Hacking cloning wii U USB HDD?

[naddel81]

hi @ all,

since I installed every game I have on USB now (yes, I have the legit disc games which I can show if needed), I'd like to make a backup just in case the HDD dies someday.

Is that possible using acronis boot cd (since Nintendo does not have that feature on board as Sony with the PS4 has) ?

it was hours of work and I do not want to install again if the HDD dies someday.
best wishes!

 

[Kohmei]

An exact image would only work for that exact size of hard drive, otherwise I'm sure the Wii U would complain about the tables being wrong. So if you ever needed to restore the backup, you'd basically need to get the same drive again
Other than that, it should work

 

[ppeterr]

i think this would work, maybe the only thing would be that you need a identical usb drive.

al the redirects and shortcuts, tickets etc are on the wiiu side, so a cp would be useless on another wiiu i think

but thats not the point, just image the disk, and keep it for when you need to replace

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

An exact image would only work for that exact size of hard drive, otherwise I'm sure the Wii U would complain about the tables being wrong. So if you ever needed to restore the backup, you'd basically need to get the same drive again
Other than that, it should work

mostly cloning a drive on a bigger drive would result in a identical size of the drive, so bigger you will loose the space extra.

I think a problem would be the usb identification, since different brands identeify themself different to the wiiu ( ofcourse its just speculation )

 

[naddel81]

An exact image would only work for that exact size of hard drive, otherwise I'm sure the Wii U would complain about the tables being wrong. So if you ever needed to restore the backup, you'd basically need to get the same drive again
Other than that, it should work

A larger disc would also work. You just cannot use the extra partition and the extra space is left out.

I'll just clone it now.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Kohmei]

A larger disc would also work. You just cannot use the extra partition and the extra space is left out.

I'll just clone it now.

Thanks for your help!

I understand that's how it works ordinarily under normal operating systems, but the Wii U would detect that you're using a partition that isn't equal to the volume size of the drive. This is the exact same reason you can't use vWii and Wii U on the same drive despite the fact partitions exist

You can certainly try it but I would bet on it not working.

 

[naddel81]

then I would have to restore onto another 500GB HDD?

that would be OK, I guess.

 

[plyscho]

Just remove your hard disk from the Wii U before booting, format a second hard disk, turn the Wii U off.

Plug both hard disks in, boot and go to storage settings. Copy everything from hard disk 1 to hard disk 2. Done!

Be careful not to format the wrong hard disk.

 

[naddel81]

Just remove your hard disk from the Wii U before booting, format a second hard disk, turn the Wii U off.

Plug both hard disks in, boot and go to storage settings. Copy everything from hard disk 1 to hard disk 2. Done!

Be careful not to format the wrong hard disk.

that would work, but the wii U takes years to copy everything! it took 2hrs to get 12 GB moved!

 

[plyscho]

that would work, but the wii U takes years to copy everything! it took 2hrs to get 12 GB moved!

It's slow, that's true. But I wouldn't rely on a harddisk image unless you happen to have the exact same harddisk twice.

Also I'm asuming you've moved from an USB stick, some of the older ones are extremely slow.

 

[naddel81]

ok, I will try to clone the 500GB HDD to another 500GB HDD (other brand) and try it.
if it doesn't work, I will do the copying with the wii U data management.

 

[plyscho]

ok, I will try to clone the 500GB HDD to another 500GB HDD (other brand) and try it.
if it doesn't work, I will do the copying with the wii U data management.

In that case at least make sure the drive you're cloning to is equal or bigger than the source drive. The 500GB of one brand might be different than the 500GB of another. Or check the source image with a hex editor, if there are only zeros at the end of the drive there might be a good chance we can clone to bigger drives...

 

[PetitMagique]

ok, I will try to clone the 500GB HDD to another 500GB HDD (other brand) and try it.
if it doesn't work, I will do the copying with the wii U data management.

Please let us know if this works and how you did it. I would like to do the same thing.

 

[shadowfocus603]

I'm interested in the results of this as well.

 

[naddel81]

So I just tried to clone the Wii U HDD using Acronis and it did not work. The HDD is not recognised/initialised and therefore cannot be cloned.
Now I am "cloning" it using the Wii u Data Management tool on the Wii u itself. And since it only has a USB 2.0 controller (and not a fast one, that's for sure) it takes forever.
Just copying 19GB of data (Xenoblade Chronicles X) to the other USB device took almost 30 minutes which makes sense (28 MB/s for the USB 2.0 controller divided by 2 because there is 14 MB/s read and 14 MB/s write at the same time).
That's a bummer because all the HDDs are USB 3.0 capable
Guess I have to leave the system on over night.

 

[plyscho]

So I just tried to clone the Wii U HDD using Acronis and it did not work. The HDD is not recognised/initialised and therefore cannot be cloned.
Now I am "cloning" it using the Wii u Data Management tool on the Wii u itself. And since it only has a USB 2.0 controller (and not a fast one, that's for sure) it takes forever.
Just copying 19GB of data (Xenoblade Chronicles X) to the other USB device took almost 30 minutes which makes sense (28 MB/s for the USB 2.0 controller divided by 2 because there is 14 MB/s read and 14 MB/s write at the same time).
That's a bummer because all the HDDs are USB 3.0 capable
Guess I have to leave the system on over night.

Sounds like you were trying to clone the partition (there is none). Is there a raw mode to clone the complete hard disk? Now I'm curious! Once I get my new harddisk (1 TB) I'll try to clone my USB-Stick (128 GB) onto it.

On the other hand, 20 hours for a 1TB backup (I just calculated) sounds acceptable to me.

 

[naddel81]

file transfers could be faster, but are not that slow to be honest. I am excited for your cloning test. acronis did not want to, but I am almost certain that some other cloning tool will do it.

 

[plyscho]

Well, it will have to wait until my monthly wage arrives. I will post my results.

 

[xdarkmario]

not sure that evven using the same drive will even work because from what i remember the wiiu saves the UUID of the hard drive along with serial number and some other stuff as well as pair it with your NNID. the UUID of every hard drive is different upon format so im doubtful...

 

[Sumea]

So here is one fun fact: Wii U lets you connect two drives at the same time in settings menu, you can take backup data to another drive you format to wii U format, and you can copy the content over to that drive from your main one. You can also periodically then update the save data or whatever to the other drive. Wii U will not like it if you enter home menu with two drives tho.

 

[Tadashii93]

So here is one fun fact: Wii U lets you connect two drives at the same time in settings menu, you can take backup data to another drive you format to wii U format, and you can copy the content over to that drive from your main one. You can also periodically then update the save data or whatever to the other drive. Wii U will not like it if you enter home menu with two drives tho.

So, if I want to help my friend I can move my games from my HDD to his HDD and then installing all the games again in my HDD right?