Hardware Dumping Wii Games Using the Console?

Teep

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2010
Messages
157
Trophies
0
XP
89
Country
United States
Is it possible, i.e. is there an application that would let me dump games from discs directly onto my external HDD / USB?
 

Lacius

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
May 11, 2008
Messages
18,099
Trophies
3
XP
18,338
Country
United States
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
 

Teep

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2010
Messages
157
Trophies
0
XP
89
Country
United States
I have Wiiflow and a 16GB USB formatted as WBFS. I suppose I should use the Custom USB Loader then?
 

olleb

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Sep 22, 2010
Messages
80
Trophies
0
Age
31
Location
Sweden
Website
Visit site
XP
91
Country
I have Wiiflow and a 16GB USB formatted as WBFS. I suppose I should use the Custom USB Loader then?
WiiFlow will do it. I don't know what button you press to install a game on wiiflow, but it's + on Cfg.
when i did it a while ago i found a button titled "install game" or something like that in options. that was a while ago.
 

DarkStriker

GBAtemp's Kpop lover!
Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2009
Messages
1,959
Trophies
0
Age
17
Location
NIKU!
Website
Visit site
XP
541
Country
Norway
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
 

JoostinOnline

Certified Crash Test Dummy
Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
11,005
Trophies
1
Location
The Twilight Zone
Website
www.hacksden.com
XP
4,339
Country
United States
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
FAT32 is compatible with everything, where as NTFS is either unstable or unsupported by a lot of apps. If you are using a HDD for a Wii, then there is no need to use NTFS since FAT32 will work much better.
 

akari212

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
214
Trophies
0
Age
30
Location
Tokyo
XP
54
Country
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
FAT32 is compatible with everything, where as NTFS is either unstable or unsupported by a lot of apps. If you are using a HDD for a Wii, then there is no need to use NTFS since FAT32 will work much better.
the only bad thing on FAT32 is the poor performance on drives larger than 32GB, it's like, it take 4x longer to copy a 4gig file while NTFS drive can do it only for 2mins. Although, you wont notice the difference anyway while playing a game.
 

JoostinOnline

Certified Crash Test Dummy
Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
11,005
Trophies
1
Location
The Twilight Zone
Website
www.hacksden.com
XP
4,339
Country
United States
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
FAT32 is compatible with everything, where as NTFS is either unstable or unsupported by a lot of apps. If you are using a HDD for a Wii, then there is no need to use NTFS since FAT32 will work much better.
the only bad thing on FAT32 is the poor performance on drives larger than 32GB, it's like, it take 4x longer to copy a 4gig file while NTFS drive can do it only for 2mins. Although, you wont notice the difference anyway while playing a game.
There isn't a speed difference, assuming the cluster size is the same.
 

Achilles

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
162
Trophies
0
Website
Visit site
XP
269
Country
United States
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
FAT32 is compatible with everything, where as NTFS is either unstable or unsupported by a lot of apps. If you are using a HDD for a Wii, then there is no need to use NTFS since FAT32 will work much better.
Unless you want to put a dual-layer game on there, in which case you're screwed because FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB. And you also won't be able to rip complete ISOs of any game because the full ISO is 4.3GB, so you'll be stuck ripping it to split files which you'll then have to put back together on your PC before you can play it.
 

RoMee

??
Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,314
Trophies
0
Location
??
Website
Visit site
XP
181
Country
United States
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
FAT32 is compatible with everything, where as NTFS is either unstable or unsupported by a lot of apps. If you are using a HDD for a Wii, then there is no need to use NTFS since FAT32 will work much better.
Unless you want to put a dual-layer game on there, in which case you're screwed because FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB. And you also won't be able to rip complete ISOs of any game because the full ISO is 4.3GB.

That's totally false, I've ripped dual layer games to fat32 and it plays just fine
 

JoostinOnline

Certified Crash Test Dummy
Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
11,005
Trophies
1
Location
The Twilight Zone
Website
www.hacksden.com
XP
4,339
Country
United States
Configurable USB Loader will get the job done. If the hard drive is formatted as NTFS, you will have to edit the settings to allow it to dump games directly to the NTFS partition.
A question about that. The reason they doesnt allow it unless you configure it is because its unreliable or what? If that isnt the case then i guess i have no need for this 16GB FAT32 formatted USB stick then.
FAT32 is compatible with everything, where as NTFS is either unstable or unsupported by a lot of apps. If you are using a HDD for a Wii, then there is no need to use NTFS since FAT32 will work much better.
Unless you want to put a dual-layer game on there, in which case you're screwed because FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB. And you also won't be able to rip complete ISOs of any game because the full ISO is 4.3GB.
Ripping to a full ISO is really stupid, because it is a huge waste of space. Some games are only like 100MB. That's why you use .wbfs files.

If the game is over 4GB, it is split into two files. There is no performance loss.
 

godreborn

Welcome to the Machine
Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
38,471
Trophies
3
XP
29,116
Country
United States
I used to rip games using my wiikey and a tool that fit into the cube memory port with a slot for an sd card. u could rip chunks of a game, put them on ur computer, and use a program that would put the pieces together when finished.
 

RchUncleSkeleton

Skeletron 9000
Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
Messages
1,136
Trophies
1
Age
39
Location
California, USA
Website
www.youtube.com
XP
359
Country
United States
Unless you want to put a dual-layer game on there, in which case you're screwed because FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB. And you also won't be able to rip complete ISOs of any game because the full ISO is 4.3GB, so you'll be stuck ripping it to split files which you'll then have to put back together on your PC before you can play it.
Uhhh have you ever ripped a dual layer game to a FAT32 drive? You realize it just splits it into 2 files which can be played perfectly fine without combining them. I have both Metroid Other M and Super Smash Bros Brawl which are both dual layer games and they are both split and play fine, no performance issues what so ever.

Plus almost no single layer game is over the 4GB mark that it would need to be split anyways since when you rip a game all the dummy data gets scrubbed.
It's stupid to waste space on a hard drive by using full ISO's anyways since scrubbing a game will not only save you tons of space but there's no difference in gameplay or performance.

This is pertaining to CFG USB Loader:
I think the only reason NTFS write is disabled by default is the fact that it's not compatible with older versions of IOS' but you can enable it in the config file by opening it with notepad, or another word processor on your PC and adding the line "NTFS_Write = 1" without the quotes then save the file. You will be able to rip to NTFS without a problem and it will not split your files. Also certain games, such as smash bros brawl should have "install_partitions = 1:1" or "install_partitions = all" when ripping or you'll loose things like cinematic sequences and the ability to play the "Masterpieces" Demo's.
 

JoostinOnline

Certified Crash Test Dummy
Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
11,005
Trophies
1
Location
The Twilight Zone
Website
www.hacksden.com
XP
4,339
Country
United States
Here is a lazy way to add NTFS support:
http://www.hacksden.com/showthread.php/2091-The-lazy-mans-way-to-add-ntfs-ripping-support-to-Cfg
Not very useful, I just made it when I was messing with batch files.


I still recommend using FAT32.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYzI76fwaM0