Wii U Hdd Installation Guide

Hi guys, This is my take on the Wii U HDD internal HDD mod, This is a pretty simple mod to do you will have to have some experience with soldering as this is a MUST for soldering the USB wires to the USB points that are located on the bottom of the motherboard.

So I'm not going into detail on the complete tear down of the Wii U. So here is a guide.

So once you have the Wii U's optical drive removed, you will need to remove the optical drives PCB board which looks like this, the optical drive comes in it's own metal case. ( this is needed to trick the Wii U in order to boot the Wii U without any errors ). You will need to remove the screws and ribbon cables that have the yellow arrow in the image below.
drive pcb.jpg
Once you have removed the optical drive's PCB board it would look like this. Also I wrapped it in electrical tape for safety measures. Once that is done you can place the PCB board back into the optical drive case and screw it back in place.
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Now For installing the HDD, I used a 2.5'' SATA HDD from a old laptop (400gb) and then I purchased a 2.5'' caddy mount from Amazon /Ebay is your best source for finding one. I had to cut off the handle on the caddy. Then I used a USB 2.0 to SATA Adapter Cable for 2.5" Hard Drive. I also had to cut out a notch in the optical drives case too feed through the cables.
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Now lets move onto the soldering part of this mod. So you will need to cut the end off the USB 2.0 to SATA Adapter Cable for 2.5" Hard Drive cable and expose the 4 wires and solder the correct wires to the image below, you will also need to add 2 jumper wires so you are able to do this HDD mod, as this acts like a Y cable as it draws power from the second USB port. I also made a small notch in the motherboard so I could route the wires/cable too the top of the motherboard.
72084356_404356120252243_5087810566555172864_n.jpg
I fed the wires to the top of the board and routed them behind the fan. I had to make a small cut out notch on the black bracket mount in-order too feed the cable. I also made a new hole for the cable in the optical drive case for better routing of the cable.
case.jpg
So after this has all been done, test the HDD mod before you put the Wii U back together too insure that the Wii U is reading the HDD you soldered too the motherboard. Once its working and has been formatted, you can put the WIi U back together, Just follow the video I linked above and work backwards too put it back together.

Link too our Facebook group is in the YouTube description.
 

cjizzle

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So how do you transfer games from PC to it once it is permainstalled? May be a dumb question, been awake for 28 hours + lol. A tad bit delirious...
 

Hardy_Heron

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It is not my intention to create a discussion, but on a very personal basis, I agree with the hardmods that maintain the aesthetics of the console and improve its performance, however if you have a WiiU with a BD reader in good condition, I consider the mod something unnecessary While it is much more practical, and recommended when your optical drive is broken, I would not recommend it if it is in good condition. For the rest I practice it is lost from the moment you have to transport the console with the power source and other accessories anyway.
 
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WWUM

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Does that mean the optical drive is unusable?
Yes. The optical drive was faulty but I saw no need to keep it and I just use USB helper to get my Wii u games.

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It is not my intention to create a discussion, but on a very personal basis, I agree with the hardmods that maintain the aesthetics of the console and improve its performance, however if you have a WiiU with a BD reader in good condition, I consider the mod something unnecessary While it is much more practical, and recommended when your optical drive is broken, I would not recommend it if it is in good condition. For the rest I practice it is lost from the moment you have to transport the console with the power source and other accessories anyway.
Completely understand where you are coming from. This is a guide to show people that you can simply remove the optical drive and keep the pcb board in place (just like the Wii) and to install a hdd even if your drive is faulty or not. It’s all about being compact and easy to take on the go and not have that hdd in the way. In the end it’s all about showing that it’s possible.
 
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texmcc

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You Sir/Ma'am deserve an epic high five! I have been out of the wii U mod scene for a few months now but this was one thing pretty high on my wishlist. You seriously made my night! :D
 
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