Hacking Access Wii USB Drive over WiiConnect24

[MBond42]

I keep a lot of my media, including backed-up Wii games and recorded movies, on an external hard drive that is connected to my Wii. The advantage of this is being able to access my entire media collection and Wii game collection without having to swap discs in and out of the drive or constantly move files from my computer to a usb stick to the Wii. The problem I am having is in accessing the files in my hard drive from my computer. Ideally, I would like to be able to access these files to copy data to and from the drive without having to physically disconnect and reconnect it to my computer, mostly out of laziness. I know that there is a Wii FTP client and SMB client, but I was hoping I could map the Wii as a network drive on my computer and be able to access files that way without having to turn on the console, probably via WiiConnect24. I was wondering whether such a feat is possible, and if so, how it could be done.
If not, could it be possible to run Wii games off of the hard drive connected to my computer via a network instead of a direct connection? Thank you in advance.

 

[krazykipa]

It'd be much easier to simply use that hard drive for only games, and stream music, videos, files etc. via SMB. It's the setup I have running and it's pretty low-maintenance.

As far as network booting backups, IIRC no backup loader has network support as a feature yet (correct me if I'm wrong)

 

[MBond42]

That's actually a pretty good suggestion Krazykipa, except for the fact that I don't have enough space in my computer for all the data on my hard drive. I might end up getting another external drive sometime when I can find one discounted, which would solve that problem. For now though, I'll have to try implementing a network solution.

 

[WiiFan2012]

DON'T get discounted ones! Always research the drive and when it comes down to it, always ask "why is it discounted?" (to yourself). Because some store sell used drives as "new" and discount them.

 

[MBond42]

Well, there was just a release of a library that allows use of WC24, but what you are asking for is just not going to happen unless you were to create it yourself. I think it is a great idea, but if being lazy is what motivates you then I'm sure that it's just easier for you to get up off your ass than it is for you to write an app.

Actually, I wouldn't mind writing an app if I knew that other people would find it useful. The trouble is, while I have some experience in Java, I don't think what I know would be nearly enough to write an app sophisticated enough to carry out its intended purpose. I might still try sometime, just for fun.

 

[OrGoN3]

Let me get this straight. You want to stream movies over wireless B!?!?!??

 

[jbm715]

So you want to be able to copy movies and games from your computer via wifi to your wii. I've also been wanting this for a while. I love being able to ftp games and movies to my modded xbox.

 

[Kryptical]

If you want to COPY movies / games use FTPii server. It will take REALLY long.

 

[MBond42]

If you want to COPY movies / games use FTPii server. It will take REALLY long.

I was hoping I could avoid FTP for precisely this reason. Since I know the Wii is capable of downloading data over a wi-fi connection while in standby mode (because of WiiConnect24), I thought I could maybe map my Wii (well, actually, the hard drive attached to it) as a network drive, which would not only allow me to copy media but to play it from my computer. That is, unless there's something about the nature of WiiConnect24 I don't understand.

 

[George Dawes]

That seems to be doing things very backwards - the PC is generally the media server, the console is simply the client. I can't see there being much interest in coding this, as most people do it the opposite way to what you want.

krazykipas suggestion is the best you'll get. Get another HD, fit it in your PC and put all media on that, setup a smb share and access it via the wii.

 

[sagewolf]

If you want to COPY movies / games use FTPii server. It will take REALLY long.

And hashcheck not match

 

[tueidj]

WiiConnect24 doesn't keep the wifi on all the time, it turns it on to check for new content and then shuts it down so your server idea couldn't work.

 

[MBond42]

Thanks for your suggestions, guys. I ultimately found an old DC-Powered hard drive my father wasn't using, and am now using it to run my Wii games, with the first hard drive connected to my computer acting as a server. It would be nice if at some point it would be possible to stream Wii games across a network, but until then using two hard drives is working great for me.

 

[FenrirWolf]

Apparently the Wii doesn't even have wireless g, just wireless b. There's a topic in the backup loaders forum where they found that trying to load a game like that would give you more or less 2X read speed, slower than playing from a DVD backup. Definitely not worth it.