Hacking WBFS for Wii U, is it a thing?

[Dungeonseeker]

Is anyone actually working on deciphering the Wii U FS and creating tools to manage our HDDs & USBs on our PCs?

I feel this is an important step for homebrew running from USB instead of SD Card.

Anyone know if its even being looked at?

 

[xtheman]

Is anyone actually working on deciphering the Wii U FS and creating tools to manage our HDDs & USBs on our PCs?

I feel this is an important step for homebrew running from USB instead of SD Card.

Anyone know if its even being looked at?

iosu won't let anything read from usb that is not formatted. No way to spoof it.
(You can install pirated (or backup) games to usb though)

 

[Dungeonseeker]

iosu won't let anything read from usb that is not formatted. No way to spoof it.
(You can install pirated (or backup) games to usb though)

That doesn't make sense, the HDD is formatted in the Wii U Filesystem. Am I misunderstanding something?

I'm asking if anyone is working of a Wii U equivalent to WBFS File Explorer so we can drop homebrew onto HDD instead of SD Card.

 

[Irastris]

I believe one of the developers is currently working on a very early implementation to read FAT(32) drives from USB with iosuhax.
Could possibly lead to a USB-loading version of Loadiine.

 

[NintendU_the_great]

I believe one of the developers is currently working on a very early implementation to read FAT(32) drives from USB with iosuhax.
Could possibly lead to a USB-loading version of Loadiine.

As for playing around with a Wii U formatted HDD, the encryp

could you please link me to that developer doing that stuff? sounds awesome

 

[Cyan]

I don't think anyone is working on a "official Wiiu FS" editor.
I guess with the OTP.bin we could now open and read the drives, right? or is the drive encryption part of the few non readable addresses of the OTP?

About the FAT32 or exFAT (libFAT) it was only Alluded, nothing is done or started. just an idea mentioned by Dimok as being a possibility since he added function to interact with the File system (FSA) from a PPC homebrew instead of accessing FSA from a computer with WUP server.

https://gbatemp.net/posts/6850788

 

[ShadowOne333]

I sure hope that it becomes possible down the road.
Even just a simple Loadiine with USB loading might be good enough to be settled for life in terms of Wii U backup loading.

 

[nolimits59]

I sure hope that it becomes possible down the road.
Even just a simple Loadiine with USB loading might be good enough to be settled for life in terms of Wii U backup loading.

Why ? Loading games from the home menu is 10 times faster than having to launch a homebrew...

 

[ShadowOne333]

Why ? Loading games from the home menu is 10 times faster than having to launch a homebrew...

Yeah but it's not convenient to use a Wii U ONLY drive when you want to play big games like Black Ops 2 or Monster Hunter, and certainly the Wii U internal storage can't handle such games neither.
Having a FAT32 USB/HDD drive where you can put the games into is the best option, because you can use the HDD as an actual HDD for other files, and not just Wii U games exclusively.

 

[nolimits59]

Yeah but it's not convenient to use a Wii U ONLY drive when you want to play big games like Black Ops 2 or Monster Hunter, and certainly the Wii U internal storage can't handle such games neither.
Having a FAT32 USB/HDD drive where you can put the games into is the best option, because you can use the HDD as an actual HDD for other files, and not just Wii U games exclusively.

I guess its a money problem then because here for the price of a game you have a 1tb external hard drive... imagine for less you can have a 300-500gb for like 30-40euros there thats like 35-45$, so no it's not really a matter there to have a dedicated drive for the WiiU or any other console, it's more an advantage, you don't have to unplug it, move it, risking to damage it because you move it... a dedicated drive is better, if you have too much space because you only want a few games, take a USB stick instead ? ^^

 

[duncanm]

The main benefit would be a single drive for vWii and Wii U.

 

[Risingdawn]

I just format my vwii drive in wbfs and have both connected then I don't get a prompt to format in wii u mode and have all my games all the time.
Wup installer doesn't like it tho..

 

[Redirr]

iosu won't let anything read from usb that is not formatted. No way to spoof it.
(You can install pirated (or backup) games to usb though)

Remember old days about hdd wbfs format.

And here we are. even ntfs works.

 

[plyscho]

I'd say the better option would be if the whole Wii U would read/write from/to FAT32, including the home menu. That way we could have everything Wii and vWii related on the same drive and emulators could also access the ROMs already installed for vWii.

 

[nikeymikey]

I just format my vwii drive in wbfs and have both connected then I don't get a prompt to format in wii u mode and have all my games all the time.
Wup installer doesn't like it tho..

Wasn't wbfs found to be flawed as a file system as a drive format? Wasn't that why the fat32 format and wbfs container format compatibility developed??

 

[Risingdawn]

Wasn't wbfs found to be flawed as a file system as a drive format? Wasn't that why the fat32 format and wbfs container format compatibility developed??

Possibly, I have no idea. I've had no issues personally and not having a "format" pop up everytime I start the Wii U is great.
A wbfs formatted drive with wbfs manager works with usb loader gx fine in my experience, but I stress that's just me, I'm not claiming it to be superior only that it bypasses the format prompt on wii u.

 

[bostonBC]

Possibly, I have no idea. I've had no issues personally and not having a "format" pop up everytime I start the Wii U is great.
A wbfs formatted drive with wbfs manager works with usb loader gx fine in my experience, but I stress that's just me, I'm not claiming it to be superior only that it bypasses the format prompt on wii u.

The issue of the Wii U trying to format a USB drive has already been solved for vWii users by modifying the drive signature to 'stealth' it from the Wii U's desire to format it.

There is no need for the WBFS format, but being able to read a FAT32 volume from USB would make us not need SD cards which would be terrific.

 

[NintendU_the_great]

Wasn't wbfs found to be flawed as a file system as a drive format? Wasn't that why the fat32 format and wbfs container format compatibility developed??

this is interesting...
can you tell the source from where you got that? i even heard somewhere else that some guy said wbfs has no folder structure, and is s**t.

 

[75mak]

Dont gamecube (nintendont) games have issues on wbfs hard drive using vWii

 

[bostonBC]

this is interesting...
can you tell the source from where you got that? i even heard somewhere else that some guy said wbfs has no folder structure, and is s**t.

Game images in WBFS format are contiguous...

<....................................................HARD DISK............................................................>
<Game1><Game2><Game3><Game4><Game5><Game6><Game7><Game8>

If all the games were the same size that would be fine but they are not so if you decide to delete game 3 and add a different game, if the new game was larger than game 3 was it wouldn't fit.

After a while you end up with blocks of unused space that can't be used by any new game and you have to reformat it and recopy everything to regain space.

WBFS doesn't allow for folders as it isn't a real file system - it is simply a layout for how games are stored contiguously on a hard disk.

 

[Deleted User]

I will never understand why people want worse versions of things to be developed when better things exist