Hardware WBFS HDD: Not initialized

anastazius · Feb 19, 2020

Sorry for the nercobump also, I'm having the same issue. I've been wanting to dust off the Wii U and its collection of ace Wii games off my harddrive, I know this drive is formatted in WBFS, back in the day I used to use WBFS Manager, and I'm almost certain although windows couldn't read the drive, it know it was connected and it had a drive letter that showed up in My Computer, which I could then browse within WBFS Manager.

Now nothing shows up, and in Disk Management it looks like this:

If I select that option, will it format the drive or will my data on it be OK? Many thanks.

godreborn · Feb 19, 2020

most likely the drive will then be unusable by the wii/vwii. you don't want to initialize it. however, in this instance, I really don't know what to do. you may have to use the wii backup manager.

Alexander1970 · Feb 19, 2020

anastazius said:
Sorry for the nercobump also, I'm having the same issue. I've been wanting to dust off the Wii U and its collection of ace Wii games off my harddrive, I know this drive is formatted in WBFS, back in the day I used to use WBFS Manager, and I'm almost certain although windows couldn't read the drive, it know it was connected and it had a drive letter that showed up in My Computer, which I could then browse within WBFS Manager.

Now nothing shows up, and in Disk Management it looks like this:

If I select that option, will it format the drive or will my data on it be OK? Many thanks.

Hello.

I would highly recommend to NOTHING to do with it in Windows !

- NO Initialise
- NO Format
- simply do nothing with it please.

Use your WiiBackup Manager for the Game Transfers and all will be good.

Thank you.

jeannotte · Feb 19, 2020

Hello,

@
anastazius :

I suggest you convert your external hard drive to fat32 with "" wbfs2fat "" (without losing the data) and then Windows will recognize your drive (then use wii backup manager) ==>https://gbatemp.net/threads/wbfs2fat-py.291320/

anastazius · Feb 20, 2020

Thanks I will try wbfs2fat. I thought that I already looked into that yesterday but thought that it was Linux-only, looking again it seems that the is a Windows version too so I will give it a go in the next few days. [edit] Acutally, I must have mixed it up with something else.

Cheers for the replies and help everyone.

anastazius · Feb 20, 2020

I tried wbfs2fat and it still can't see the hard drive in the list. The only place it shows up at all is in windows disk management. So I still need to get windows to initialise the disk and I assume assign a drive letter, yeah? I used to be good at the 10 years ago now I feel like a boomer trying to use a VR...

First to be sure I'm gonna test the hard drive in my Wii U to see if there's still games on it, I'd rather not lose all my data.

anastazius · Feb 23, 2020

Guys. I've been a massive noob. I've totally misremembered how I was using my external hard drives; the one that I was convinced was wbfs formatted with Wii games on it, is actually just my normal external drive for my Wii U.

I'm so sorry

foxm2k · Aug 28, 2020

Also had the some issue that I realized it was actually not WBFS but instead EXT3 format. Maybe you have the same.

bbq_bob · Sep 16, 2020

I had this same problem with a disk for vWii on Wii U. It showed up as Uninitialized in the Windows Disk Management software. I recalled that I was already using FAT and not WBFS. It took me a while to remember that I used Ustealth to hide the HDD so the Wii would not ask to format it. A consequence of UStealth is that is hidden and uninitialized to Windows too.

CMDreamer · Sep 16, 2020

Windows doesn't assign a drive letter to an unknown partition format, because to do so, it need to mount it first, which can't do when it doesn't recognizes the file format.

That happens with Linux partitions, even if Windows recognizes the drive with ( EXT/2,3,4/Swap ) partitions, it doesn't assign a letter to them because the format is not recognized.

WBFS partition format is not only outdated, but it limits the drives possibilities, you can't use it to nothing more but WBFS games and -maybe- savegames.

godreborn · Sep 16, 2020

I think ustealth alters the first sector, so that it's not picked up by windows or the wii u.

operat0r · Mar 12, 2022

So .. I have TWO drives (cloned ) ... and this method has worked at least 4 times for me .. it's insane ...

* drive will not show up in Windows or WiiU and 'clicks' *

1) unplug the WiiU from the back ( like the Wii maybe it has stupid thing on the powerbrick that it never really turns off even if you plug it into the wall!!!)
2) Swap front USB or back USB just to be sure
3) hold the drive perfectly vertical long ways and smack it on a hard surface ... then swap the sides and smack it again... basically you're trying to get the head to 'move' or unstick without crashing it into the disk ... again I been in IT for 25 years.. and this has worked at least 4 times on the same drive ... drive is from 2015

<3 RMcCurdy.COM

nghtcrwlr666 · Jan 20, 2024

I know this is an old thread, just trying to help. I had the same issue, so I installed disk drill to backup my games, and then "magically" windows assigned letter and I can access the hdd.

Hardware WBFS HDD: Not initialized

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