Hacking NOOB PARADISE - ask away

[ca032769]

Okay so here's the deal... I just modded my Wii so that it can use homebrew and USB loader GX and some other emulators.

But I'm totally new to the game of modding consoles... So I basically wanna make my Wii into a ultimate emulator gaming machine!

I have personally a shit ton of games since I have been collecting since I was 4 and wanna use this to my advantage... BUT! My wife doesn't want me wasting 200+ plus dollars on a external drive... 16TB is the one we are talking here!

So we used a 64GB flash drive at first and now we both noticed that this was just too small but we were just trying it out first to see if it would work or nah! Using FAT32 format did prefect but I need more storage space.

While owning more than 1000+ games I kinda figure that would eat way more than a TB or 2 hence why I said 16TB.

Now I only wanna use my Wii for my GameCube games and Wii games. But I just learned that I could even load up my GBA collection and SNES collection as well!

That makes me pumped but I honestly am lost on which storage unit to buy... Money isn't really a problem I just don't wanna end up wasting it on a external hard drive...

So basically in the end I wanna turn a Wii into a emulation console with my entire collection on it...

Please help me figure out how to do this...

I was thinking I could buy a 16TB and then format it into a FAT32 and then put all my games on it and then just plus it to my Wii and have all the emulators run off of the external hard drive instead of a USB flash drive. Thus, making my entire collection safe and even give my kids a future console to have 1000+ games to play...

Help me please...

A 5TB HDD will serve your needs for all US + some other region games (Wii & GameCube) that the US does not have (and is understandable in English).

See my link below for using large hard drives. Over the years I went through large size drives to get the largest ones working, but stopped at 10TB because there was no need.

Then scaling it back to a smaller drive that does not need to be plugged into the wall was my goal, so I fell on the Western Digital Passports and Wester Digital P-10 Games Drives as the best fit.

EDIT 1: I should note that a drive over 2TB is not the easiest to setup, but it is still not hard. I recommend Western Digital hard drives because they are easy to change from GPT to MBR.

EDIT 2: While flash drives can and do work, there are a lot of issues involving them causing unexpected issues. Best to stick with your plan of an external hard drive.

EDIT 3: While you can use the HDD for EmuNAND and emulators, personally I would just pick up a large SDXC card and keep those items on the SDXC card. I'm mainly using a 256GB SDXC, but have used 512GB in other systems I've set up.

 

[RAWRimaMONSTER]

A 5TB HDD will serve your needs for all US + some other region games (Wii & GameCube) that the US does not have (and is understandable in English).

See my link below for using large hard drives. Over the years I went through large size drives to get the largest ones working, but stopped at 10TB because there was no need.

Then scaling it back to a smaller drive that does not need to be plugged into the wall was my goal, so I fell on the Western Digital Passports and Wester Digital P-10 Games Drives as the best fit.

EDIT 1: I should note that a drive over 2TB is not the easiest to setup, but it is still not hard. I recommend Western Digital hard drives because they are easy to change from GPT to MBR.

EDIT 2: While flash drives can and do work, there are a lot of issues involving them causing unexpected issues. Best to stick with your plan of an external hard drive.

Honestly I'm kinda worried about ruining the system and was wondering if you wanted to help me personally? It seems like it would pretty easy kinda like using a regular flash drive right? The only thing I would need to do is use software to FAT32 format the drive right? SO... You think a 5TB would hold all my games and be able to hold all the saves as well? Kinda don't wanna have to keep upgrading. I just wanna buy one and be done... Hehe plus my wife is gonna kill me if I keep buying hard drives for the same console.

 

[ca032769]

Honestly I'm kinda worried about ruining the system and was wondering if you wanted to help me personally? It seems like it would pretty easy kinda like using a regular flash drive right? The only thing I would need to do is use software to FAT32 format the drive right? SO... You think a 5TB would hold all my games and be able to hold all the saves as well? Kinda don't wanna have to keep upgrading. I just wanna buy one and be done... Hehe plus my wife is gonna kill me if I keep buying hard drives for the same console.

**I did some edits to the original post you might have missed, so make sure to take a look back there.

You can probably get it all onto a 4TB drive, but with all the different versions of some of the games plus PAL titles not released in the US plus a few Japanese titles having both Wii titles and GameCube titles on the same drive pushes it past the 4TB mark.

It's a little trickier, but yes you'll have to use the correct software to get the drive as one 5TB FAT32 partition. But first it must be converted from GPT to MBR, and that is why the Western digital drives work the best. They have a utility program that does the conversion from GPT to MBR when it tries to make it XP compatible.

My recommended drives are either of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VNTFHD5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

or

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VP5X239/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[RAWRimaMONSTER]

Awesome so it looks like I'm gonna go with a 5TB external hard drive for all my GameCube and Wii games. But also have enough room for my Gameboy games and SNES and maybe even SEGA games!!! AWESOME! But my wife is wanting to buy a external hard drive from EBAY and it looks like kinda cheaper for her sake I guess as she would say. LOL But Happy wife happy life so do you think it would be possible to buy one and use some kinda software like EaseUS Partition Master to help me convert the external hard to MBR cause it looks kinda easy but again I am totally new to this and just wanna make sure this is a possible way of doing this because we are saying the games as a WBFS format and it seems like that not a problem at all.

 

[ca032769]

Awesome so it looks like I'm gonna go with a 5TB external hard drive for all my GameCube and Wii games. But also have enough room for my Gameboy games and SNES and maybe even SEGA games!!! AWESOME! But my wife is wanting to buy a external hard drive from EBAY and it looks like kinda cheaper for her sake I guess as she would say. LOL But Happy wife happy life so do you think it would be possible to buy one and use some kinda software like EaseUS Partition Master to help me convert the external hard to MBR cause it looks kinda easy but again I am totally new to this and just wanna make sure this is a possible way of doing this because we are saying the games as a WBFS format and it seems like that not a problem at all.

If it is a Western Digital I can help you. If not you'll have to see if there is a program out there that does it. I was lucky to bump into the WD software way back when and all my drives just happened to have been WD, so I got lucky. If it's not a WD drive I would research if there is software for that drive maker to do it before purchasing.

I did try EaseUS Partition Master back in the day (I have a paid version), but it still put a limit on the drive size it can be used on for the GPT to MBR and did not work for me.

I know how you feel, my wife thinks I'm a hoarder that spends too much money, and she's probably right. If you look at the last picture (in my link below) of drives on my shelf, that goes back a couple years. Most of those are now just sitting on my book shelf going unused because I've replaced them all with 10TB & 18TB drives with a few 8TB sprinkled in. I'll take a picture tonight if I remember.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Awesome so it looks like I'm gonna go with a 5TB external hard drive for all my GameCube and Wii games. But also have enough room for my Gameboy games and SNES and maybe even SEGA games!!! AWESOME! But my wife is wanting to buy a external hard drive from EBAY and it looks like kinda cheaper for her sake I guess as she would say. LOL But Happy wife happy life so do you think it would be possible to buy one and use some kinda software like EaseUS Partition Master to help me convert the external hard to MBR cause it looks kinda easy but again I am totally new to this and just wanna make sure this is a possible way of doing this because we are saying the games as a WBFS format and it seems like that not a problem at all.

To your question about does the drive have to be MBR: Yes, it's a must. 99% of the Wii software only works with MBR. So the interaction with any other software then becomes an issue if it is not. You can give it a go because of some GPT support, but I have no experience in getting a GPT drive working. Maybe others can comment on the use of a GPT drive.

 

[RAWRimaMONSTER]

If it is a Western Digital I can help you. If not you'll have to see if there is a program out there that does it. I was lucky to bump into the WD software way back when and all my drives just happened to have been WD, so I got lucky. If it's not a WD drive I would research if there is software for that drive maker to do it before purchasing.

I did try EaseUS Partition Master back in the day (I have a paid version), but it still put a limit on the drive size it can be used on for the GPT to MBR and did not work for me.

I know how you feel, my wife thinks I'm a hoarder that spends too much money, and she's probably right. If you look at the last picture (in my link below) of drives on my shelf, that goes back a couple years. Most of those are now just sitting on my book shelf going unused because I've replaced them all with 10TB & 18TB drives with a few 8TB sprinkled in. I'll take a picture tonight if I remember.

Im just kinda confused on why would I have to convert the drive to MBR anyways l

If it is a Western Digital I can help you. If not you'll have to see if there is a program out there that does it. I was lucky to bump into the WD software way back when and all my drives just happened to have been WD, so I got lucky. If it's not a WD drive I would research if there is software for that drive maker to do it before purchasing.

I did try EaseUS Partition Master back in the day (I have a paid version), but it still put a limit on the drive size it can be used on for the GPT to MBR and did not work for me.

I know how you feel, my wife thinks I'm a hoarder that spends too much money, and she's probably right. If you look at the last picture (in my link below) of drives on my shelf, that goes back a couple years. Most of those are now just sitting on my book shelf going unused because I've replaced them all with 10TB & 18TB drives with a few 8TB sprinkled in. I'll take a picture tonight if I remember.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



To your question about does the drive have to be MBR: Yes, it's a must. 99% of the Wii software only works with MBR. So the interaction with any other software then becomes an issue if it is not. You can give it a go because of some GPT support, but I have no experience in getting a GPT drive working. Maybe others can comment on the use of a GPT drive.

Well it looks like there saying its pretty easy not using software by following these steps but again I have no honest clue what I am doing in this manner:

To convert a GPT disk to MBR using the Disk Management utility, follow these instructions.

These instructions apply for these Windows versions: Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 or 8.1. Disk Management is installed by default and it’s available on your Windows computer.

1. Boot into your Windows (Vista, 7 or 8)
2. Click Start
3. Go to Control Panel
4. Click Administrative Tools
5. Click Computer Management
6. On the left menu, click Storage > Disk Management
   
   
   
   
   
   Select Disk Management from Storage
   
   
7. Right-click on each partition from the disk you want to convert from GPT. You must delete all partitions from the disk before you begin the converting process from GPT.
   To do so, click Delete Volume on each partition until the entire disk has unallocated space.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Delete Volume
   
   
8. Right-click on the disk and click Convert to MBR Disk
9. Once the process is done, you can now create partitions on the new disk as you wish
10. Close Disk Management when done

 

[ca032769]

Im just kinda confused on why would I have to convert the drive to MBR anyways l


Well it looks like there saying its pretty easy not using software by following these steps but again I have no honest clue what I am doing in this manner:

To convert a GPT disk to MBR using the Disk Management utility, follow these instructions.

These instructions apply for these Windows versions: Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 or 8.1. Disk Management is installed by default and it’s available on your Windows computer.

1. Boot into your Windows (Vista, 7 or 8)
2. Click Start
3. Go to Control Panel
4. Click Administrative Tools
5. Click Computer Management
6. On the left menu, click Storage > Disk Management
   
   
   
   
   
   Select Disk Management from Storage
   
   
7. Right-click on each partition from the disk you want to convert from GPT. You must delete all partitions from the disk before you begin the converting process from GPT.
   To do so, click Delete Volume on each partition until the entire disk has unallocated space.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Delete Volume
   
   
8. Right-click on the disk and click Convert to MBR Disk
9. Once the process is done, you can now create partitions on the new disk as you wish
10. Close Disk Management when done

I'd research to see if the operating system you're using keeps a 2TB limit for MBR drives when doing it this way.

Could be the GOTCHA in doing it, that's why I refer to having to break the drive and make it MBR using the WD software. Kind of a work around for that 2TB barrier. It literally took a couple years to come across this to make my larger drives work.

I tried so many ways to make it work that I can't even remember all of them. Maybe the OS supports something different since I tried to do it, but I just use what I know works. I even tried contacting EaseUS Partition Master seeing if they'd remove the 2TB MBR limit in a future release but never heard back.

I'll have to ask the price difference in that eBay 5TB vs the WD 5TB Passport that is $109 or my preferred WD P-10 Game 5TB for $119. If it's $10 or $20 is it worth the headache for this to go wrong using a different drive? And if the difference is more than that what kind of drive are they really giving you? Not sure if I'd trust a super cheap 5TB drive with all my Wii & GameCube titles unless they were backed up elsewhere. Feel free to PM me a link to the drive just so I can see what we're talking about.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

@XFlak @alexander1970 @jeannotte - Hi Guys, I need some help.

Please see @RAWRimaMONSTER comments above. Have any of you been able to use a Seagate drive at 5TB or larger for a standard Wii to get all of the Wii & GameCube titles on there. Do you know of any program to turn a Seagate 5TB from GPT to MBR? Or even use it as GPT without having issues?

I'm suggesting a Western Digital drive for him that I know can be made MBR, but there seems to be some resistance from the wife (god knows I've been there too) wanting a 5TB Seagate to do this, but I can't help with that maker or knowledge of software to convert it. My experience is strictly with the Western Digital drives.

To my knowledge everyone that has tried to go GPT only or use Seagate drives was not successful breaking the 2TB mark.

 

[RAWRimaMONSTER]

UGH! It just seems so complicated... I wish I could just buy a external hard drive load the games and rock n roll. LMAO I'm so literally new to modding consoles and since this is my first I have no clue what I am honestly doing?!

 

[ca032769]

UGH! It just seems so complicated... I wish I could just buy a external hard drive load the games and rock n roll. LMAO I'm so literally new to modding consoles and since this is my first I have no clue what I am honestly doing?!

Well this is where the extra $40 pays for itself:

A) Buy the WD 5TB Drive
-https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VNTFHD5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
B) Use WD Quick Formatter program to convert drive from GPT to MBR
C) Use EaseUS Partition Master to make sure there are no unallocated items on drive, if so merge them all into one
D) Use GUI FAT32 Formatter to format the drive to FAT32 @ 64k clusters
E) Use EaseUS Partition Master to mark drive as ACTIVE and Primary (possibly not needed but I do it anyways)
F) Copy all Wii files to Drive://wbfs directory
----I recommend .wbfs format not .iso format to save room
----Use Wii Backup Manager to convert .iso to .wbfs if needed
G) Copy GameCube files to Drive://games directory
----I recommend using the full GameCube ISO and not trimming it to save room, they will run better for you
----Make sure they are formatted as Drive://games/GAMETITLE [ID CODE]/game.iso

It's really pretty simple if you use a WD drive. The years I put into this lets you profit by spending less than 30 minutes getting the drive setup so you can copy the files over, which could take a day or two depending on the number of files and speed of your system.

 

[RAWRimaMONSTER]

Well this is where the extra $40 pays for itself:

A) Buy the WD 5TB Drive
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VNTFHD5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
B) Use WD Quick Formatter program to convert drive from GPT to MBR
C) Use EaseUS Partition Master to make sure there are no unallocated items on drive, if so merge them all into one
D) Use GUI FAT32 Formatter to format the drive to FAT32 @ 64k clusters
E) Use EaseUS Partition Master to mark drive as ACTIVE and Primary (possibly not needed but I do it anyways)
F) Copy all Wii files to Drive://wbfs directory
----I recommend .wbfs format not .iso format to save room
----Use Wii Backup Manager to convert .iso to .wbfs if needed
G) Copy GameCube files to Drive://games directory
----I recommend using the full GameCube ISO and not trimming it to save room, they will run better for you
----Make sure they are formatted as Drive://games/GAMETITLE [ID CODE]/game.iso

It's really pretty simple if you use a WD drive. The years I put into this lets you profit by spending less than 30 minutes getting the drive setup so you can copy the files over, which could take a day or two depending on the number of files and speed of your system.

Well I am currently setting up my PC to transfer some files over but am just getting everything ready for a big transfer I think were gonna wait to see if there is gonna be a day to get one on EBAY. So I will be trying to get one here soon and get a big file set up for my Wii. But I feel like I am gonna still need alittle help setting up my console! So are you still gonna help me if I need it. PLEASE lol!

 

[ca032769]

Well I am currently setting up my PC to transfer some files over but am just getting everything ready for a big transfer I think were gonna wait to see if there is gonna be a day to get one on EBAY. So I will be trying to get one here soon and get a big file set up for my Wii. But I feel like I am gonna still need alittle help setting up my console! So are you still gonna help me if I need it. PLEASE lol!

Sure, happy to help as much as I can.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Well I am currently setting up my PC to transfer some files over but am just getting everything ready for a big transfer I think were gonna wait to see if there is gonna be a day to get one on EBAY. So I will be trying to get one here soon and get a big file set up for my Wii. But I feel like I am gonna still need alittle help setting up my console! So are you still gonna help me if I need it. PLEASE lol!

Also, if you're still setting your Wii up, use the first link in my signature for ModMii. Best most complete way to mod your Wii, even if it is already modded.

Just use it and choose the never been modded option and it'll fix anything that is needed.

 

[RAWRimaMONSTER]

Sure, happy to help as much as I can.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Also, if you're still setting your Wii up, use the first link in my signature for ModMii. Best most complete way to mod your Wii, even if it is already modded.

Just use it and choose the never been modded option and it'll fix anything that is needed.

See I used Priiloader, HomeBrew, D2X-cIOS, Nintendont, USB loader GX, and RiiConnect! I basically followed a very detailed tutorial on youtube and it worked perfectly lol

 

[gamemasterkobs]

May need to adjust your video mode setting on the console. ARCME should be able to do this, but be careful, if used improperly you can brick. Make sure u have priiloader and bootmii first

https://gbatemp.net/threads/help-test-new-tools-for-modmii-please.533855/

Thank you, I will try it.

 

[ca032769]

See I used Priiloader, HomeBrew, D2X-cIOS, Nintendont, USB loader GX, and RiiConnect! I basically followed a very detailed tutorial on youtube and it worked perfectly lol

Yes those can work, but can also become dated, so you have to watch how old they are.

If you ever have issues, use ModMii to re-mod your system. It is an all inclusive program to modding and updating your Wii. There are instructions on how to do a syschk, submit it to ModMii, and then download any needed changes to bring your Wii up to date.

ModMii is still being supported and is the best all in one approach so you don't have to jump around outdated tutorials.

 

[Alexander1970]

Good Morning.

I'd research to see if the operating system you're using keeps a 2TB limit for MBR drives when doing it this way.

Could be the GOTCHA in doing it, that's why I refer to having to break the drive and make it MBR using the WD software. Kind of a work around for that 2TB barrier. It literally took a couple years to come across this to make my larger drives work.

I tried so many ways to make it work that I can't even remember all of them. Maybe the OS supports something different since I tried to do it, but I just use what I know works. I even tried contacting EaseUS Partition Master seeing if they'd remove the 2TB MBR limit in a future release but never heard back.

I'll have to ask the price difference in that eBay 5TB vs the WD 5TB Passport that is $109 or my preferred WD P-10 Game 5TB for $119. If it's $10 or $20 is it worth the headache for this to go wrong using a different drive? And if the difference is more than that what kind of drive are they really giving you? Not sure if I'd trust a super cheap 5TB drive with all my Wii & GameCube titles unless they were backed up elsewhere. Feel free to PM me a link to the drive just so I can see what we're talking about.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

@XFlak @alexander1970 @jeannotte - Hi Guys, I need some help.

Please see @RAWRimaMONSTER comments above. Have any of you been able to use a Seagate drive at 5TB or larger for a standard Wii to get all of the Wii & GameCube titles on there. Do you know of any program to turn a Seagate 5TB from GPT to MBR? Or even use it as GPT without having issues?

I'm suggesting a Western Digital drive for him that I know can be made MBR, but there seems to be some resistance from the wife (god knows I've been there too) wanting a 5TB Seagate to do this, but I can't help with that maker or knowledge of software to convert it. My experience is strictly with the Western Digital drives.

To my knowledge everyone that has tried to go GPT only or use Seagate drives was not successful breaking the 2TB mark.

I am very,very sorry,my "Knowledge" for Wii HDDs ends with 2 TB Western Digital (WD)....I have never used a bigger HDD or other HDD Brands for the Wii...

@Cyan answered somewhere a Thread with this Explanation:

MBR with > 2 TB Partitions needs formatted with 4096 bytes per Sector.
Most HDD Manufacturer do not have this Option to emulate 512 bytes or disable the Emulation.

Further he suggests to use WD HDDs,they should support it.

....and if I remember correct,he maybe suggested to make 2 Partitions (no Problem for USBLoader GX).
(If not and I am totally wrong,forgive my Friend.).

You can use a Tool like AOMEI´s Partition Assistent to initialize the HDD as MBR
and make a 2 TB Partition for FAT32 (for Homebrew and GameCube Games)
and the Rest for NTFS (for the Wii Games only).

I hope this helps a little.

Good Luck
Thank you.

 

[gamemasterkobs]

May need to adjust your video mode setting on the console. ARCME should be able to do this, but be careful, if used improperly you can brick. Make sure u have priiloader and bootmii first

https://gbatemp.net/threads/help-test-new-tools-for-modmii-please.533855/

I have tried to use ARCME and saw that the settings was all in japanese and NSTC, I have saved the settings and exit,
Still having the same issue.
Tried ARCME again and used auto fix and exit.
Still having the same issues.

 

[Alexander1970]

Good Morning.

I have tried to use ARCME and saw that the settings was all in japanese and NSTC, I have saved the settings and exit,
Still having the same issue.
Tried ARCME again and used auto fix and exit.
Still having the same issues.

Oh.....that is not good....

There is still one Thing left - is it a real Japanese Wii or Region changed Wii please ?

Thank you.

 

[gamemasterkobs]

Good Morning.



Oh.....that is not good....

There is still one Thing left - is it a real Japanese Wii or Region changed Wii please ?

Thank you.

It is a real japanese wii, I don't think that I have changed its region.

 

[Alexander1970]

It is a real japanese wii, I don't think that I have changed its region.

Then it is maybe really Resistor/Hardware Issue....
Can you maybe open the Wii and take a look inside ?

Your Wii´s WiFi Internet is still working ?

It is very unlikely but maybe

- the GPU is overheated (not sure,but better check it..)
- the WiFi Modul is broken/faulty (also possible and maybe unlikely,but I am not sure,if the Component Signal is still working with an broken WiFi Module...)

Good Luck
Thank you.

 

[gamemasterkobs]

Then it is maybe really Resistor/Hardware Issue....
Can you maybe open the Wii and take a look inside ?

Your Wii´s WiFi Internet is still working ?

It is very unlikely but maybe

- the GPU is overheated (not sure,but better check it..)
- the WiFi Modul is broken/faulty (also possible and maybe unlikely,but I am not sure,if the Component Signal is still working with an broken WiFi Module...)

Good Luck
Thank you.

Opening the wii will be a hard work,
The internet is working just fine, I used it to reinstall DX- Cios

I think, I will just leave it as is, I will try to use wii2hdmi and test it if will work there, the new TV that I have does not come with component inputs that is why I am thinking to revive the AV option for my son to play with it.

Thank you all for your help guys.

@alexander1970 , @OldBoi , @XFlak