Hacking QUICK/NEWBIE QUESTIONS here!

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Hi guys/gals, new to the forum here.
I recently bought a Wii U for my kids, installed the Tiramisu and Homebrew and slacked some Wii / Wii U games on the external 32 gb USB stick - and some games also on the NAND. The storage got full really fast and now I am looking to change the USB stick to something bigger.

I have a few questions, if you could help me:

1. Is it wise to install games to the NAND or should I avoid it in general?
2. Has anything changed regarding the suggestion which external storage to use (HDD/SSD or USB sticks)? I was thinking of buying a 256gb USB stick (SanDisk/Kingston/Samsung) because it takes less space behind the Wii U, or is it still wiser to get an HDD (I was thinking of a 512gb SSD)?
3. Does the SSD need a Y-power cable, because the SSD should use less power than a normal HDD?

Thank you for your help :)

-------------------------------------------------
UPDATE 18.2.2024.
I've bought a portable 1TB SSD (WD Passport) and the Wii U doesn't recognise it with the original cable.
After I have connected it with the Y-Cable it is recognized, and works.
The only problem now is that it takes a lot longer to instal the games with GX Loader on the SSD, than it was with the normal 32GB Usb Stick from Sandisk.
 
Last edited by dicemc,
The hardware isn't like the Wii's. If such a software equivalent to BootMii could exist it should be on/for the Wii U hardware (not the Wii hardware inside it).
tl;dr: I don't understand, it shows the button to launch it in an old fail0verflow video.

There is (minute_minute) but I don't really understand sentence one, what do you mean by that? Like I said I'm talking about BootMii IOS, seems possible. Fun fact, the Launch BootMii button shows up in fail0verflow's "The Homebrew Channel on Wii U" video, so unless it was a dud/beta of HBC/bug/error I don't see why we can't install BootMii IOS unless they stubbed/ancasted them
 
1. Is it wise to install games to the NAND or should I avoid it in general?
It's best to reduce use & read/write data to the nand as they're known to die by themselves even without heavy data usage.
2. Has anything changed regarding the suggestion which external storage to use (HDD/SSD or USB sticks)? I was thinking of buying a 256gb USB stick (SanDisk/Kingston/Samsung) because it takes less space behind the Wii U, or is it still wiser to get an HDD (I was thinking of a 512gb SSD)?
Yes, it is recommended that you get an ext hdd &/ or ssd, for better game compatibility specially for Wii games. Along with using a y-cable (for the hdd/ssd enclosure) preferably.
3. Does the SSD need a Y-power cable, because the SSD should use less power than a normal HDD?
Can't tell you for sure, because the WiiU is a bit finicky.. try with the normal usb and see if it works fine, if you encounter any problems switch to the y-cable.
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don't see why we can't install BootMii IOS
You're on your own if you want to try that 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
Last edited by CoolMe,
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In USB Loader GX, the layout that looks like the Wii Menu is glitched and the icons are not showing or displaying properly. You can click on them and they will work fine but it looks real janky, anyone knows what could be causing it?

A screenshot for reference, there are supossed to be more games on the other slots. The displays with the game covers work just fine though.
 

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3. Does the SSD need a Y-power cable, because the SSD should use less power than a normal HDD?
I am using an EVO 980 M.2 2TB SATA SSD in an Orico enclosure, without Y cable.

It should be SATA and not NMVe.

I picked up this information from a You Tube video by PencePC
 
Last edited by Majuba,
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In USB Loader GX, the layout that looks like the Wii Menu is glitched and the icons are not showing or displaying properly. You can click on them and they will work fine but it looks real janky, anyone knows what could be causing it?

A screenshot for reference, there are supossed to be more games on the other slots. The displays with the game covers work just fine though.
What about when you switch to nand titles, same thing happens or?
Do your games appear fine in WiiBackupManager?
Usbloadergx recognizes the usb/hdd/ssd when it launches?
Are you using an ext hdd or usb flash drive to store your games? Is t formatted as Fat32 32kb clusters?
Make sure you're using the latest version of usbloadergx.




It should be SATA and not NMVe.
Why though? Apart from it not having a y-cable
 
Primarily cost. The NMVe version is in the order 3 times the price of the SATA.
Yes i know, but i was talking performance-wise it should be no different from an ssd (with negligible speed differences).
Therefore, its not worth the additional cost as the speed of the NMVe is 'bottlenecked' by the USB 2.0 of the Wii U.
No argument there.
 
Hello everyone!

So I have (I believe) an OEM gamecube memory card that I kept through the years, for some reason Nintendont wont read that there is data on it and ask to create one. I have "Emulate Memory Card" OFF and double checked, but when I play games I don't have save files for it writes it on the original Memory card. Idk if this matters but I never put one of my GC disk in, I'm trying to boot them from USBLoader or Nintendont. Physical games are at my moms but I did buy Rebel Strike. Anyone know why what the problem is?
 
Do your GC saves appear in data management?
Data management in the Nintendont app or my Wii->data management->saved data->GameCube? If yes to the second then yes all my saves are there including the new one that was written from a .iso that had no data
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Do your GC saves appear in data management?
Data management on the Nintendont app or the Wii system memory->GameCube memory on the actual memory car? If yes to the second then yes it shows game saves from 2014. It even created new save files from games launched from the .iso that had no save data on the memory card
 

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Data management on the Nintendont app or the Wii system memory->GameCube memory on the actual memory car? If yes to the second then yes it shows game saves from 2014.
Correct.
It even created new save files from games launched from the .iso that had no save data on the memory card
So these new saves work, right?
Sounds maybe it's a region mismatch with your old saves, try PAL versions of these games, or viceversa if you were in fact using PAL isos etc.
The settings on Nintendont look good so they can't be it.
 
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Yes the new saves work, I will try to find PAL instead of .iso and see if that works out then. Thanks!
 
Correct.

So these new saves work, right?
Sounds maybe it's a region mismatch with your old saves, try PAL versions of these games, or viceversa if you were in fact using PAL isos etc.
The settings on Nintendont look good so they can't be it.
So I'm not sure if using PAL will work since my versions I originally saved them are US Games. I haven't had time to test it but didn't know PAL was for EU. I do know the ISO were US ISO since I always download these versions. The Zip Files also say US
 
So I'm not sure if using PAL will work since my versions I originally saved them are US Games. I haven't had time to test it but didn't know PAL was for EU. I do know the ISO were US ISO since I always download these versions. The Zip Files also say US
So you have NTSC saves (on the MC) and isos? That shouldn't happen as It should detect them.
Maybe @pedro702 could help. :)
 
So you have NTSC saves (on the MC) and isos? That shouldn't happen as It should detect them.
Maybe @pedro702 could help. :)
I’m assuming they are NTSC if that’s the default file GC games save onto the physical memory card. And yes I am using isos so Im not sure what the problem is. Thanks for your input I appreciate it. What are your thoughts @pedro702 ? Can you help me solve this issue?
 
Hi guys/gals, new to the forum here.
I recently bought a Wii U for my kids, installed the Tiramisu and Homebrew and slacked some Wii / Wii U games on the external 32 gb USB stick - and some games also on the NAND. The storage got full really fast and now I am looking to change the USB stick to something bigger.

I have a few questions, if you could help me:

1. Is it wise to install games to the NAND or should I avoid it in general?
2. Has anything changed regarding the suggestion which external storage to use (HDD/SSD or USB sticks)? I was thinking of buying a 256gb USB stick (SanDisk/Kingston/Samsung) because it takes less space behind the Wii U, or is it still wiser to get an HDD (I was thinking of a 512gb SSD)?
3. Does the SSD need a Y-power cable, because the SSD should use less power than a normal HDD?

Thank you for your help :)

-------------------------------------------------
UPDATE 18.2.2024.
I've bought a portable 1TB SSD (WD Passport) and the Wii U doesn't recognise it with the original cable.
After I have connected it with the Y-Cable it is recognized, and works.
The only problem now is that it takes a lot longer to instal the games with GX Loader on the SSD, than it was with the normal 32GB Usb Stick from Sandisk.

UPDATE 18.2.2024.
__________________________
I've bought a portable 1TB SSD (WD Passport) and the Wii U doesn't recognise it with the original cable.
After I have connected it with the Y-Cable it is recognized, and works.
The only problem now is that it takes a lot longer to instal the games with GX Loader on the SSD, than it was with the normal 32GB Usb Stick from Sandisk.

Anyone got an idea why is it so slower? Is it the quality of the Y-Cable, because I bought a generic one from Ebay.
 
The only problem now is that it takes a lot longer to instal the games with GX Loader on the SSD, than it was with the normal 32GB Usb Stick from Sandisk.
You're talking about WiiWare/VC games, right?
Anyone got an idea why is it so slower? Is it the quality of the Y-Cable, because I bought a generic one from Ebay.
Probably not.
 

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