Hacking USB Loader GX: Black screen when loading Wii games

[Gisa]

Hello.

Welcome to the USB Flashdrive/Stick/Pen Drive/Thumb Drive Club...

It is really recommended today to use a HDD.
Actual USB Flashdrive/Stick/Pen Drive/Thumb Drives seems to have really Troubles to work with actual USBLoaders.

- maybe better use an OLDER Model of Flashdrive/Stick/Pen Drive/Thumb Drive (2-3 Years or older)

I just made an account to say thank you for this great advice, esp. about older USB Sticks/Flashdrives! I've spent days trying to get some games working through my USB flash drive via USB Loader. I finally got my games working, tried moving them to a newer 128 GB 3.1 USB stick, and then...nothing worked. Thought I changed a setting or something and realized through your post that the Wii is picky with USB drives (to be fair, it is over 10 years old) and confirmed this was the cause!

So for those struggling, if you have updated your cIos stuff, updated your USB loader GX, and, through game loader settings (have forced NSTC on video and language to English on my soft-modded Korean 4.2 Wii - this was what helped me get going - thanks to whoever posted that in another one of the million threads that exist about this) and are still having no luck, I'd strongly advise you to consider trying out an older USB, ideally 2.0 if you are going the USB route. I can confirm that 2 different Sandisk type USB 2.0 drives have worked fine for me. Based on size and style, I recommend the Cruzer blade, as they are super small, cheap, and have no moving parts (the drives that pop out are annoying to put into any USB port, let alone the back of a Wii).

I was temped to try out a 64 GB version but after buying a 128 GB version and not having luck, I figured buying one more 32 GB should (for 64 GB total) would be enough for the games I'm interested in.

Be sure to format your drive to FAT 32 and use Wii Backup Manager.

Thanks again for the advice about USB drives. I would guess anything that is USB 2.0 would do substantially better than 3.x.

Good luck to all!


Mr. Gisa

 

[Alexander1970]

I just made an account to say thank you for this great advice, esp. about older USB Sticks/Flashdrives! I've spent days trying to get some games working through my USB flash drive via USB Loader. I finally got my games working, tried moving them to a newer 128 GB 3.1 USB stick, and then...nothing worked. Thought I changed a setting or something and realized through your post that the Wii is picky with USB drives (to be fair, it is over 10 years old) and confirmed this was the cause!

So for those struggling, if you have updated your cIos stuff, updated your USB loader GX, and, through game loader settings (have forced NSTC on video and language to English on my soft-modded Korean 4.2 Wii - this was what helped me get going - thanks to whoever posted that in another one of the million threads that exist about this) and are still having no luck, I'd strongly advise you to consider trying out an older USB, ideally 2.0 if you are going the USB route. I can confirm that 2 different Sandisk type USB 2.0 drives have worked fine for me. Based on size and style, I recommend the Cruzer blade, as they are super small, cheap, and have no moving parts (the drives that pop out are annoying to put into any USB port, let alone the back of a Wii).

I was temped to try out a 64 GB version but after buying a 128 GB version and not having luck, I figured buying one more 32 GB should (for 64 GB total) would be enough for the games I'm interested in.

Be sure to format your drive to FAT 32 and use Wii Backup Manager.

Thanks again for the advice about USB drives. I would guess anything that is USB 2.0 would do substantially better than 3.x.

Good luck to all!


Mr. Gisa

Hello.

It is always a very nice Matter,when Users read here and then decide to Register on this great Community.
Thank you very much for Joining.

 

[Gisa]

Happy to be here. Having fun with a console I haven't played with for a while now thanks to people like you who have taken the time to help us get things working.

Mr. Gisa

 

[andresy]

I was also struggeling with black screen issue. I was thinking it is CIOS issue but turned out after cloning the rips disk to new disk all games went bad and where not able to load. After downloading same games from internet and replacing them on the disk all worked fine. Just a tip: try to replace game if all other things seems to be ok. There where noowhere to see that game is bad. It was dedected corrctly by backup manager and also I was able copy to my local disk as ISO.

 

[livin]

I can only report that the Sandisk Ultra USB Sticks work perfectly. Never had even one boot error or game crash.
https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-128GB-Flash-Memory-Drive/dp/B00P8XQPY4

Also my problem from 2 months past with exactly these boot errors and/or game crashes was fixed how I described it on my thread. No errors since then anymore with any game.

The whole "Dont use USB Sticks" is a complete asspull.
There is no difference between a USB Stick Nand and a SSD Stick Nand on a technical level.

The difference is that an USB Stick Nand Array is smaller, so they have less write speeds and re-write cycles.
But for a Wii it doesnt matter, because the Wii never writes on the USB Stick, it only reads.

The whole thing is only a problem because people are using dead-end lowend garabage chinese USB Sticks. Of course those are crap and have barely any speed or reliability. Its enough for transfering your PowerPoint presentation to school, but not for any real usage.

Buy a 10bucks solid Sandisk, Samsung, or so Stick and I bet you money, it wont be a problem. Or the problem will be something else.

 

[tswntk]

The whole "Dont use USB Sticks" is a complete asspull.
There is no difference between a USB Stick Nand and a SSD Stick Nand on a technical level.

They do have different controlers you know? USB; ATA and whatever.

Greywolf once said he has two Snadisk, same model even and one work, one doesn't (I am too lazy to search now) - can you explain this?

Cyan and many others get to the conclusion that many USB sticks won't work on the many Wii base on hundreds of reports and how they finally fix them

You get to this "asspull" conclusion base on one UBS stick and your own Wii and concludes all USB sticks work on all wII?
Yes, there are discrete reports that some USB sticks work but the number of failed reports makes the gurus not to recommend USB sticks for noobs (especially those came here for help) in general and Nintendo officially says not to use a USB stick for BOTW due to excessive read/writes that most USB sticks can't stand for long.

 

[livin]

They do have different controlers you know? USB; ATA and whatever.

"... and whatever."
Damn that technical knowledge. Must be reliable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory

tl;dr:
Quality USB Stick NAND is the same as SSD NAND. The difference is in WRITE CYCLES.
The Wii doesnt write on the Medium, neither Harddrive, neither Nand, neither SSD, nothing. IT NEVER WRITES ON THE STORAGE.

Greywolf once said he has two Snadisk, same model even and one work, one doesn't (I am too lazy to search now) - can you explain this?

He once said something, somewhere, but I cant find the quote for this one singular situation.
Wow... hey lets build a statistic. So much data here, its like we can assume ANYTHING now and make up fairy tales as we like.
The sky is the limit for how much bullshit we can pull out of an elephants ass now!

Cyan and many others get to the conclusion that many USB sticks won't work on the many Wii base on hundreds of reports and how they finally fix them

I assume people like Cyan are just tired off people trying to make their USB2 5-10year old 2gb chinese shit stick working with their Wii.
Its only natural for them to recommend using something that IS NOT SHIT.
Like a WD USB3 HDD. Which are... NOT SHIT.
The underlining factor here is... USE SOMETHING THAT IS NOT SHIT!

You get to this "asspull" conclusion base on one UBS stick and your own Wii and concludes all USB sticks work on all wII?

I get that conclusion because a) I know how NAND technology works, b) I made a few more tests with multiple drives as resources.
Good NAND is indifferentiable from any other form of NAND.
A good USB Stick NAND, is as usable as a good SSD NAND. And definitely better than a spinning disk HDD.

ESPECIALLY IF: THE WII DOESNT WRITE ON THE STORAGE!

 

[tswntk]

"

I get that conclusion because a) I know how NAND technology works, b) I made a few more tests with multiple drives as resources.
Good NAND is indifferentiable from any other form of NAND.
A good USB Stick NAND, is as usable as a good SSD NAND. And definitely better than a spinning disk HDD.

ESPECIALLY IF: THE WII DOESNT WRITE ON THE STORAGE!

The Nand is one thing, but the Nand isn't all a USB stick / SSD has, they still need an interface to work with the outside world, like USB controller for USB sticks and ATA controller for internal SSD and additional USB controller if you want to use an internal SSD on USB ports.

The Wii doesn't write to USB storage, but apps like Nintendont and emunand does and if you start apps from USB, they do wrtie to the USB - alot. Explain Why Nintendo doesn't recommend USB stick for BOTW.

AND writing is the not the only concern, most USB stick problems we have seen are compatibilities problems - they are not being recognized

 

[Alexander1970]

I assume people like Cyan are just tired off people trying to make their USB2 5-10year old 2gb chinese shit stick working with their Wii.
Its only natural for them to recommend using something that IS NOT SHIT.
Like a WD USB3 HDD. Which are... NOT SHIT.
The underlining factor here is... USE SOMETHING THAT IS NOT SHIT!

Hello.

I would like to say that maybe it is the other Way around - the NEWER the USB Stick (USB 3.0 +) is, the MORE Problems with the USBLoader GX arise.

There are many Users,where the Sticks works (includes me too).

BUT,I do not longer recommend them to use it with the USBLoader GX.

Thank you.

 

[tswntk]

There are many Users,where the Sticks works (includes me too).

BUT,I do not longer recommend them to use it with the USBLoader GX.

Thank you.

Well, there are many cases where they don't work with any loader.

Yes some may say Cyan or other Gurus are lazy but who wouldn't if there are so many cases where the only solution is to change the storage device. Cyan always told users to try other loaders/settings first

 

[Alexander1970]

Well, there are many cases where they don't work with any loader.

Yes some may say Cyan or other Gurus are lazy but who wouldn't if there are so many cases where the only solution is to change the storage device. Cyan always told users to try other loaders/settings first

Yes,when we look around,more and more USB Sticks are not working today.
The Point,that maybe confuses the Useres is the Fact,that the USB Sticks work sometimes better with the Configurable USBLoader Mod and/or WiiFlow Lite....
And the "major" Change was the 1272 Release from the USBLoader GX.Myself had many Issues with the USB Sticks since that Release.

But then "comes" @blackb0x with some "Modifications" (it starts with the Geckocode Download when the Site has still used their DDoS Protection,he fixed that for us) or better said "cleanups" and with this Mod all Devices works for me again.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-loader-gx.149922/page-1321#post-8915000

- Geckocodes works (now anyway since the DDoS Protection was removed)
- The Disc Install Option works now on both IOSes (249 is still recommended)
- The Device Recognition works near Perfect

But of course,all depends of an correct Installation of the cIOSes/Bases on 249/250.
An I i still think that HDDs should be used.

Thank you.

 

[007james]

After being stuck indoors these last few weeks, I dug out my wii for my daughter.

Having the black screen loading from USB thumb drives.

They are very old ones. A kingtson 2GB. USB loader DX 3.0 r 1272. Loading via Wiibackupmanager. thumb drive formatted FAT32.

In any case, here is my SysCheck.

SysCheck HDE v2.4.0 HacksDen Edition by JoostinOnline, Double_A, R2-D2199, and Nano
...runs on IOS58 (rev 6176).
Region: NTSC-U
System Menu 4.3U (v513)
Drive date: 02.13.2007
Homebrew Channel 1.1.2 running on IOS58
Hollywood v0x11
Console ID: 111659605
Console Type: Wii
Shop Channel Country: Canada (18)
Boot2 v4
Found 80 titles.
Found 45 IOS on this console. 15 of them are stubs.
IOS4 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS9 (rev 1034): No Patches
IOS10 (rev 768): Stub
IOS11 (rev 256): Stub
IOS12 (rev 526): No Patches
IOS13 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS14 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS15 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS16 (rev 512): Stub
IOS17 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS20 (rev 256): Stub
IOS21 (rev 1039): No Patches
IOS22 (rev 1294): No Patches
IOS28 (rev 1807): No Patches
IOS30 (rev 2816): Stub
IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS33 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS34 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS35 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS36 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS37 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS38 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS40 (rev 3072): Stub
IOS41 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS43 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS45 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS46 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS48 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS50 (rev 5120): Stub
IOS51 (rev 4864): Stub
IOS52 (rev 5888): Stub
IOS53 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS57 (rev 5919): No Patches
IOS58 (rev 6176): USB 2.0
IOS60 (rev 6400): Stub
IOS61 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS70 (rev 6912): Stub
IOS80 (rev 6944): No Patches
IOS222 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS223 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS249[56] (rev 21010, Info: d2x-v10beta53-alt): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS250[57] (rev 65535, Info: d2x-v10beta52): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS254 (rev 65280): Stub
BC v6
MIOS v10
Report generated on 04/06/2020.

 

[Alexander1970]

After being stuck indoors these last few weeks, I dug out my wii for my daughter.

Having the black screen loading from USB thumb drives.

They are very old ones. A kingtson 2GB. USB loader DX 3.0 r 1272. Loading via Wiibackupmanager. thumb drive formatted FAT32.

In any case, here is my SysCheck.

SysCheck HDE v2.4.0 HacksDen Edition by JoostinOnline, Double_A, R2-D2199, and Nano
...runs on IOS58 (rev 6176).
Region: NTSC-U
System Menu 4.3U (v513)
Drive date: 02.13.2007
Homebrew Channel 1.1.2 running on IOS58
Hollywood v0x11
Console ID: 111659605
Console Type: Wii
Shop Channel Country: Canada (18)
Boot2 v4
Found 80 titles.
Found 45 IOS on this console. 15 of them are stubs.
IOS4 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS9 (rev 1034): No Patches
IOS10 (rev 768): Stub
IOS11 (rev 256): Stub
IOS12 (rev 526): No Patches
IOS13 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS14 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS15 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS16 (rev 512): Stub
IOS17 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS20 (rev 256): Stub
IOS21 (rev 1039): No Patches
IOS22 (rev 1294): No Patches
IOS28 (rev 1807): No Patches
IOS30 (rev 2816): Stub
IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS33 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS34 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS35 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS36 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS37 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS38 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS40 (rev 3072): Stub
IOS41 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS43 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS45 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS46 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS48 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS50 (rev 5120): Stub
IOS51 (rev 4864): Stub
IOS52 (rev 5888): Stub
IOS53 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS57 (rev 5919): No Patches
IOS58 (rev 6176): USB 2.0
IOS60 (rev 6400): Stub
IOS61 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS70 (rev 6912): Stub
IOS80 (rev 6944): No Patches
IOS222 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS223 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS249[56] (rev 21010, Info: d2x-v10beta53-alt): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS250[57] (rev 65535, Info: d2x-v10beta52): Trucha Bug, NAND Access, USB 2.0
IOS254 (rev 65280): Stub
BC v6
MIOS v10
Report generated on 04/06/2020.

Hello.

Thank you for your sysCheck.
It looks good,maybe an "Suggestion" for IOS249.

For an "even much better" Game Loading/USB Compatiblity on Loading,
it is maybe also a good Idea to use also d2x-v10beta52 (with Base 56) as on your ISO250.
But it is not a must.....

And please check the USB Stick/Thumb Drive(s) are connected to the correct Port 0:


For your Thumb Drives it is also maybe Time to replace it.
You will experience more and more Issues.
Please use an USB HDD,it will saves your Nerves and your Patience.
(..and maybe also the Patience and Nerves from an other awesome and very helpful User here too....).
).

Thank you.

 

[007james]

Ok. Let me go through and check. Many thanks. I have a large usb HDD. But only 1. If I use it, what do I do if it already has other files on it?

 

[Alexander1970]

Ok. Let me go through and check. Many thanks. I have a large usb HDD. But only 1. If I use it, what do I do if it already has other files on it?

Thank you.

A "shared" HDD should work,a sepearate Partition is maybe a good Idea.
That should be then the FIRST Partition if you also want to play GameCube Games.
For Wii games is only the Folder "wbfs" and a automatically generated Indexfile in the Root of the HDD necessary.
For GameCube Games the Folder "games".
And formatted with FAT32 please.

Please keep always in Mind,Data Corruption and/or Data loss from other Partitions/File Systems can possibly also affecting the Wii Data/Partition every Time.

Thank you.

 

[007james]

Looks like I had usb in the wrong slot. Any now it works like a charm via the USB stick but I'll move to HDD to save agony. Thanks so much.

 

[Benas]

Hey. I seem to have downloaded everything right but usbloader crashes as i start it. It shows the loading screen and then just turns black. Anyone can help?

 

[Cyan]

the loader turns black or the game?
if it's the loader, no idea what happens.
if it's the game, there are hundreds of thread about that problem. it's always the same :
1. DO NOT USE FLASH DRIVE !
2. PLUG IN CORRECT USB PORT
3. NO, REALLY, DON'T USE FLASH DRIVE EVEN IF YOU WANT AFTER WE TOLD YOU NOT TO.


for real : not using flashdrive would remove 90% of help threads in gbatemp.
there are only 10% legit blackscreen problem for games (bad setting mostly, hdd not compatible second)

 

[Benas]

Its the actual loader. I cant get into the screen with games

 

[Cyan]

how do you launch the loader?
from the homebrew channel, from priiloader, or from a channel on system menu (forwarder or full channel) ?

you placed the usbloader app in sd:/apps/ ?