Hacking USB HDD not working with USB Loader GX

[bache]

My Y cable finally arrived for my Western Digital Essentials 500GB HDD today, and I was eager to test it. My HDD is on the list of compatible drives. I plugged it in, and the first time, USB Loader GX froze at "Initialize USB Device". I powered the Wii U down, and switched the USB plugs around, and this time, it wouldn't detect the drive at all. I switched them back to the way they were initially, and this time, USB Loader GX appears to accept the drive, and get past the Initializing USB Device error, but none of the content on the HDD is displayed.

The hard drive is receiving enough power, and the Wii U detects it and prompts me to format it upon powering on.

Any ideas?

 

[worm28]

There is a bug in usb loader gx and it is affecting a lot of western digital drives luckily my 2tb elements still works. anyways you might have to use wiiflow or cfg usb loader until the bug is fixed.

 

[bache]

There is a bug in usb loader gx and it is affecting a lot of western digital drives luckily my 2tb elements still works. anyways you might have to use wiiflow or cfg usb loader until the bug is fixed.

Bummer, I really liked the interface. Does CFG USB Loader support NTFS drives using a wbfs folder? I really don't want to format the drive as WBFS.

 

[Cyan]

The 4th main loaders support FAT32/NTFS/WBFS partitions.
Sorry that you have to use another loader's interface.

I didn't have time to find why vWii has issues with some drives.

 

[GreyWolf]

Use FAT32 so you can put apps and GC games on the drive too if you want. All of the USB loaders work with Wii games as wbfs files.

The drive code has not changed in GX for ages. Most of the problems people are having with WD external drives is due to insufficient power (no Y cable) or improper partitioning (virtual CD partition left on the drive, logical/extended partitioning) or hardware encryption.

 

[Cyan]

Testing the same drive on Wii would be interesting, seeing if the encrypted content is the cause, or power consumption or anything else.
Maybe I should buy a WD drive myself to debug it.

 

[bache]

I just checked the partitions of my drive using EaseUS Partition Master, and discovered I have 4 different partitions from an OS X Bootcamp experiment from ages ago. I'm guessing it's something to do with that, so I'm in the process of merging all of the partitions at the moment, and I'll report back when done. If all else fails, then I'll try it on my old Wii, before trying another loader.

 

[Cyan]

Thanks for looking at it.
Could you tell me what was your partition layout? (just by curiosity to see why the loader freeze)

Your drive is using MBR partition table?
MBR can hold up to 4 partitions, called "primary partitions".
If you need more than 4 partitions on the drive, you need to use EBR (one extended partition as primary, which contains logical partitions).

USBLoaderGX is compatible with MBR, EBR and GPT partitions tables.
If, from all found partitions, there are which are neither FAT, WBFS or NTFS then they are skipped. The loader should have found your first compatible partition.

 

[bache]

Thanks for looking at it.
Could you tell me what was your partition layout? (just by curiosity to see why the loader freeze)

Your drive is using MBR partition table?
MBR can hold up to 4 partitions, called "primary partitions".
If you need more than 4 partitions on the drive, you need to use EBR (one extended partition as primary, which contains logical partitions).

USBLoaderGX is compatible with MBR, EBR and GPT partitions tables.
If, from all found partitions, there are which are neither FAT, WBFS or NTFS then they are skipped. The loader should have found your first compatible partition.

The drive was using a GPT table. The layout was | EFI | Unallocated space | My data | Unallocated space|.
I left the drive to shift the partitions overnight as it was going to take a while, and I woke up to a failure. I'm going to try again while at work today, and if that fails again, I'll just back everything up off of the drive, and wipe it clean before trying again.

 

[PixieStix88]

Im also having the same problem USB loader doesn't work. I was lucky to delete it off the sd and put it on again and it worked. But this time its not working at all. I know there is other programs to play wii titles. But i am extremely new to this and if someone could provide detailed (step by step) guides for one of the others that would be wonderful.

I am using a WD 2TB notebook (the powered one) as well. It works fine on my hacked regular wii for at least a year but not on the VWii.

*edit*

I did use cfg but its ugly as all heck. Mr.Cyan sir if you fix this i would be so happy.

 

[Cyan]

Reinstalling the loader worked, someone noticed that the issue is related to the config file (GXGlobal.cfg)
I don't know what relation the config file has with the USB drive.

Your GXglobal.cfg is on SD card or USB?

no cfg file + usb = working
cfg present + usb = freeze
cfg present + no usb = ? I don't remember if someone tested it. I think it works
cfg present + usb + don't mount usb setting = ?
cfg present + usb + don't mount usb setting + mount drive once in the loader = ?

 

[bache]

Alrighty, so I came home to another failure, and this time, it had corrupted the contents of my external HDD. Luckily I made a backup of everything on it before playing around. This time, I wiped the drive of all partitions, made a 100GB FAT32 partition at the beginning of the table for Wii/GC, and a 350GB NTFS partition for my PC storage. First boot up, the loader still froze at Initializing USB device. I then followed your advice above to delete the GXGlobal.cfg, and this time, it appears to finally be working fine.

Thanks a heap for all of the help guys!

 

[bache]

Ok, it seems I have one last problem. USB Loader GX can see and play all of my Wii games fine, however it doesn't display my GameCube games. Launching Nintendon't tells me it can't find a FAT partition even though that's the partition my GC games are on, and is the first on the partition table. For what it's worth, my HDD data cable is plugged into the bottom USB port as it's not detected when plugged into the top port.

 

[Cyan]

if you kept GPT, nintendont will not work.
You need MBR partition table, and the FAT32 need to be primary type.

You drive is not freezing anymore, even with the GXGlobal.cfg present?

USB Port0 is at the bottom on Wii, at the top on WiiU.

 

[bache]

if you kept GPT, nintendont will not work.
You need MBR partition table, and the FAT32 need to be primary type.

You drive is not freezing anymore, even with the GXGlobal.cfg present?

USB Port0 is at the bottom on Wii, at the top on WiiU.

Yep, as you said, it was still GPT. I forgot to convert it prior to partitioning. All games show up in Nintendon't now, but not USB Loader GX, even with the option to display GC games ticked.
I can live with launching through Nintendon't though. I've gone through the Nintendon't loader settings in USB Loader GX and configured those, so there should be no issue there.

Try as I might, USB Loader GX refuses to see the drive in USB Port0. It also seems that the power cable must be plugged in before the data cable, or it's not detected.
I had deleted the GXGlobal.cfg prior to reformatting, but it appears USB Loader GX has generated a new one as there is one present now, so yes, it appears to be working with with GXGlobal.cfg.

Thanks heaps for all of the help!

 

[Cyan]

If you placed FAT32 for gamecube games as second partition, you need to tell the loader that the games are not on the first partition.
settings>user paths>gamecube Main path : USB1 -> USB2:/games/

if you have gamecube on the first partition, then I don't know why it's not displayed.
there's certainly a wrong setup somewhere (path, names, folder, etc.)

 

[bache]

If you placed FAT32 for gamecube games as second partition, you need to tell the loader that the games are not on the first partition.
settings>user paths>gamecube Main path : USB1 -> USB2:/games/

if you have gamecube on the first partition, then I don't know why it's not displayed.
there's certainly a wrong setup somewhere (path, names, folder, etc.)

Gold star for you! I assumed that all I needed to do to get Nintendon't running was to select it as the default GC loader in the USB Loader GX settings (that's all I did with my old Wii and HDD), but no, after digging through the paths, I found it was set to load from SD. I changed it to HDD, and now they're right there where I want them.

The only thing missing now is Priiloader or similar to set up autobooting to USB Loader GX! I can't wait for something like that for the vWii (if even possible).