Hacking New to USB HDD Loading

[Difussion3]

Hey guys, I recently got up to speed with my Wiikey-modded Wii (hadn't touched it since late 2008) and soft modded it using Modmii. I updated to 4.1U and installed USB-Loader with CFG USB Loader and Wiiflow in case i wanted to load from an HDD now. Well now i do. I recently bought a WD HDD and I'm completely lost on how to proceed. Lots of old posts I've read indicate that the HDD must be formatted as WBFS while others indicate FAT32. What is it? Is there an updated step-by-step guide I can follow that tells me what I need to do with the HDD to get it to run Wii games? please advise and thanks in advance!

 

[air2004]

I have only ever used wbfs , fat 32 I think is for more of less adding stuff to the drive like homebrew and things not sure how to add games to a fat 32 drive due to size limitations .
But you can download wbfs manager use that to format the drive and then add your games with it . Only Issue I have had with wbfw manager is it wont add files that are already wbfs , it wants a .iso and when it copys it to the drive it turns the file into a .wbfs file which is much smaller ( removes all the padding from the game ) for files that I already had as wbfs , I used wii back up manager to copy wbfs files to the hard drive

 

[Rydian]

WBFS is old, FAT32 is the modern type. Use this to transfer stuff to the drive, it'll split the large files and trim out filler space, put them in the right location, etc.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-backup-manager-for-windows.188295/

 

[Difussion3]

I have only ever used wbfs , fat 32 I think is for more of less adding stuff to the drive like homebrew and things not sure how to add games to a fat 32 drive due to size limitations .
But you can download wbfs manager use that to format the drive and then add your games with it . Only Issue I have had with wbfw manager is it wont add files that are already wbfs , it wants a .iso and when it copys it to the drive it turns the file into a .wbfs file which is much smaller ( removes all the padding from the game ) for files that I already had as wbfs , I used wii back up manager to copy wbfs files to the hard drive

WBFS is old, FAT32 is the modern type. Use this to transfer stuff to the drive, it'll split the large files and trim out filler space, put them in the right location, etc.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-backup-manager-for-windows.188295/

Correct me if im wrong, can't you just pop your Wii game into the Wii and use one of the apps (Wiiflow, CFG USB, etc.) to copy the game straight into the HDD?

 

[air2004]

You can , but I think it would be faster using your computer , then you would have a back up on the computer incase the external drive fails

 

[Difussion3]

Will that program work on a Mac?

 

[Rydian]

Yeah he can just dump the disc with an updated loader and HDD setup, but transferring an ISO from the PC would be much faster, the disc dumping process takes a while.

 

[PsyBlade]

Will that program work on a Mac?

no, but there are others that will
look eg into wiimms tools and its frontends