Can the WFS header be restored?

[Ferkner]

So last night prior to going through the WiiU hacking guide I wanted to back up the contents of the attached hard drive. The drive is older and I wanted to use a newer drive after. I didn't know about any of the WFS dumping tools. I plugged the stove into windows and when MiniTool Drive Partition saw it I inadvertently churned the boot header to GPT. So now I still have no access to the files in Windows and the Wii U doesn't recognize it and wants to dismay the drive.

All the Wii U game saves are on there as well as all the installed games. I don't care about the games but the save files are important. Now I have no idea how to retrieve these files. Is there a way to restore the WFS header? If not is there a way for me to copy the save files off the drive and move them to a new drive?

I have access to windows, Linux (raspberry pi) and macos.

 

[godreborn]

So last night prior to going through the WiiU hacking guide I wanted to back up the contents of the attached hard drive. The drive is older and I wanted to use a newer drive after. I didn't know about any of the WFS dumping tools. I plugged the stove into windows and when MiniTool Drive Partition saw it I inadvertently churned the boot header to GPT. So now I still have no access to the files in Windows and the Wii U doesn't recognize it and wants to dismay the drive.

All the Wii U game saves are on there as well as all the installed games. I don't care about the games but the save files are important. Now I have no idea how to retrieve these files. Is there a way to restore the WFS header? If not is there a way for me to copy the save files off the drive and move them to a new drive?

I have access to windows, Linux (raspberry pi) and macos.

maybe if you format a second hdd on the system without doing a factory reset, then replace sector 0 with the other. I do not know if that's how large the header is though.

 

[Ferkner]

maybe if you format a second hdd on the system without doing a factory reset, then replace sector 0 with the other. I do not know if that's how large the header is though.

How does one go about replacing sectors?

 

[godreborn]

HxD, I guess. there's a box that appears when you go to look at an hdd. remember to enable write privileges as it's disabled by default. it will be like a little checkbox iirc.

 

[Ferkner]

HxD, I guess. there's a box that appears when you go to look at an hdd. remember to enable write privileges as it's disabled by default. it will be like a little checkbox iirc.

I'll give this a try. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll report back on what happens.

 

[godreborn]

I'll give this a try. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll report back on what happens.

I can't guarantee anything, but that's the general way to do it on the ps3. I think the hdds must be the same size as well.

 

[Ferkner]

I can't guarantee anything, but that's the general way to do it on the ps3. I think the hdds must be the same size as well.

The original is 250GB. I don't have another that is that size. The closest thing is a USB thumb drive that is 256GB.

 

[godreborn]

The original is 250GB. I don't have another that is that size. The closest thing is a USB thumb drive that is 256GB.

that may work, but I have no idea. the wiiu hates flash drives.

 

[Ferkner]

I'll give it a try. I have a feeling finding a portable 250GB drive these days will be tough.

 

[SDIO]

GPT uses the first 34 sectors and also has a backup in the last 34 sectors.

 

[Ferkner]

HxD won't let me open the Wii U formatted flash drive. I get the message saying "Insufficient rights for opening this disk, even as administrator".

Would I have better luck on a Mac or in Linux?

 

[SDIO]

on linux I use wxHexEditor. It can directly work on large devices. But maybe you just wan't to use dd. Also you should make an backup before.

 

[godreborn]

most likely you didn't enable write privileges. can you even see the drive in HxD? did it fail immediately? if so, I'm not sure.

 

[Ferkner]

most likely you didn't enable write privileges. can you even see the drive in HxD? did it fail immediately? if so, I'm not sure.

I can see it in HxD. All the disks let me uncheck "Open as Readonly" except for this thumb drive.