Hacking 4TB External Drive - How to setup?

[MrmrBear]

Have a 4Tb drive I got. Theoretically, if I manage to fill it with Wii and GC games, how should it be formatted?

I have that and a 64 gb SD card. I prefer to use USB Loader, if possible, unless you guys would strongly recommend something else.

I've also had trouble each time I tried to use NTFS, perhaps with GC games. So I'd fairly strongly prefer FAT32. I'm comfortable with it.

How should I partition the drive? 3tb for Wii, 1 for GC? Not sure what will work best, and I've never tried even with a drive close to this. 1tb was my previous largest. Can I contineu to use USBLoader?

Thanks for any help you can give!

 

[Shadow#1]

Have a 4Tb drive I got. Theoretically, if I manage to fill it with Wii and GC games, how should it be formatted?

I have that and a 64 gb SD card. I prefer to use USB Loader, if possible, unless you guys would strongly recommend something else.

I've also had trouble each time I tried to use NTFS, perhaps with GC games. So I'd fairly strongly prefer FAT32. I'm comfortable with it.

How should I partition the drive? 3tb for Wii, 1 for GC? Not sure what will work best, and I've never tried even with a drive close to this. 1tb was my previous largest. Can I contineu to use USBLoader?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Theoretically u don't because u don't have it

 

[jeannotte]

Have a 4Tb drive I got. Theoretically, if I manage to fill it with Wii and GC games, how should it be formatted?

I have that and a 64 gb SD card. I prefer to use USB Loader, if possible, unless you guys would strongly recommend something else.

I've also had trouble each time I tried to use NTFS, perhaps with GC games. So I'd fairly strongly prefer FAT32. I'm comfortable with it.

How should I partition the drive? 3tb for Wii, 1 for GC? Not sure what will work best, and I've never tried even with a drive close to this. 1tb was my previous largest. Can I contineu to use USBLoader?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Hello,

Try to see on this post, if that can help you ==>https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-loader-gx.149922/page-1129#post-6662953

 

[Alexander1970]

Hello.

So I'd fairly strongly prefer FAT32. I'm comfortable with it.

That is a good Choice,it is no Problem to put the GameCube and Wii Games on one Partition/HDD.
Also most Homebrews/Emulators works with FAT32.

You can make of Course 2 Partitions and also use FAT32.

Please take care of the Initialization of your HDD in Windows.please avoid GPT and use your HDD as MBR Drive.
You can use a Partition Tool like AOMEI´s Partition Assistent for Example to do this.

For the Wii Game transfers from to PC to the HDD is the WiiBackup Manager recommended.It automatically splits and names the Games correctly.

Good Luck
Thank you.

 

[MrmrBear]

Thanks so much.

Is it possible to use MBR and over 2 TB at the same time? No program I have seen thus far is allowing me to.

 

[Shadow#1]

Thanks so much.

Is it possible to use MBR and over 2 TB at the same time? No program I have seen thus far is allowing me to.

Fat32 has a 2TB limit

 

[MrmrBear]

Other people say they are using fat 32 and HDD over 2TB.

Your first response makes me doubt the sincerity of your interest in helping.

 

[Shadow#1]

Other people say they are using fat 32 and HDD over 2TB.

Your first response makes me doubt the sincerity of your interest in helping.

It's a fact fat32 has a 2TB limit

 

[Nemix77]

The answer is there 2TB fat32 partition for Wii/GC/Homebrew and 2TB fat32 partition for Windows storage/backups, second partition will not been seen or initialized by the Wii.

 

[MegaKyurem]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32
There is a max volume size for FAT32 of about 2 terabytes because of the 32-bit sector count. I may be interpreting this Wikipedia page incorrectly (because of what it mentions next). I think that means you can have ~17TB of total partitions that each have a max of ~2TB

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Thanks so much.

Is it possible to use MBR and over 2 TB at the same time? No program I have seen thus far is allowing me to.

Only on drives that use a 4096 byte sector size (and don't emulate 512 byte sectors in the drive firmware), and these are not that common AFAIK.
The sector size can't be changed, it's hardcoded from the factory.
You can use GPT with GameCube games. But as far as I know, cIOS doesn't support GPT, so if you want to play Wii games, you are still limited to 2TB in total you can use as partitioned space, the other 2TB will be wasted.
I suggest getting a 2TB 2.5" external. They are dirt cheap.

 

[MrmrBear]

Only on drives that use a 4096 byte sector size (and don't emulate 512 byte sectors in the drive firmware), and these are not that common AFAIK.
The sector size can't be changed, it's hardcoded from the factory.
You can use GPT with GameCube games. But as far as I know, cIOS doesn't support GPT, so if you want to play Wii games, you are still limited to 2TB in total you can use as partitioned space, the other 2TB will be wasted.
I suggest getting a 2TB 2.5" external. They are dirt cheap.

Yuss, TRJ. That seems to put all the pieces together. Sounds like it can be done with paid EaseUS program, maybe, or with WD Drives and their program, but if inconvenient for the standard user who wasn't aware of this going into this process, probably easiest to maybe just get one and 2 TB drives and work it out.

Thanks so much!

It's a fact fat32 has a 2TB limit

Sorry man, but sounds like people don't want to hear your "facts." I was looking for the why it can or can't be done or how it can be done. I was already aware of the same facts as you, but also aware that some people have bypassed this limitation, ergo your facts were not helpful. People aren't interested in pedantic shtuff, dude, if you care about people liking you.

 

[Nemix77]

You said you wanted to use it for the Wii, 2TB is the max size the Wii recognizes partitions in fat32.

If you're using for Windows or Linux then yeah, there are ways to bypass the 4tb fat32 limit but then it's just easier to use NTFS if the drive is being used on Windows/Linux.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Yuss, TRJ. That seems to put all the pieces together. Sounds like it can be done with paid EaseUS program, maybe, or with WD Drives and their program, but if inconvenient for the standard user who wasn't aware of this going into this process, probably easiest to maybe just get one and 2 TB drives and work it out.

Thanks so much!


Sorry man, but sounds like people don't want to hear your "facts." I was looking for the why it can or can't be done or how it can be done. I was already aware of the same facts as you, but also aware that some people have bypassed this limitation, ergo your facts were not helpful. People aren't interested in pedantic shtuff, dude, if you care about people liking you.

If your drive is indeed using 4096 byte sectors a 3rd party partition manager might help. But, like I said, those drives seem pretty rare. It's worth a shot though. Just be aware that if you use GPT, Wii games will probably not work. However, you have the option of using a SD card for Wii games and using the GPT formatted USB for GameCube games if you want to. You'll have to use WiiFlow for that though, as USB Loader GX purposely doesn't support loading Wii games off of SD.

 

[godreborn]

your problem isn't necessarily fat32, since I think usb loader gx can use ntfs (there's an option for it in wii backup manager). the problem is mbr which has a maximum capacity of 2TBs.