Hacking All of sudden my WBFS stopped recognizing my USB

[dragonz]

Hey Guys My wii u wii can still load homebrew and wii back up game , so when I tried to add a new back up game into my USB with WBFS 4.0 it wont recognize my USB and windows keeps bugging me about formatting my usb drive as well.

What could possibly be the issue, I tried google and I can't come across a similar issue.

 

[ChiefReginod]

Is the Wii partition on your USB drive formatted to WBFS? If so, you'll need to use a (PC) program like Wii Game Manager to add or remove game backups. Windows can't read WBFS partitions, so that's why it asks if you want to format it.

It should be noted that the WBFS partition type isn't the same as the WBFS file format. WBFS files are still ok, but WBFS-formatted partitions are outdated now and it's recommended to use FAT32 instead.

Another thing is to check if the drive is ustealth'd. You can use the program in this thread to toggle the ustealth flag. It should be toggled 'off' to access the drive in Windows and add/remove games.

 

[dragonz]

Is the Wii partition on your USB drive formatted to WBFS? If so, you'll need to use a (PC) program like Wii Game Manager to add or remove game backups. Windows can't read WBFS partitions, so that's why it asks if you want to format it.

It should be noted that the WBFS partition type isn't the same as the WBFS file format. WBFS files are still ok, but WBFS-formatted partitions are outdated now and it's recommended to use FAT32 instead.

Another thing is to check if the drive is ustealth'd. You can use the program in this thread to toggle the ustealth flag. It should be toggled 'off' to access the drive in Windows and add/remove games.

Thank you for helping me in this and please see the attached image - what should I do next ( I know it says to double click on it but I just want to double check with you first)

EDIT: I've also attached two more images that show my error when I try to load the USB with WBFS4
and another image that shows the error when I tried to convert my WBFS into the newer format using WSbfs2FAT program no luck anywhere

 

[ChiefReginod]

Yes, just double-click it to unhide it. There's a good chance that the other app isn't detecting it only because it's currently ustealth'd. In theory it should work fine once it's visible. It might also be worth trying a different backup program like the one I mentioned.

If you still have trouble accessing it after unhiding it, there's a possibility that the WBFS partition is just corrupted. I'm not sure if there's a way to recover from WBFS corruption, but maybe someone else could chime in if that's the case.

 

[dragonz]

Yes, just double-click it to unhide it. There's a good chance that the other app isn't detecting it only because it's currently ustealth'd. In theory it should work fine once it's visible. It might also be worth trying a different backup program like the one I mentioned.

If you still have trouble accessing it after unhiding it, there's a possibility that the WBFS partition is just corrupted. I'm not sure if there's a way to recover from WBFS corruption, but maybe someone else could chime in if that's the case.

WOW! Thanks this worked and I hope if anyone ever has the same issue they can see our post.
And yes the other program was able to convert it to the new WSbfs2FAT format, so now WBFS v4 isn't able to read my usb but windows is- so how do I go about adding new back up games ? Do I still need WBFS v4 and format again? or is there a newer program?

 

[ChiefReginod]

First thing I would do after converting it to FAT32 is run a chkdsk command. Just open a command prompt and type the following (replace X with the drive letter):

chkdsk X: /f

I don't think WBFS Manager can manage FAT32 drives, so you'll need to use a different program for that. I use Wii Game Manager. You can use anything else, but I'll explain the basic procedure in Wii Game Manager since it's what I know.

To copy ISOs to USB:
1. Click Open > Open .iso Files List (List A) > select the folder on your PC with your Wii ISOs.
2. Wait for the list to populate, then right-click any game you want to copy.
3. In the right-click menu, select "Create .wbfs Files With Subdirectories" > "4gb-32k split" > select the "wbfs" folder on your USB drive.

To copy WBFS files to USB:
1. Click Open > Open .wbfs Files List (List A) > select the folder on your PC with your WBFS files.
2. Wait for the list to populate, then right-click any game you want to copy.
3. In the right-click menu, select "Copy To (Create Subdirectories)" > select the "wbfs" folder on your USB drive.

The file-splitting is necessary because 4GB is the max file size in FAT32.

Another thing to note is that some backup loaders are really picky about the folder structure. Here's an example of a game on my USB drive. It's detected by all of the usual loaders (CFG, GX, WiiFlow):

usb:\wbfs\RMGE01_Super_Mario_Galaxy\RMGE01.wbfs

I'm pretty sure that should cover it.

 

[dragonz]

First thing I would do after converting it to FAT32 is run a chkdsk command. Just open a command prompt and type the following (replace X with the drive letter):

chkdsk X: /f

I don't think WBFS Manager can manage FAT32 drives, so you'll need to use a different program for that. I use Wii Game Manager. You can use anything else, but I'll explain the basic procedure in Wii Game Manager since it's what I know.

To copy ISOs to USB:
1. Click Open > Open .iso Files List (List A) > select the folder on your PC with your Wii ISOs.
2. Wait for the list to populate, then right-click any game you want to copy.
3. In the right-click menu, select "Create .wbfs Files With Subdirectories" > "4gb-32k split" > select the "wbfs" folder on your USB drive.

To copy WBFS files to USB:
1. Click Open > Open .wbfs Files List (List A) > select the folder on your PC with your WBFS files.
2. Wait for the list to populate, then right-click any game you want to copy.
3. In the right-click menu, select "Copy To (Create Subdirectories)" > select the "wbfs" folder on your USB drive.

The file-splitting is necessary because 4GB is the max file size in FAT32.

Another thing to note is that some backup loaders are really picky about the folder structure. Here's an example of a game on my USB drive. It's detected by all of the usual loaders (CFG, GX, WiiFlow):

usb:\wbfs\RMGE01_Super_Mario_Galaxy\RMGE01.wbfs

I'm pretty sure that should cover it.

Thank you so much! Everything is working flawlessly....hey,
One last question how did my USB ended up
"ustealth'd"? I'm super curious on how that happend. And Lol, how did you know? I guess my problem is common or did it happen to you as well?

 

[ChiefReginod]

Well, there's no way it could have accidentally happened. Either someone set it that way on purpose (ie, if someone helped you to set everything up) or you unknowingly ran an app on the console to toggle it. The main reason for stealthing a drive is to get rid of the prompt at the main Wii U menu to format it, and for that reason it's still a good idea to stealth it if you plan to keep it connected to the system.

And it was just an educated guess. It was either that, WBFS corruption or a faulty drive.