Hacking Wii U titles on external USB missing

DaXIthR

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
21
Trophies
0
XP
210
Country
United States
Hello, did a search to no avail. Hopefully someone can help.

I use Haxchi, not CBHC. The USB drive is connected with a Y-cable to the console's rear ports. I had no issues a couple months ago, but the system went unplayed due to travel and finals for a stretch. I recently got Darksiders Warmastered and wanted to add that to my USB.

I did so using the USB install method via SD card. When Darksiders was successfully added to the Wii U Menu, over a dozen titles, like Super Mario 3D World, Smash 4, and Bayo 1 which were there previously, no longer show up.

For the record, I have about 3 dozen Wii U games on my external HDD, and half of them have just disappeared from the Wii U menu and are not showing up in the Wii U Memory management tool, either.

Also, interesting is that the system had preserved the empty icons where those missing titles were. So, in the folder, it's not as if those titles were never there, and the present titles are moved to the first available slot.

Hope that makes sense. Anyone have experience with this?

Tempted to switch over to a couple of large flash drives, like a 256GB and a 128GB, if I have to start over with the missing games.
 

nexusmtz

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2016
Messages
1,386
Trophies
0
XP
1,425
Country
United States
Before you start over, try this:
Delete one small game from your USB drive using Data Management.
Shut down
Disconnect the drive
Start up the Wii U with the drive disconnected. You should have empty slots for all the USB games
Shut down
Reconnect the drive
Start up again.

Since we don't have any tools to fix the USB file system, if it's messed up, we can't fix it.If you want to dig a little further, and you're familiar with ftpiiu_everwhere, you could use that to look at your usb's /usr/title directory and see if the games are actually still there.

If you haven't used ftpiiu_everwhere before, then yes, you could copy what's left to flash drives using data management.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaXIthR

DaXIthR

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
21
Trophies
0
XP
210
Country
United States
Thanks for the reply, but no luck.

I'm not familiar with ftpiiu, so I don't think I'll fool around with that at this point, but there is a clear discrepancy when looking at the contents of the HDD in Data Management and the total used space on the HDD. The HDD is claiming over 100GB as used compared to the sum of the items in Data Management. The data/games are all there but irretrievable, I guess.
 

DaXIthR

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
21
Trophies
0
XP
210
Country
United States
Again, thanks for the help. It didn't occur to me I'd lost the saves. I'll look into this.

Am I right in assuming this is an issue that appears with HDDs and should not be one when I migrate to a Flash drive solution?
 

nexusmtz

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2016
Messages
1,386
Trophies
0
XP
1,425
Country
United States
Am I right in assuming this is an issue that appears with HDDs and should not be one when I migrate to a Flash drive solution?
The hard drive's larger capacity gives it the greater chance of having a problem, but it's not because it's a hard drive, it's just larger, and all your eggs are in one basket.

Nintendo doesn't recommend flash drives, but I've been using one without trouble for months. As for which is better, since we don't know why the games disappeared, we can't know if a flash drive would have been just as susceptible to the problem.

In this case, as with most others involving storage, your best bet is to be ready to recover from a failure. Back up what you care about (the saves) and keep your install files so you don't have to re-rip your discs or redownload if you have to reinstall. It's a pain to have to reload several games, but it's not as bad as losing a game save with many hours into it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaXIthR

DaXIthR

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
21
Trophies
0
XP
210
Country
United States
The hard drive's larger capacity gives it the greater chance of having a problem, but it's not because it's a hard drive, it's just larger, and all your eggs are in one basket.

Nintendo doesn't recommend flash drives, but I've been using one without trouble for months. As for which is better, since we don't know why the games disappeared, we can't know if a flash drive would have been just as susceptible to the problem.

Got it. It is a 1TB WD, which I'd had for a some time but never showed issues. I knew it was much bigger than I needed in this case but it was lying around. Caught a decent deal on a 512GB Corsair flash drive on eBay and will do the transfer when it arrives next week.

I've got a big ass NAS. EVERYTHING except the Wii U titles (excluded for no good reason) were backed up there. As always, lesson learnt. Pikmin 3 and Smash 4 are the save files I most desperately need to recover.

Thanks again. I'm surprised how rare this whole business of disappearing titles seems to be. where all this stuff is concerned, I feel like I've always been able to find a half dozen troubleshooting tips and tricks. Oh well.
 

nexusmtz

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2016
Messages
1,386
Trophies
0
XP
1,425
Country
United States
It is a 1TB WD, which I'd had for a some time but never showed issues.
Good luck with the transfer. I don't think you'll find anything wrong with the hard drive itself, but you could run WD's 'long test / surface test diagnostics on it even though you can't view the WiiU data. WD would just be looking at the sectors to make sure they're readable. If that passes, you can always wipe the drive and use it on your PC.

I'm a NAS user too (QNAP 669L.) Even with 6x6TB, I'm going to have to start getting picky soon. Movies will go first. I could stream at least half of them, and the other half probably aren't worth watching!
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaXIthR

DaXIthR

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
21
Trophies
0
XP
210
Country
United States
Good call on the diagnostics test.

I've got a Drobo 5N (5x4TB), with 7.9TB free. About a year ago, my free space dropped into the 6.XXTB threshold and I performed a massive culling. Got rid of some movies, but mostly anime and sporting events I was never going to watch. I got back to almost 10TB, and since then have put more data on at a faster rate than ever before.

6x6TB?! Holy crap. Sure wish there was a way to check out each other's media libraries.

Anyway, thanks for all the help!
 
  • Like
Reactions: nexusmtz

Kingreefer

New Member
Newbie
Joined
May 10, 2018
Messages
2
Trophies
0
Age
49
Location
Etobicoke ,Ontario
XP
46
Country
Canada
I'm having a similar issue minus the fact I never left my system for anytime ...what I did was... I modded the Wii u part and added Wii u games........ then decided to do the vWii part and a few minutes into it..... I somehow managed to delete all the channels ...mine don't show up at all there is no spacers ....but if you check the drive... all the games are still there and the drive is still showing as full.... which leads me to think its only the channel launchers that have somehow been erased and other then installing all them games back..... I am not sure how to get the channels to show back up ..... just for info sake this is on a 250gb drive ...on a powered hub ...i am using haxchi with cbhc ..... if there is a way to fix this id be super interested to know
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Bigonya uses his wiener to mod 360s
    +1
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Going to the water park, see ya
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    You should update the 360 to newest dash before RGHing it yes. But not a big deal if you don't, you can install new dash/avatar updates after. It's just easier to do it auto online before, instead manual offline after.
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Have fun @Xdqwerty. If you see a chocolate candy bar floating in the water, don't eat it!
  • AncientBoi @ AncientBoi:
    :O:ohnoes: Y didn't U Tell ME that ALSO? @BigOnYa :ohnoes: 🤢🤮
    +1
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Does it taste like... chicken?
    +1
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    @BigOnYa I wanted to ask you about your experience with seeing south park. Most of the people a bit younger like my younger brother and cousins that are a few younger than me that saw kids found south park funny because of the curse words, kids at school, that seemed like liking the show on a very basic level.

    I could not quite have a in depth discussion of the show.

    How was it for you? As an adult. What did you find the most interesting part about it. Did you relate to the parents of the kids and their situations. Was it satires, the commentary on society. The references on celebrities' and pop culture.
    +1
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    I remember seeing the very first episode back in the day, and have watched every episode since. I used to set my VCR to record them even, shows how long ago.
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    I just like any comedies really, and cartoons have always been a favorite of mine. Family guy, American Dad, Futurama, Cleveland Show, Simpsons - I like them all.
    +1
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    South Park is great cause they always touch on relavent issues going on today, and make something funny out of it.
    +3
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    @BigOnYa were you always up to date on the current events and issues of the time or were there issues that you first found out thru south park
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Most of the time yea I knew, I watch and read the news regularly, but sometimes the Hollywood BS stuff, like concerning actors slip by me. I don't follow most Hollywood BS (example: the Kardasians)
    +2
  • S @ salazarcosplay:
    @BigOnYa there were relevant issues before south park was made, that's why i think a south park prequel/spinoff would be great. Randy and his friends in their child hood
    +1
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Yea, like them running in high school together, getting into stuff, and how they got hitched and had kids. And how the town of South Park was back then compared to now. That would be cool to see.
  • BakerMan @ BakerMan:
    yeah
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    @salazarcosplay if they made a prequel, it would still be about current issues, cause it doesn't make sense to make it about stuff that happened 30 years ago that nobody cares about anymore
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    it's too late
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    the older south park episodes about particular issues usually age poorly since the topic is no longer relevant
  • The Real Jdbye @ The Real Jdbye:
    an exception is giant douche vs turd sandwich, that's always relevant :P
    +1
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    I was gone for like an hour and none of you thought to write or call pos
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    We knew you were going to Sonic to get lunch.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Sonics fast I would've been home in 10 mins
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Meet and greet with AncientBoi then?
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    That would've gone slow he's old
    +1
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: That would've gone slow he's old +1