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Homebrew Tutorial  Updated

SDUSB - The modern way to play Wii U games from SD - at full speed

Why?

​Even though the Wii U has a built in SD slot, it doesn't support using it as a storage expansion to store Wii U games (unlike it's predecessor). USB pen drives are notoriously unreliable and hard drives are bulky and require extra power or a Y cable, using up multiple ports. Today big reliable SD cards have become cheap. Since a SD is needed anyway for homebrew, it would be nice to use that too as storage for games.
There have been solutions in the past like Loadiine, but this had various problems, the biggest of them performance and is not longer supported by current homebrew environments (Aroma).

SDUSB

​SDUSB solves these problems. It uses a second partition on the SD card, which will be formatted to the Wii Us native file system and therefore run at full speed. The partition will show up as a USB device and can therefore be managed using the built in Data Management in the system settings. SaveMii, WUP Installers etc. all work with this, like it is a USB storage device. Also HAI (VC Wii Titles) work with SDUSB.
SDUSB does all that by patching IOSU (the OS that runs on the ARM processor). It is implemented as a stroopwafel plugin.

If you instead want to partition your USB HDD to use it for Wii U games and other stuff look here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-partition-use-partitioned-usb-hdds-with-the-wii-u.656209/

Wafel Installer



As a alternative to following this manual guide, you can now use the wafel installer. It guides you through installing the prerequisites, partitioning and setting up the plugin.
If you want to follow the manual setup, skip to the next section (Prerequisites)

On unmodded console
If you haven't modded your console yet, or lost the SD or SD content, just go to https://wafel.xyz on the Wii U web browser (Internet applet) and you can launch the wafel installer directly from that website. It guides you through partitioning the SD card.
Installing Aroma is optional.
Stroopwafel and ISFShax are required (will guide you through the setup).

On Aroma
If you are already using Aroma and want to keep the homebrew setup on the SD, then you need to manually shrink the existing partition on the SD (you can use Minitool Partition Wizard for that) and then put the wafel_installer.wuhb into your wiiu/apps folder on the SD. You find the download here: https://github.com/zer00p/wafel_installer/releases

If you don't care for your existing hombrew setup, boot without the SD card in and launch the wafel installer from the the web browser on the wii u https://wafel.xyz. When it tells you no SD detected just click abort

Once in the wafel installer main menu go to SDUSB to start the setup, it guides you through everything, including reinstalling Aroma, if needed.


Prerequisites

​You need two things:
  1. a way to launch minute
  2. a reliable SD card
For 1. the recommended way is to setup ISFShax, for that we have a guide here: How to set up ISFShax
If you don't want to commit to installing ISFShax yet you can skip the "Installing ISFShax" step in the ISFShax setup guide and instead run it manually through the chosen exploit on every reboot.
Instead if ISFShax you can also use defuse, in case you have that already.

For 2. It is highly recommended that you use an Endurance branded SD card from a reputable brand. Since your save games will also be saved there, you rather want to spend $5 more then to lose all your save games because your cheapo sd card died. Also be aware of fakes, even on Amazon you can get fake SD cards...
The speed of the SD card isn't too important, as the Wii U is limited to 25MB/s (same as the internal memory) anyway. Every somewhat recent SD card should be able to get that speed. Choose Reliability > Access Time > Throughput.

Setup

​

Partitioning the SD card​

On Windows you need to use a third party tool like Paragon Partition Manager Community Edition, Minitool Partition Wizard or Easeus, on Linux you can use gparted.
You need to have two primary partitions on the card:
  1. FAT32 - (in gparted set lba flag). This is what the PC will see and all your homebrew goes (you should already have this)
  2. NTFS - This partition will be the "USB", you use to store the Wii U games on (don't assign a drive letter)
Instead of NTFS you can also use exFAT. Shrink the existing FAT32 partition to make room and then create the primary NTFS partition after it. It's recommended to align the Partitions on 64MiB boundaries and use a multiple of 64MiB for the size. NTFS won't be the file system the Wii U will be using, it is just there to tell SDUSB which partition to use (it will pick the first NTFS one). The Wii U will later format it with it's own file system.

​

Installing the Plugin​

Get the latest 5sdusb.ipx from here: https://github.com/jan-hofmeier/wafel_sd_usb/releases and place it in your ios_plugins folder. That is either wiiu/ios_plugins on the SD card or /sys/hax/ios_plugins on the slc. For slc you have to rename it to something shorter like sdusb.ipx

Using SDUSB

​If you now boot back up, the Partition shows up as a USB device, which needs to be formatted and can then be used as usual. After formatting the SDUSB, you can also connect an existing USB storage and copy stuff over.
sdusb.jpg

Known Problems

​
  • GC VC Injectes don't work when installed to the SDUSB (they still work from Internal Memory)
 
Last edited by SDIO,
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Click to expand...
Hi! Question can a 2TB SD be use with a WIIU drive for real?
what is the maximum existing high endurance card that exists for the wiiU in which you can put maximum of games at that time?
 
Yes, a 2TB card would work. The largest High Endurance Card I know of is 512GB. But With the price the Sweet spot is probably 256 for high endurance and 512GB for normal cards.
 
mrmagicm said:
Hi! Question can a 2TB SD be use with a WIIU drive for real?
what is the maximum existing high endurance card that exists for the wiiU in which you can put maximum of games at that time?
Click to expand...
I just tested with 1.5tb Sandisk Ultra.
That card is slow on writing.
But on reading it reaches decent speeds.
WiiU and vWii don't complain!
I tested with some fast loading games.
 
SDIO said:
GC VC Injectes don't work when installed to the SDUSB (they still work from Internal Memory)
Click to expand...
Is this actively being worked on or is it something that's never ever going to happen because of a certain technical limitation?

Secondly, I'm using a 512GB Samsung A2 Evo card. But some games are just giving me slowdowns/hickups. Now, I'm not the foremost expert on SD cards but this card was running games on my Switch really fine. Should I qualify the lags to something related to the sd card or you assume it's rather a connectivity issue like 5 GHz interference or the receiver slowly getting worse?
 
resurrecta said:
Is this actively being worked on or is it something that's never ever going to happen because of a certain technical limitation?

Secondly, I'm using a 512GB Samsung A2 Evo card. But some games are just giving me slowdowns/hickups. Now, I'm not the foremost expert on SD cards but this card was running games on my Switch really fine. Should I qualify the lags to something related to the sd card or you assume it's rather a connectivity issue like 5 GHz interference or the receiver slowly getting worse?
Click to expand...
Do you experience the slowdowns on tv or only gamepad?!
 
toxic9 said:
Do you experience the slowdowns on tv or only gamepad?!
Click to expand...
That's a good way to analyze the problem. I didn't double check the TV. Upon inspection... It seems to run fine on TV. It runs into those lags only on the gamepad. My impression is even that using SwipSwap, for example during MK8, it gets even more lags when the screens gets switched. Keep in mind I have no ways to measure lags.
So, that probably means it's not the SD Card. However, How do I determine the issue being interference, wear on the receiver or swipswap... I'm sorry if I got slightly off topic
 
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resurrecta said:
That's a good way to analyze the problem. I didn't double check the TV. Upon inspection... It seems to run fine on TV. It runs into those lags only on the gamepad. My impression is even that using SwipSwap, for example during MK8, it gets even more lags when the screens gets switched. Keep in mind I have no ways to measure lags.
So, that probably means it's not the SD Card. However, How do I determine the issue being interference, wear on the receiver or swipswap... I'm sorry if I got slightly off topic
Click to expand...
At least you don't have a faulty sd card slot!

If I were you I started to boot without patches and try to play a legit game even from usb or dvd. If the leg continues you must try to find the connection interference. If it plays fine, it must be something else.
 
Thanks again for your directions. In the meantime, does anyone know if there will be an improvement to get GC VC Injectes working?
 
My SDUSB suddenly stopped working & I have no idea why. Literally yesterday it was working fine, but today the Wii U just can't detect it. I know it's still able to read the SD card, because I'm still able to boot into Aroma, still able to launch things like Nusspli or WiiUIdent or the HB App Store - but all my games & data are gone (or rather, they're hidden for some reason). No error pop-up under data management either. Not sure what happened because again, literally yesterday everything was working fine as intended, my SDUSB was there showing all my games & all my data. Has anyone else encountered this issue?
 
sasook said:
My SDUSB suddenly stopped working & I have no idea why. Literally yesterday it was working fine, but today the Wii U just can't detect it. I know it's still able to read the SD card, because I'm still able to boot into Aroma, still able to launch things like Nusspli or WiiUIdent or the HB App Store - but all my games & data are gone (or rather, they're hidden for some reason). No error pop-up under data management either. Not sure what happened because again, literally yesterday everything was working fine as intended, my SDUSB was there showing all my games & all my data. Has anyone else encountered this issue?
Click to expand...
It seems that somehow the plugin is not being loaded, or the partition got corrupted.
 
Hmm is there a way to move the data from the old SD to a new one? Not talking about the FAT32 partition with all the files, that's easy - but the other one, that's been formatted to Wii U's whatever format Nintendo uses & has all my games/data - is it possible to move that to a new SD card too? If so, how? Would I need a specific program?
 
But first check is sdusb is booting properly.
The "usb" doesn't appear on data managent? Or is it blank??

You can try win32diskimager to build an image and write to a new SD.
 
Video Screenshot 2025-03-01 00-32-08.png


This is what I see. Just a couple days ago, the middle slot was lit up, selectable, & had all my data inside it to view at my leisure. I'm not sure if that's a problem with SDUSB not booting properly or not. And again, I know the SD reader is fine, because Aroma & everything works perfectly.

I should also add, on the Wii U home menu, there used to be a USB symbol in the bottom left corner of the screen which is also now missing.

toxic9 said:
You can try win32diskimager to build an image and write to a new SD.
Click to expand...
I'll need to buy a new SD card first, & then yeah I'll try this. But in the meantime, I'm open to any other ideas as well.

All I really care about is my save data to be honest. Everything else can be replaced easily. What sucks is that it was literally my plan to back up my saves yesterday, & then this happened; worst timing ever.
 
sasook said:
View attachment 488491

This is what I see. Just a couple days ago, the middle slot was lit up, selectable, & had all my data inside it to view at my leisure. I'm not sure if that's a problem with SDUSB not booting properly or not. And again, I know the SD reader is fine, because Aroma & everything works perfectly.

I should also add, on the Wii U home menu, there used to be a USB symbol in the bottom left corner of the screen which is also now missing.


I'll need to buy a new SD card first, & then yeah I'll try this. But in the meantime, I'm open to any other ideas as well.

All I really care about is my save data to be honest. Everything else can be replaced easily. What sucks is that it was literally my plan to back up my saves yesterday, & then this happened; worst timing ever.
Click to expand...
If you have a PC with linux, are you able to see the wiiu partition on gparted?
 
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with linux. I'm on Windows 10. I have minitool partition wizard, if that's useful at all?
 
sasook said:
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with linux. I'm on Windows 10. I have minitool partition wizard, if that's useful at all?
Click to expand...
I think you can try to check if the partition is there and readable or not.

You are sure you're running ios_plugins on boot, right?
Do you have ISFShax installed?
 

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