Hacking GPT Multiple Partitions

[05sonicblue]

I know this subject has been discussed several times, but I still haven't really come up with a decent solution yet, so wanted to see if anyone had current advice on how to proceed.

I currently have 2 spare 4TB hard drives, one of which I am trying to use on the vwii portion of the WiiU. I want to also use Nintendont to run GC games. I need about 3.5TB to store all of my files and want to be able to retain 1 USB port for a hub for USB GC Adapter, Microphones and other accessories. This limits me to one drive since hubs don't work for HDD's. Both drives have 512 bytes/sector

So far this is what I have come up with:

Option 1.) Format entire drive as NTFS and use SD card for GC games. This would require me to compress all of my GC 1:1 ISO's and acquire a 512GB SD Card (Currently around $250). I would then still need to swap cards since I use the GX2 loader for the WiiU.

Option 2.) Utilize both drives and format as FAT32 under MBR. This works fine, but then I lose 50% of the drive and more importantly, I lose both USB ports, which means no accessories.

I have tried multiple GPT Partitions (FAT32+FAT32 and FAT32+NTFS). All loaders crash with DSI exception when trying to initialize the drive. It appears that there is a problem with multiple partitions when using the GUID Partition Table.

At some point, somehow i had FAT32+NTFS working in the loader, but none of the Wii games would actually launch. I am working with 556 GC ISO's and 1,728 Wii WBFS folders.

I have tried USB Loader GX, WiiFlow, and Configurable USB Loader

Any ideas or suggestions on how to proceed?

 

[pepobr]

so far, I have not found any solution to this problem, I have an HD 5TB and the same problem. when I format with a single partition the loader works and recognizes the HD, but does not show any game I have no interest in a second partition , just like the loader recognize the games on my NTFS partition

 

[05sonicblue]

The only way I was able to get it to work was to do an MBR with a 2TB FAT32 partition using EaseUS Partition Master 11. For some reason, it didn't like the partition table that Windows Disk Management created. I had to remove around 120 games, but I'm okay with that. I have 1,141 Wii games on that hard drive and all show in USB Loader GX. The drive has 6.92GB free.

I will have to put the GC games on an SD card. For now, I plan to order a 512GB SD card and load as many GC games on that as possible, with plans to get a 1TB when they are released. I wrote a program to compress all of my ISO's in bulk and it shrunk the overall size from 783GB to 575GB, but that will obviously exceed the size of the SD card, not to mention I have Emulators and Roms on that card and also WiiU HBL items.

 

[Clutz450]

I have a 4TB Western Digital MyBook Essential USB Drive. I formatted it with this guide here (http://www.wiihacks.com/showthread.php?t=96770) except choosing to format the entire drive to FAT32 with 64k cluster size instead of 32k. I have my entire drive full and everything works great. Hope this helps.

 

[migles]

FAT32 with 64k cluster size instead of 32k. I have my entire drive full and everything works great. Hope this helps.

are you sure by "everything"?
had you tried gamecube games?

 

[Clutz450]

are you sure by "everything"?
had you tried gamecube games?

Yes. I launch GameCube games from USB Loader GX using Nintendont. I was a little skeptical at first because I thought Nintendont only worked with 32k. But 64k does work for me. The only other thing I remember reading somewhere (and I can't remember where or if it is still valid) is that GameCube games can't be read beyond the 2TB mark. So just to be safe, after I formatted my drive, I copied over all my GameCube games first and then copied over everything else.

Edit: And by everything what I mean is I use USB Loader GX for Wii games, Nintendont for GameCube games, d2x for WiiWare and VC games, and neek2o for the troublesome WiiWare and VC games that need it. All of which works fine for me.