all

 

[schooluser]

I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Just get both latest version of USBLoaderGX (in my signature) and nintendont (in nintendont thread's first post).
- put USB Loader GX files (boot.dol, icon.png, meta.xml) in sd:/apps/usbloader_gx/
- put nintendont's boot.dol in sd:/apps/nintendont/

- in USBLoaderGX, go to settings > loader settings > gamecube mode : nintendont
- in USBLoaderGX, top menu, 4th icon, enable gamecube games listing
That's all

Ok, did that, but still not getting it to work with the hard drive even after turning off the multi partition setting. It will let me change the setting and shows the space of the NTFS partition but when I exit the options menu back to the screen where it shows the game list it crashes.

I will try to reformat the drive completely as fat32 and try again. I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my cios58 or something that doesn't let it read gpt drives properly. Anything else I can try to fix it so that it reads the larger drive? (Nintendont can't open the fat32 partition outside of usbloadergx either)

 

[Onanghy]

Ok, did that, but still not getting it to work with the hard drive even after turning off the multi partition setting. It will let me change the setting and shows the space of the NTFS partition but when I exit the options menu back to the screen where it shows the game list it crashes.

I will try to reformat the drive completely as fat32 and try again. I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my cios58 or something that doesn't let it read gpt drives properly. Anything else I can try to fix it so that it reads the larger drive? (Nintendont can't open the fat32 partition outside of usbloadergx either)

i have a 2 partiions... 1 in fat32 for gamecube games with your apps necesary and 2 ntfs with wbfs folder with my wii games wii......my HHDD is a 1TB. evertthing is ok... try this...

 

[Cyan]

is your drive formatted as GPT too?
GPT is required only for HDD bigger than 2TB, so maybe your drive is using MBR, hence why it works for you.


Also, you don't really need the NTFS partition for wii games.
it works, but it's not a requirement, as FAT32 is compatible too. You could have use only one 1TB FAT32 partition if you wanted.

But again, nothing wrong using multiple partitions with different format, as long as you know that you don't "need" ntfs for ISO bigger than 4GB. ('cause it's false)


I'll have 15 day off soon (in 10 days), I'll try to fix this bug.
So, if you can wait, please don't format your drive yet
maybe I'll need you to do some tests.

 

[smf]

But again, nothing wrong using multiple partitions with different format, as long as you know that you don't "need" ntfs for ISO bigger than 4GB. ('cause it's false)

Yeah, I would recommend that anyone using a hard drive on a Wii first tried a single FAT32 partition formatted using.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

It's good for drives up to 2TB, but I have never seen the point in using drives that large.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Hey folks. I wonder if anyone can help me.

I softmodded my Wii years ago (back in the Twilight Princess days!) and installed Configurable USB Loader onto it. I haven't touched the Wii in quite a while and I'm pretty out of touch.

Can I just install USB Loader GX onto my Wii without causing any conflicts with the loader I already have?

 

[Badablek]

Hey folks. I wonder if anyone can help me.

I softmodded my Wii years ago (back in the Twilight Princess days!) and installed Configurable USB Loader onto it. I haven't touched the Wii in quite a while and I'm pretty out of touch.

Can I just install USB Loader GX onto my Wii without causing any conflicts with the loader I already have?

Hi,

of course you can. All loaders are independent, they only share the same cIOS.

 

[Cyan]

I would say they only share the same ISO, as you can even set different IOS slots.

If you softmodded it back in twilight days, you might want to update the cIOS.
now, most games are working fine with only one cIOS : d2x v8 final, based on IOS57
so I suggest you install that to slot 249 (the default slot used by loaders), and for rare case you might need the v8 final based on IOS56 (only one game? Skylanders USB portal) you can install it to 250.

It's "reversed" compared to the common setup everyone else are doing (249 base56, 250 base57), so it might be confusing.
If you want you can install in that order, but set the slot which contains your base57 as default.

 

[schooluser]

I'll have 15 day off soon (in 10 days), I'll try to fix this bug.
So, if you can wait, please don't format your drive yet
maybe I'll need you to do some tests.

Ok, I will leave it alone for now. Is there anything I can do to help you? I can provide a pic of the crash dump code or even delete the Gamecube partition (which is what I planned to try just before reformatting because it will take forever for me to transfer all the games over again for Wii, but less time for Gamecube). The reason I ask is because I have a sinking suspicion that it's not specifically the GPT issue, mainly because as you describe it should be working even with two partitions, as long as I turn off the "multiple partition" option, but it's not.

Hey folks. I wonder if anyone can help me.
I softmodded my Wii years ago (back in the Twilight Princess days!) and installed Configurable USB Loader onto it. I haven't touched the Wii in quite a while and I'm pretty out of touch.
Can I just install USB Loader GX onto my Wii without causing any conflicts with the loader I already have?

This is the same thing that got me started with this. I have my softmod from years ago, recently purchased a larger hard drive, and can't get USB Loader GX to recognize it. I couldn't get CFG USB Loader to recognize it either. It works fine with my PC, but since my old hard drive was a smaller size and I wanted to start playing Gamecube games as well on my Wii, I decided to give this a shot.

 

[Cyan]

Like I said few time, the "multi partition" option only affects Wii games.
it does not prevent the loader from detecting and mounting all partitions (for other things than Wii, like gamecube or emuNAND)

The "multi partition" option was useful only for people who had Wii ISO located on different partitions (having a partition filled, so putting more iso on a second one, but listing games from both at the same time)
most users did a "WBFS partition + FAT32 partition" back in the old time. filling WBFS was common, and people started to put iso on FAT32 too. we added a way to list wii iso from both with that option.


if you can wait, don't delete it.
or delete it, but if you can I'll ask you to recreate it later for the tests.

 

[schooluser]

Like I said few time, the "multi partition" option only affects Wii games.
it does not prevent the loader from detecting and mounting all partitions (for other things than Wii, like gamecube or emuNAND)

The "multi partition" option was useful only for people who had Wii ISO located on different partitions (having a partition filled, so putting more iso on a second one, but listing games from both at the same time)
most users did a "WBFS partition + FAT32 partition" back in the old time. filling WBFS was common, and people started to put iso on FAT32 too. we added a way to list wii iso from both with that option.


if you can wait, don't delete it.
or delete it, but if you can I'll ask you to recreate it later for the tests.

I will definitely hold off on making any changes to it until you get to tweak it. I haven't a clue why it's not working and I really appreciate your help, so I'll be happy to help you figure this out in any way I can.

If you don't mind, there is one thing I've been wanting in a loader from waaaaaaaaaay back in the day that I haven't seen, and GX may already have it, but I haven't seen it since I only just started trying to use it, but could you consider adding the ability to download ocarina cheats and converting them to .gct files for wii games from the wii codes website? A long time ago I made a vb script that did it, and it scraped tons of codes into files from there, but in the many years between then and now they've since updated their website design so that it will not work with that method anymore. It will not produce the webpage with the codes on it unless it is from an actual browser, instead it returns an error code/blank page, even if the URL is the right one and should have codes.

 

[GreyWolf]

Ok, I will leave it alone for now. Is there anything I can do to help you? I can provide a pic of the crash dump code or even delete the Gamecube partition (which is what I planned to try just before reformatting because it will take forever for me to transfer all the games over again for Wii, but less time for Gamecube). The reason I ask is because I have a sinking suspicion that it's not specifically the GPT issue, mainly because as you describe it should be working even with two partitions, as long as I turn off the "multiple partition" option, but it's not.




This is the same thing that got me started with this. I have my softmod from years ago, recently purchased a larger hard drive, and can't get USB Loader GX to recognize it. I couldn't get CFG USB Loader to recognize it either. It works fine with my PC, but since my old hard drive was a smaller size and I wanted to start playing Gamecube games as well on my Wii, I decided to give this a shot.

Please always post crash dumps if possible along with the entire version number of what you're using and the last thing you did when it died. It will help track down where the crash is.

re: Ocarina cheats - it should already ask you if you want to download cheat files if there isn't one. Is it not working in r1265?

 

[schooluser]

Please always post crash dumps if possible along with the entire version number of what you're using and the last thing you did when it died. It will help track down where the crash is.

re: Ocarina cheats - it should already ask you if you want to download cheat files if there isn't one. Is it not working in r1265?

I'm using the latest version 3.0 1265, and I've been seeing the error dump screen for a week, but you want to know something insane? Tonight, when I started it up, it didn't crash right away. I went into settings and populated the hard drive option, and I chose the NTFS partition. After that, there was a lock up, but no dump screen, so I figured I needed to restart the system to get the dump screen after changing the settings again. This time it worked! It showed nothing at first, then it showed my Wii games! I even played a couple of them to test it out!

It doesn't see the fat32 partition with the gamecube games though, and it acts like there's only one partition, so perhaps it's eaten the partition up or something when I restarted so many times?

The reason I didn't see anything about Ocarina cheats is because it kept crashing before I could even see any game titles. Now I see where you can select to download them. I was kind of hoping for a mass download instead of each individual game, but that works too.

I will help figure out what happened in any way I can, and if I check the hard drive out and see that somethings happened to that partition I will fix it and try again to see if the crash dump comes back.

 

[GreyWolf]

Are you sure it's FAT32 and no exFAT?

 

[SirNapkin1334]

PLEASE add SD support. The one thing stopping me from using this amazing-looking project is that. I have a massive SD, but only a small USB stick, and I don't want to be prompted to format it by the Wii U on every boot. (I know about UStealth, I'm on Mac.)
I would love to use this over Configurable USB Loader (which I don't really like as much), but I can't. So please, add SD support, or make an SD Loader GX fork.