Hacking How do I get USB Loader GX to properly utilize EmuNAND?

Koks21

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Dec 20, 2018
Messages
3
Trophies
0
Age
25
XP
64
Country
Russia
Thank you, Cyan, from all of my heart. Your guides are the only sunrays in that dark and hardly understandable SNEEK modes.
Even though your guide is very simple to follow, I've managed to face some troubles:
1) I didn't know that wii backups and sneek/uneek both have to locate in one partition
2) By default USBLoaderGX assumes that emuNAND folder is called "01". If it doesn't find one, it creates a new emuNAND folder called "01". You may want not to force loader to create a new emuNAND, but choose your custom emuNAND in loader "Custom Paths".
2) Trying to boot sneek+di mode I kept getting the black screen because, as I found out later, I had no backups on my SD. Maybe you'll want to include that remark in your guide. YOU NEED TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE BACKUP in your FAT32 partition in order to boot ."..+DI" mode.
3) I don't have any game channels. It took time for me to find out that I can run backups from the disk channel by switching games in menu (button '1' on wii remote).

I finally was able to deal with that problems and now can run backups with uneek+di mode. So, thank you once again.
 

thecubicgamer

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Dec 24, 2016
Messages
8
Trophies
0
Age
27
XP
85
Country
Canada
I've got the emunand working, but if I try to launch Neek2o it tells me that it can't mount USB then boots me back to Homebrew Channel.
 

Denyou

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Feb 21, 2019
Messages
14
Trophies
0
Age
39
XP
197
Country
United States
Dumping NAND and using cIOS EmuNAND
There's nothing easier!

- be sure to use d2x cIOS v8 or newer in USBLoaderGX (or you can use IOS58 if you don't have cIOS installed, but only "Neek mode" will work, so all the cIOS mode games can't be launched)
- launch USBLoaderGX and go to the settings>user path, to edit your path if you want. you need to edit this setting : "EmuNAND Channel folder"
- go to the settings>features menu, select dump NAND>full (it will ask you where to dump if "emuNAND channel" and "emuNAND save" paths are different, choose "channel")
Dump done.

- go to settings>loader settings>emuNAND channel : FULL (do not use partial)
- go to the main screen>4th icon in the top menu>enable EmuNAND.
Setup done

you just created and displayed games located on emuNAND. You can now launch the titles or games.
They will use cIOS mode to redirect NAND to emuNAND, and will require d2x cIOS for that.

Adding new channels
USBLoaderGX has a WAD manager for emuNAND.
- put your wad file on SD or usb
- launch the loader and go to settings>features>emuNAND Wad Manager
- select if you want to install a single file or batch mode to install all files from a folder.
- select your wad file or a folder and choose "install"
done

So I'm running into trouble at this step. I am using USB Loader GX revision 1271. I am able to successfully dump my Nand to by external USB HDD.

Nand Emu Path is [usb1:/nand/]
Nand Emu Channel Path is [usb1:/nand/]
After doing this I am able to load/play any VC or WiiWare titles that were installed on my Wii prior to dumping the Nand. For example, Sonic & Knuckles that was installed on my Wii via Multi-Mod Manager from a .wad.

Then I try adding new channels using USB Loader GX's Wad Manager, Super Mario Bros. 3 for instance. After it's been installed, I can see Super Mario Bros. 3 in my EmuNand list with all the other games that were brought in from the Nand Dump (so in this case it's sitting next to Sonic & Knuckles). I can download art and everything for Super Mario Bros. 3, but when I try to launch it, I am brought right back to USB Loader GX (it reboots USB Loader GX I presume because I have set it to return to USB Loader GX instead of the Wii menu).

This happens for any game that I try to install via USB Loader GX's WAD manager. Any games that are available from the Nand Dump work fine (launching them as an EmuNand Channel and not as a Nand Channel within USB Loader GX).

Any ideas what is going wrong? Happy to post any relevant settings that you think may be relevant.
 

Cyan

GBATemp's lurking knight
Former Staff
Joined
Oct 27, 2002
Messages
23,749
Trophies
4
Age
45
Location
Engine room, learning
XP
15,646
Country
France
is your setting for emuNAND channel properly set to full?
be sure it's not set to partial.

partial would still look on your NAND to find some data, which would be found for games you had on NAND prior to the dump, but missing for wad installed to emuNAND after that.
I know there's no reason you'd change that option, but it's a possibility based on the symptom.
if it's set to full, then I don't know the reason.
 
Last edited by Cyan,

Denyou

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Feb 21, 2019
Messages
14
Trophies
0
Age
39
XP
197
Country
United States
is your setting for emuNAND channel properly set to full?
be sure it's not set to partial.

Yes it was set to Full. I was pretty sure it was and double checked after your reply.

partial would still look on your NAND to find some data, which would be found for games you had on NAND prior to the dump, but missing for wad installed to emuNAND after that.
I know there's no reason you'd change that option, but it's a possibility based on the symptom.
if it's set to full, then I don't know the reason.

So after you mentioned this, I decided to go delete Sonic & Knuckles (which was working in EmuNand) from the regular Wii channel menu. Then trying to load it in USB Loader GX results in the same behavior as the other wads I tried installing in USB Loader GX, meaning upon trying to start the game, GX just restarts.

So it appears it's doing partial emulation as you described, despite the setting being set to full.

Just to be clear following your walkthrough, I should not have to have Neek installed at this point correct? I should be getting some games to work if I had followed your directions up to the point of installing the WADs after dumping the NAND?
 
Last edited by Denyou,

Denyou

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Feb 21, 2019
Messages
14
Trophies
0
Age
39
XP
197
Country
United States
So after some more "playing around" after my last post. I decided to try the whole process over again, with one major change. This time I dumped the Nand to my SD card and didn't even plug the USB Hard Drive in.

When I dumped the Nand to my SD card and then installed Wads, I was able to play them without issue. Then I plugged both my SD card and USB HDD into my computer, copied the entire nands folder over to the USB HDD and then updated the two custom paths (Nand Emu Path & Nand Emu Channel Path) to point to the nands folder on my USB HDD.

After doing this, I came up with the same problem as before. I could not get the games to load and they would instantly boot back to USB Loader GX.

So, are there any ideas as to why this is happening. I am able to play Gamecube and Wii games just fine off the USB HDD. It is formatted as FAT32 with 32KB clusters. One could say to just use the WAD Manager on the SD card, but then I run into the problem of running out of space whereas there is plenty of room on the USB HDD.

Thoughts? Thanks.
 

Cyan

GBATemp's lurking knight
Former Staff
Joined
Oct 27, 2002
Messages
23,749
Trophies
4
Age
45
Location
Engine room, learning
XP
15,646
Country
France
what is your HDD?
is it really a HDD or a flasdrive? maybe the USB is not seen by the console, and it falls back to sysNAND?

are Wii games working fine with that drive and the same game's IOS slot?
is it hidden with Ustealth ?
is it MBR or GPT?
do you know if it's a 512 or 4096 bytes per sector?
 

Denyou

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Feb 21, 2019
Messages
14
Trophies
0
Age
39
XP
197
Country
United States
what is your HDD?
is it really a HDD or a flasdrive? maybe the USB is not seen by the console, and it falls back to sysNAND?

It's a 5400RPM 250GB Hard Drive taken from an old laptop and placed in an enclosure. USB Loader GX sees the Hard Drive as I can load Gamecube and Wii games off of it.

are Wii games working fine with that drive and the same game's IOS slot?

Wii games seem to be working fine loaded off the Hard Drive.

is it hidden with Ustealth ?

I'm not familiar with Ustealth, so I'm going to assume no.

is it MBR or GPT?

Not sure. Any easy way to check which type after it has been formatted?

do you know if it's a 512 or 4096 bytes per sector?

When I formatted it, I set it to 32KB clusters. Is that the same as bytes per sector or is that something else I needed to set up and should I be using 512 or 4096 bytes per sector?
 

Cyan

GBATemp's lurking knight
Former Staff
Joined
Oct 27, 2002
Messages
23,749
Trophies
4
Age
45
Location
Engine room, learning
XP
15,646
Country
France
USB Loader GX sees the Hard Drive as I can load Gamecube and Wii games off of it.
good :)
enclosure are often problematic, so if it works for Wii/GC then it's not the problem here.


Not sure. Any easy way to check which type after it has been formatted?
Small HDD are rarely using GPT.

not sure if there's an easier method, there are probably more than one.
if you are on windows, you can go to your device manager (right click "my PC" icon, select manage, go to hdd management). right click on the left size of the size (not on the partition area), choose properties, partitions. there should be "partition type" master boot record (MBR).
I would screenshot mine, but it's in french.

another way is to use a partition manager like easus, or gparted, it's probably mentioned somewhere.

When I formatted it, I set it to 32KB clusters. Is that the same as bytes per sector or is that something else I needed to set up and should I be using 512 or 4096 bytes per sector?
sector size is hardcoded, not a formatting option.
old HDD uses 512bytes.


so, it's hard to tell what's wrong without having access to your device. it would be faster.
I don't have time today, but if you want we can cover each possibilities later.
 

Denyou

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Feb 21, 2019
Messages
14
Trophies
0
Age
39
XP
197
Country
United States
good :)
enclosure are often problematic, so if it works for Wii/GC then it's not the problem here.



Small HDD are rarely using GPT.

not sure if there's an easier method, there are probably more than one.
if you are on windows, you can go to your device manager (right click "my PC" icon, select manage, go to hdd management). right click on the left size of the size (not on the partition area), choose properties, partitions. there should be "partition type" master boot record (MBR).
I would screenshot mine, but it's in french.

another way is to use a partition manager like easus, or gparted, it's probably mentioned somewhere.


sector size is hardcoded, not a formatting option.
old HDD uses 512bytes.


so, it's hard to tell what's wrong without having access to your device. it would be faster.
I don't have time today, but if you want we can cover each possibilities later.

In theory, there isn't really anything wrong with using the SD card approach if it is working though, correct? I could easily bump up my SD card to the next memory size up. The only problem I can think of is the SD card would have far less read/writes in its lifespan than the HDD, but I don't think that's really that big of a problem.

I might one day format a different external HDD and see if I run into the same issue.
 

Cyan

GBATemp's lurking knight
Former Staff
Joined
Oct 27, 2002
Messages
23,749
Trophies
4
Age
45
Location
Engine room, learning
XP
15,646
Country
France
SD card are fine for emuNAND and has less restrictions than HDDs. they are always 512byte/sector, MBR, single partition.
if it's 64GB or bigger, be sure to reformat to FAT32 instead of default exFAT.
 

silverhick

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Feb 1, 2013
Messages
4
Trophies
0
Age
48
XP
92
Country
United States
Cyan, could you help me out? My Wii is set up to use USB Loader GX and works fine most of the time. I was poking around wiiflow just now and chose the “exit to neek20” function thinking that may allow me to boot up the Wii Ware rebirth games. The Wii rebooted after I did this and I went into USB Loader GX and none of the games or even the options are loading up. Just a blank white screen. I’ve been trying to figure it out, am I stuck in an emunand? I’ve rebooted multiple times and it’s still the same thing. How can I get back to the normal sysnand and get back to my happy days of a full USB Loader GX page?
 

Alush

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Nov 7, 2019
Messages
1
Trophies
0
Age
37
XP
37
Country
Argentina
Hello, Im having problems with "be sure to use d2x cIOS v8 or newer in USBLoaderGX" part because I only see up to v6 in the CIOS Installer. I followed the other topic where you Cyan and other user posted some modified cIOs Installers and they are good, but thay say "vWii"... so, downloading from individual "v8" o "v52" and putting them on the "apps\d2x-cios-installer\v10" and "v8" folders doesn't work neither because they don't appear to select them. And one of that modified files dont show the "select Cios revision" option.

Is Ok to install the "vWii" version in a fisic Wii???

My goal is to create a Emulated Nand (in the USB possibly) and have all game in there. I saw another post of you saying that having all in a SD card is a bad idea (I wolud prefer that, but you are the chief).

Can you help me please?

(sorry about my english)
 

inkylatte

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 20, 2019
Messages
6
Trophies
0
Age
51
XP
86
Country
United States
Hello, Im having problems with "be sure to use d2x cIOS v8 or newer in USBLoaderGX" part because I only see up to v6 in the CIOS Installer. I followed the other topic where you Cyan and other user posted some modified cIOs Installers and they are good, but thay say "vWii"... so, downloading from individual "v8" o "v52" and putting them on the "apps\d2x-cios-installer\v10" and "v8" folders doesn't work neither because they don't appear to select them. And one of that modified files dont show the "select Cios revision" option.

Is Ok to install the "vWii" version in a fisic Wii???

My goal is to create a Emulated Nand (in the USB possibly) and have all game in there. I saw another post of you saying that having all in a SD card is a bad idea (I wolud prefer that, but you are the chief).

Can you help me please?

(sorry about my english)
If you follow the wii.guide website it will lead you to cIOS d2x v10 beta52. That's what I used a few weeks ago and it worked with no problems.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alush

Draxikor

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2019
Messages
342
Trophies
0
XP
1,260
Country
Mexico
@Cyan Hi there i have a problem and hope you can help me, i do your tutorial to make and use emunand in neek mode at first i do it with a SD card with a USB adapter and everything works flawless but when i try to do the same with my HDD WD elements 1 tb i get stuck in the step to boot neek the first time the screen goes black and nothing happen i wait at least 20 minutes and nothing happen, my HDD has a led light thath blinks everytime is read or writing and when i started boot neek the light stop, the SD card and the HDD have the same nand the only difference is the HDD is about 1.80gb, if helps my HDD is entirely in fat32 i use the Wii backup manager to do the format and never have problems also i use your guide "Neek manual files building guide" is weird that everything works with the sd but not the HDD, and yeah i select the USB options and use neek2o, i hope you can help me with this.
 

Draxikor

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2019
Messages
342
Trophies
0
XP
1,260
Country
Mexico
@inkylatte I get the nand from the nand.bin backup i do the first time i hacked the wii so the nand was mostly clean, i use that emunand on the sd card and one copy in the HDD so they are the same but cant get the neek works in HDD, just in the SD with and USB adapter.
 
Last edited by Draxikor,

inkylatte

Member
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 20, 2019
Messages
6
Trophies
0
Age
51
XP
86
Country
United States
@Draxikor , I encountered the same black screen issue when I used my backup nand.bin. After many hours of troubleshooting and testing, I found that using a clean emunand built with Modmii worked the first time.
Just have to use your wii's serial number when building the emunand with Modmii and type serial number correctly.
I have a 1TB WD HDD.
I don't know why my nand.bin black-screened, but maybe do it as a quick test to see if you see a difference.

The basic steps were:
ModMii main menu
O)ptions, check that neek2o is Enabled.
Back to M)ain menu
S)neek install
2) emunand builder for sneek
UD) uneek+di
ENTER to save to same folder as modmii
U)SA region
"4.3" system menu
Post fwder chan: Y
cIOS239 r14: Y
NMM: N (i dont play gamecube yet)
Priiloader: Y
WiiFlow: N (i use postLoader)
Custom theme: N
Photo, weather: N
Y)es, do it.
 
Last edited by inkylatte,
  • Like
Reactions: Draxikor

Draxikor

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2019
Messages
342
Trophies
0
XP
1,260
Country
Mexico
@inkylatte I created them already i´m gonna test it later to see if works, jeez all the other wiiware and vc games works great with cios just a few n64 ones and castlevania rebirth are the problem.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Batman joined the Trans Justice League
    +2
  • Sicklyboy @ Sicklyboy:
    based af
    +2
  • Sonic Angel Knight @ Sonic Angel Knight:
    Forget the base, get on the roof.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Is that a bat in your buckle or are you just happy to have me
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Wonder "Woman" lol you wonder if they are a woman?
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    The Riddler has questions...
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Played a little of snow day glad I didn't spend $30
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    It's asthetic is okay maybe a good $10 grab
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Lol is it a game about doing cocaine?
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Probably in pvp
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I tried Balders Gate II on the PS2 a few minutes ago, not bad lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    My back catalog of games is like that scene at the end of Indiana Jones where the arc of the covenant is being stored in a giant ass warehouse
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    At least I can will my game catalog to family members
    +1
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    It's your problem now bitches
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Put it in your will that in order to receive any money they have to beat certain games, hard games and super shitty games...
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Say 20 bucks per Ninja Gaiden on the NES lol 60 bucks for all 3
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    People you like "Beat level 1 of Ms Pacman" lol
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Hello kitty ds is required
    +1
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Beat Celebrity Death Match on the PS1 omg tried it earlier today .... Absolutely trash
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Like -37 out of 10
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    One of the worst games I have ever played
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Make them rank up every cod game out
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    "Now I know why he took his own life"
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: "Now I know why he took his own life"