Gaming My saves are trapped on a "dead" harddrive.

[PotatisKnug]

So, i "moved" all my games (idiot!) and ofcourse the saves to another bigger harddrive with a Y cable. they got moved over, no problems. Went to go check if everything got sent over aaaand my wii u no longer wants to read the harddrive. i have tried restarting the wii u multiple times, replugged the usb, used a powered usb hub and my games don't show up on the sysmenu either. (they did before the move) HOW DO I GET THEM OFF AGAIN? This has completely ruined my wii u for me.

I have "bolded" all the important things for the tl;dr people.

Frickin' praise Jesus there's help on the way...

 

[VitaType]

There is a Linux driver for the WiiU filesystem. Try to read the harddrive with that, if that dosn't works try to read the harddrive on another WiiU. If also that dosn't works begin to cry and see it as lecture to backup your files regular. The forensic tools for the WiiU filesystem aren't well developed yet, to say the least

 

[PotatisKnug]

There is a Linux driver for the WiiU filesystem. Try to read the harddrive with that, if that dosn't works try to read the harddrive on another WiiU. If also that dosn't works begin to cry and see it as lecture to backup your files regular. The forensic tools for the WiiU filesystem aren't well developed yet, to say the least

I'm bad at backups, man. Can you send me a link to the driver? I don't have another Wii U

 

[VitaType]

I'm bad at backups, man.

I know how that is, I know myself how that is

Can you send me a link to the driver?

First of all you should shutdown your WiiU and unplug the HDD to avoid (further) data corruption of any kind.
Then you need to make a dump of the HDD to work with. Use this tool and then you can open the dump with this tool and take a look if the assumed-lost data are still there or if they're not in the dump.
I'm everything else then an expert with this tools, maybe @EyeKey obviously a expert in WiiU filesystem regards would be such kind and help with this problem too?

 

[EyeKey]

He doesn't have to use the linux util. He can extract everything from the usb with this tool.
But if his WiiU doesn't read it, my tool will probably fail at some point, unless it is some powering issue.

 

[PotatisKnug]

He doesn't have to use the linux util. He can extract everything from the usb with this tool.
But if his WiiU doesn't read it, my tool will probably fail at some point, unless it is some powering issue.

I actually don't understand the commands of your tool. Could you give me the exact commands for dumping the files and uploading them to my old usb i had before "this"?

 

[Captain_N]

I know making a 1:1 clone of the drive and writing it to another drive works. However, if the data is corrupt it will clone the bad data. And if the drive is bad then well good luck cloning....

 

[tech3475]

Does the drive use a removable SATA-USB adapter? If so one option could be to try a different adapter or to read the drive from a computer using SATA.

I've saved a few drives this way.

 

[PotatisKnug]

Does the drive use a removable SATA-USB adapter? If so one option could be to try a different adapter or to read the drive from a computer using SATA.

I've saved a few drives this way.

¨
The adapter itself is just an adapter, you can do whatever you want. I think that the harddrive haven't had the best of it's days.

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I know making a 1:1 clone of the drive and writing it to another drive works. However, if the data is corrupt it will clone the bad data. And if the drive is bad then well good luck cloning....

Wouldn't the clone become 320gb? (as big as the drive i copied TO?)
The usb stick i copied FROM is only 32GB. It would be a pretty big shame to loose all that data ;'(

 

[tech3475]

¨
The adapter itself is just an adapter, you can do whatever you want. I think that the harddrive haven't had the best of it's days.

To be clear, which adapter do you think I'm referring to? I'm talking about the PCB inside the enclosure.

 

[PotatisKnug]

To be clear, which adapter do you think I'm referring to? I'm talking about the PCB inside the enclosure.

I explained it like a moron. It's just a inclosure. You can take out and or replace the harddrive itself.

 

[tech3475]

I explained it like a moron. It's just a inclosure. You can take out and or replace the harddrive itself.

I know people who would have thought I was referring to the USB cable, so I wanted to make sure that my point was clear as you only said "adapter".

Plus looking at your pic, the enclosure seems to be slightly damaged along the GND and +5VDC pins.

 

[PotatisKnug]

I know people who would have thought I was referring to the USB cable, so I wanted to make sure that my point was clear as you only said "adapter".

Plus looking at your pic, the enclosure seems to be slightly damaged along the GND and +5VDC pins.

Download my pic, add circles in paint and let me have a looksie.

 

[bennyman123abc]

It's the only pin bent upwards...

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Also, did you drop the drive? Holy shit the front looks damaged...

 

[PotatisKnug]

It's the only pin bent upwards...

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Also, did you drop the drive? Holy shit the front looks damaged...

A friend of mine threw the drive to the bin cause he didn't need it. It looked perfectly good so i took it, Didn't think about the damage. Might be the culprit. Pin 9 from the backside and starting from the left is broken off.

 

[tech3475]

Download my pic, add circles in paint and let me have a looksie.

Cant on my current system.

For reference it's pin 6-8:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/media/sata-power-pinout.63971/full

 

[PotatisKnug]

Cant on my current system.

For reference it's pin 6-8:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/media/sata-power-pinout.63971/full

Hmm, interesting..

 

[bennyman123abc]

Cant on my current system.

For reference it's pin 6-8:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/media/sata-power-pinout.63971/full

Yea, you might need a new drive...

 

[PotatisKnug]

Yea, you might need a new drive...

Sure, but what about my saves?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Sure, but what about my saves?

If the PC-side tool isn't able to dump the contents, there might not be anything you can do.
It's possible that you could solder on a new connector on the HDD, or even solder the pins directly to the adapter just as a temporary measure to get the data off it, I'm not sure how hard soldering on a new connector would be though, it might be really difficult.