Hardware Using 5tb seagate for Wii,WiiU, & GC

shadowfire36

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I bought a5tb seagate HD for use between my 3 consoles . I tried formatting the draive under an MBR , but the drive only uses 2tb , and cannot access anything after that .
I used a GPT basic for the drive , but USBGX does not see any of the partitions, it only shows that there is 0 available after formatting, but does see the drive .


Has anyone formatted a 5tb for a full fat32 ? Can anyone give me a recommendation on how to for mat this .. I bought it with the Idea that this HD would serve as 3 device share drive w/32bit gamaing ...but i cannot get this to work at all ...I cant get FBA to run either , but one issue at a time and can anyone guide me on how to either format this drive as a whole 5tb fat32 or is there a way yo use multiple drives for WII ,WII U , gamecube ..
 

The Real Jdbye

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I bought a5tb seagate HD for use between my 3 consoles . I tried formatting the draive under an MBR , but the drive only uses 2tb , and cannot access anything after that .
I used a GPT basic for the drive , but USBGX does not see any of the partitions, it only shows that there is 0 available after formatting, but does see the drive .


Has anyone formatted a 5tb for a full fat32 ? Can anyone give me a recommendation on how to for mat this .. I bought it with the Idea that this HD would serve as 3 device share drive w/32bit gamaing ...but i cannot get this to work at all ...I cant get FBA to run either , but one issue at a time and can anyone guide me on how to either format this drive as a whole 5tb fat32 or is there a way yo use multiple drives for WII ,WII U , gamecube ..
If you want to use one drive for Wii and Wii U you have to let the Wii U format it into its own format (which should support 5TB size) and convert your GC and Wii games into WiiVC format so they will install on the Wii U formatted drive.
 
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shadowfire36

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If you want to use one drive for Wii and Wii U you have to let the Wii U format it into its own format (which should support 5TB size) and convert your GC and Wii games into WiiVC format so they will install on the Wii U formatted drive.


I dont want one drive for the wii u , i want to be able to move the drive between the systems. I have a wii in my living room and a wii u in my game room , i just want to move the drive between them with there own file systems , I cant seem to partition the drive to accommodate the fat32 file systems
 
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The Real Jdbye

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I dont want one drive for the wii u , i want to be able to move the drive between the systems
Oh. Well, as far as I know, you can't. Larger than 2TB size on MBR only works if the drive uses 4096 byte sectors (without emulated 512 byte sectors like a lot of modern drives still use) and there is no way to change the sector size. 2 TB is quite a lot though, I'd guess it's probably enough for every Wii and GC game you'd actually want to play.
 

shadowfire36

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Oh. Well, as far as I know, you can't. Larger than 2TB size on MBR only works if the drive uses 4096 byte sectors (without emulated 512 byte sectors like a lot of modern drives still use) and there is no way to change the sector size. 2 TB is quite a lot though, I'd guess it's probably enough for every Wii and GC game you'd actually want to play.
If i format the drive as MBR for 2tb , i lose 2.5 tb ...I have read people have formatted up to an 8tb in fat32 , i would rather have 3 partitions split , but i cant seem to get it to run either ..
i tried ntfs , which will work, but also has a 2tb cap under an MBR , if i switch it to a gpt andformat ntfs USB loader does not see there is any space on the drive at all
 

The Real Jdbye

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If i format the drive as MBR for 2tb , i lose 2.5 tb ...I have read people have formatted up to an 8tb in fat32 , i would rather have 3 partitions split , but i cant seem to get it to run either ..
i tried ntfs , which will work, but also has a 2tb cap under an MBR , if i switch it to a gpt andformat ntfs USB loader does not see there is any space on the drive at all
FAT32 partitions are limited to 2TB but with GPT you could make multiple FAT32 partitions to use all the space, that's probably what those people did if it wasn't a Wii/Wii U related thing. But as said if you don't have one of the drives with 4096 sector size there is no way to utilize more than 2TB space with MBR as far as I know.
Maybe you can use GPT+MBR, only 2TB will still be usable by the Wii (U) but at least you could use the remainder on a PC or on another device.
Personally I would return the 5TB and get a 2.5" 2TB instead (and an Y-cable so it can get enough power from the Wii U)
 
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If i format the drive as MBR for 2tb , i lose 2.5 tb ...I have read people have formatted up to an 8tb in fat32 , i would rather have 3 partitions split , but i cant seem to get it to run either ..
i tried ntfs , which will work, but also has a 2tb cap under an MBR , if i switch it to a gpt andformat ntfs USB loader does not see there is any space on the drive at all

None of that is possible at all. As soon as you format it to the Wii U it takes the entire drive period. The Wii U uses it's own format too it's not Fat32, NTFS or any of those that you can format on Windows. So there's nothing you can do.

Your best bet is using injects on the Wii U formatted drive for Wii and Gamecube and having them on one drive because there's no other option with that drive.
 
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shadowfire36

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FAT32 partitions are limited to 2TB but with GPT you could make multiple FAT32 partitions to use all the space, that's probably what those people did if it wasn't a Wii/Wii U related thing. But as said if you don't have one of the drives with 4096 sector size there is no way to utilize more than 2TB space with MBR as far as I know.
Maybe you can use GPT+MBR, only 2TB will still be usable by the Wii (U) but at least you could use the remainder on a PC or on another device.
Personally I would return the 5TB and get a 2.5" 2TB instead (and an Y-cable so it can get enough power from the Wii U)


i already tried to split with 3 fat32 partitions , it wont let you create it over 2tb with mbr ,which is what is needed to read the file system, if i use gpt none of the partitions are seen on the wii or wii u
None of that is possible at all. As soon as you format it to the Wii U it takes the entire drive period. The Wii U uses it's own format too it's not Fat32, NTFS or any of those that you can format on Windows. So there's nothing you can do.

Your best bet is using injects on the Wii U formatted drive for Wii and Gamecube and having them on one drive because there's no other option with that drive.

Formatted to one 5tb fat32 partition
What's is needed:

AOMEI Partition Assistant
Ubuntu 14.02

step one:
Use Aomei create 3 partitions under gpt
partition 1 = 1.98tb
partition 2 = 1.98tb
partition 3 = the remainder

execute

step two:
use merge function in Aomei
merge partition's 1and 2
execute
New partitions =
partition 1 = 3.96tb
partition 2 = remainder

step three:
Use Aomei
merge new partition 1 with the left over partition 3
execute
new fat32 4.55tb drive


step four:
plug drive into ubuntu system
go to Disk in systems menu
select for drive
format volume
select erase
select for use with all systems and devices (FAT)



Done
 
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Did you format it to the Wii U because AFAIK that will always erase all partitions and format the entire drive to the Wii U. You can't play Wii U games without doing that.
 
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buckchow

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I bought a5tb seagate HD for use between my 3 consoles . I tried formatting the draive under an MBR , but the drive only uses 2tb , and cannot access anything after that .
I used a GPT basic for the drive , but USBGX does not see any of the partitions, it only shows that there is 0 available after formatting, but does see the drive .
Unless they changed something in the past year or so, the Western Digital 5TB "easystore" USB HDDs (so, not your Seagate) can be reconfigured to show up with 4KB logical sectors and 32KB physical sectors (instead of the default 512-byte logical sectors and 4KB physical sectors). This allows MBR formatting up to 16TB, so you can easily get one 5TB partition set up.

There may be multiple ways to reconfigure those drives, I don't know. The method I use is to run WD's old "WD Quick Formatter" tool. It seems to have to be run from Windows XP (which doesn't support GPT) in order for the drive's sector size to be changed. If you run the WD Quick Formatter on Server 2003 (first Windows to support GPT) or later and it won't change the sector size.

Edit: Of course, whether the Wii can tolerate 4KB logical sectors is another issue entirely...
 
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no i plan to spilt the drive with a 2tb for wii u and fat32 3tb

That's what I'm telling you, plan all you want but as soon as you try to format it on the Wii U it will take the entire drive. I'm not sure what you're not understanding about that. You can't have partitions that include Wii U games because Wii U has it's own format and they purposely made it where it formats the entire drive. I'm not sure what you were waiting on and you seem to be so sure it's going to work when we're telling you it won't work.

All you've accomplished is formatting for Wii and Gamecube games. You can do that. But you cannot add a Wii U partition to that like you seem to assume. I've already told you that.

Like I told you in the beginning the ONLY way to have Wii U, Wii and Gamecube on the same hard drive is format the entire drive to Wii U then use injects for Wii and Gamecube. And like mentioned in the post above, you will not be able to use that drive on anything but the Wii U.

Regardless if you want to listen to what we're telling you or not these are all facts that sooner or later you will discover. As soon as you format to the Wii U your partitions will disappear.
 
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