Hacking Backup of Wii U formatted drive with dd?

lordelan

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Did anyone try creating a backup of a Wii U formatted drive with installed games using dd and restoring it to another drive?
I have a 2 TB drive connected to my Wii U and want some sort of backup in case the drive dies.
Using dd (or CloneZilla?) to create an image of if to restore it to a new 2 TB drive (just in case) would be the only solution coming to my mind.
 
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dojafoja

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Did anyone try creating a backup of a Wii U formatted drive with installed games using dd and restoring it to another drive?
I have a 2 TB drive connected to my Wii U and want some sort of backup in case the drive dies.
Using dd (or CloneZilla?) to create an image of if to restore it to a new 2 TB drive (just in case) would be the only solution coming to my mind.
The USB controller ID is used as part of the drive encryption and verification, this ensures that one drive cannot be cloned to another even if using on the same console. The drive is also encrypted using a unique per-console key which ensures that one drive cannot be used on multiple consoles.
You can technically copy all data from one wiiu formatted drive to another using data management in system settings but it's still unique to the console which formatted it.
 

Captain_N

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I have tested cloning a wii u formated flash drive. I cloned it with Acronis True Image Home. It works great. I was even able to place it on a larger drive and it worked. The size will still be stuck at the original image partition size though. Test it out with a flash drive first.
 

CORE

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What is dd?

I have my Games all archived for Wup I would just need to reinstall them but this feature is still an option.
 

dojafoja

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I have tested cloning a wii u formated flash drive. I cloned it with Acronis True Image Home. It works great. I was even able to place it on a larger drive and it worked. The size will still be stuck at the original image partition size though. Test it out with a flash drive first.
That's interesting. This was talked about in the past and people were talking about how the hardware controller ID was used in the encryption, essentially embedded into the filesystem. Misinformation at it's finest! Thanks for clearing that up. I suppose most people never even attempted it because of this assumption. So it really is just encrypted with and tied to the unique console key.
 
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depaul

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I could swear I already tested my Wii U HDD with another enclosure and it wasn't recognized by my WiiU. So I was assuming the Wii U encryption depends on HDD and also enclosure itself.

If cloning works then I might have been wrong. I'll try and see.
 

CrazySquid

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I have tested cloning a wii u formated flash drive. I cloned it with Acronis True Image Home. It works great. I was even able to place it on a larger drive and it worked. The size will still be stuck at the original image partition size though. Test it out with a flash drive first.
I did not use that program, but I can confirm that's not true for other programs like HDD Raw Copy Tool.

I made a raw copy of my USB pendrive of 64GB and tried to restore it into a 500GB Notebook HDD that it's on a USB2 enclosure, it did not work at all, the Wii U would recognice the drive, but it will not ask for a format because it's already formatted.
However, if I put a MRB partition to the 500GB drive, then it will prompt the format message.
Now, just to be sure that the format was correct and that the image I did wasn't corrupt, I formatted my 64GB Pendrive onto NTFS, and THEN I did restore the image, and it worked perfectly with my Wii U.
Which means that the keys per-drive and console are still on the formatting process the Wii U does, otherwise my 500GB drive would work without problems on my console.
I repeat, didn't try that program because it's paid, maybe I could use the 30 days trial, but I highly doubt that it will work, unless it can do some magic into the Wii U stuff.
 

dojafoja

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I did not use that program, but I can confirm that's not true for other programs like HDD Raw Copy Tool.

I made a raw copy of my USB pendrive of 64GB and tried to restore it into a 500GB Notebook HDD that it's on a USB2 enclosure, it did not work at all, the Wii U would recognice the drive, but it will not ask for a format because it's already formatted.
However, if I put a MRB partition to the 500GB drive, then it will prompt the format message.
Now, just to be sure that the format was correct and that the image I did wasn't corrupt, I formatted my 64GB Pendrive onto NTFS, and THEN I did restore the image, and it worked perfectly with my Wii U.
Which means that the keys per-drive and console are still on the formatting process the Wii U does, otherwise my 500GB drive would work without problems on my console.
I repeat, didn't try that program because it's paid, maybe I could use the 30 days trial, but I highly doubt that it will work, unless it can do some magic into the Wii U stuff.
This is how I remember it being as well. This idea was discussed to great lengths in the past and even credible people were saying it wouldn't work. I remember many people trying it and reporting it wouldn't work for them. It was said that the hardware controller ID was used when encrypting the filesystem. I personally never dug into this but I remember it being the generally accepted fact.
 

The Real Jdbye

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I could swear I already tested my Wii U HDD with another enclosure and it wasn't recognized by my WiiU. So I was assuming the Wii U encryption depends on HDD and also enclosure itself.

If cloning works then I might have been wrong. I'll try and see.
That matches what I've heard before. Maybe it's different with flash drives?
I did not use that program, but I can confirm that's not true for other programs like HDD Raw Copy Tool.

I made a raw copy of my USB pendrive of 64GB and tried to restore it into a 500GB Notebook HDD that it's on a USB2 enclosure, it did not work at all, the Wii U would recognice the drive, but it will not ask for a format because it's already formatted.
However, if I put a MRB partition to the 500GB drive, then it will prompt the format message.
Now, just to be sure that the format was correct and that the image I did wasn't corrupt, I formatted my 64GB Pendrive onto NTFS, and THEN I did restore the image, and it worked perfectly with my Wii U.
Which means that the keys per-drive and console are still on the formatting process the Wii U does, otherwise my 500GB drive would work without problems on my console.
I repeat, didn't try that program because it's paid, maybe I could use the 30 days trial, but I highly doubt that it will work, unless it can do some magic into the Wii U stuff.
This could explain it. But I would assume that a raw clone/image would copy over the MBR partition format as well. Maybe it depends on what program you're using.
 
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Hayato213

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I believe you need an external enclosure to clone the drive, but you need the same size , 2TB to attempt the clone, the method work for Nvidia Shield, I assume it would work for something that is unallocated HDD like Wii U probably. Don't quote me on it.
 

Captain_N

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did you try 2 flash drives of different size? Thats what i did because at the time i did not have the drives i do now. I used a 256 mb flash drive and an 2gb flash drive. Acronis is not free but if you know where to get it.......
To test the data i played That nano assault wii u eshop game as its entire size is under 100mb i think. game worked from the cloned data just fine.
 
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CrazySquid

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This could explain it. But I would assume that a raw clone/image would copy over the MBR partition format as well. Maybe it depends on what program you're using.

It does, it leaves the USB Pendrive in the same state that the Wii U left it, in other words, it looks the same before formatting the device for the PC use.

The 64GB Pendrive has games on it, the RAW image copy has them and when I format my Pendrive in NTFS and *THEN* I restore it with the image file, the Pendrive recovers everything and the Wii U recognice it and uses it without problems. So, this works fine for backuping and using it with the same device. But, it defeats the purpouse of having a backup to use on other hard drive if the HDD fails (and my HDD is about 8 years old, so well, I'm just looking for some backup solution without having to buy another one for now).

I tried doing the same with my HDD, using the same Pendrive image, and it does not work. I mean, the image it's perfectly fine because it works with my pendrive without problems and the games boot and plays (BoTW works perfect). But not with the HDD, which it makes me think that the Wii U does have keys per-drive and stuff.

Also, note that when you have a HDD with a MRB partition for example, the Wii U will ask for formating, but using my HDD with the Pendrive image doesn't, the Wii U recognice the device and it doesn't prompt for formatting, but also it refuses to use the device and doesn't display the games on it, which in other words means that effectively the Wii U it's doing something to know that a device was cloned, in this case, cloned my Pendrive into my HDD. Ah, and I forgot, if you ask how I know the Wii U recognices my device even if it's formatted, it's because everytime I connect or disconnect my device the Wii U tells me to do it only when the console it's off.

did you try 2 flash drives of different size? Thats what i did because at the time i did not have the drives i do now. I used a 256 mb flash drive and an 2gb flash drive. Acronis is not free but if you know where to get it.......
To test the data i played That nano assault wii u eshop game as its entire size is under 100mb i think. game worked from the cloned data just fine.

Sadly, I don't own 2 64GB Pendrives, so nope. I used my 500GB HDD for that and my 64GB Pendrive, but I doubt it will change a thing if we consider that the Wii U stores the console keys and device keys.
The original device was the 256MB and it was cloned to the 2GB? Unless Acronis does some kind of process to modify the keys the Wii U makes to make it fit to the new device (which it's unlikely) then it's pretty weird that that worked. Being realistic, I doubt that using Acronix here will work, but since you did say it with confidence I'm really curious, so I will give the 30-day trial a shot and use that to see how it goes.
By the by, what version of Acronis are you using?

EDIT: Nah.... I tried using Acronis True Image Home 2019 and it wouldn't even recognice any drive that's formatted by the Wii U.

The only backuping solution that comes to my mind here it's using wfs-fuse, mounting the drive on Linux, and start copying files, but I think that the limitation to this is that the program can only read files, not write, so.... we are still stuck here.
 
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Captain_N

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the version of acronis i was using an older version on windows xp. I dont remember what version it was. i know it was before 2010. The older version used to let you backup any drive. as far as i know it just did a 1:1 sector by sector copy. when i plugged in the 2gb flash drive the wii you still saw it as a 256mb. Acronis cant mess with the sizes because of the encrypted file system.
Perhaps i got lucky with that particular version i was using.
Any program that makes a true image of a drive should work.

Perhaps ill got some experimentation in this age of the covid 19.maybe MiniTool Partition Wizard will work it has a drive clone option i think.
 

The Real Jdbye

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For the record, a version of Acronis is included on Medicat USB. Completely free and legal (it's probably a trial, but because it's on a live USB which doesn't save changes, it never expires)
https://gbatemp.net/threads/medicat-dvd-a-multiboot-linux-dvd.361577/
It does, it leaves the USB Pendrive in the same state that the Wii U left it, in other words, it looks the same before formatting the device for the PC use.

The 64GB Pendrive has games on it, the RAW image copy has them and when I format my Pendrive in NTFS and *THEN* I restore it with the image file, the Pendrive recovers everything and the Wii U recognice it and uses it without problems. So, this works fine for backuping and using it with the same device. But, it defeats the purpouse of having a backup to use on other hard drive if the HDD fails (and my HDD is about 8 years old, so well, I'm just looking for some backup solution without having to buy another one for now).

I tried doing the same with my HDD, using the same Pendrive image, and it does not work. I mean, the image it's perfectly fine because it works with my pendrive without problems and the games boot and plays (BoTW works perfect). But not with the HDD, which it makes me think that the Wii U does have keys per-drive and stuff.

Also, note that when you have a HDD with a MRB partition for example, the Wii U will ask for formating, but using my HDD with the Pendrive image doesn't, the Wii U recognice the device and it doesn't prompt for formatting, but also it refuses to use the device and doesn't display the games on it, which in other words means that effectively the Wii U it's doing something to know that a device was cloned, in this case, cloned my Pendrive into my HDD. Ah, and I forgot, if you ask how I know the Wii U recognices my device even if it's formatted, it's because everytime I connect or disconnect my device the Wii U tells me to do it only when the console it's off.



Sadly, I don't own 2 64GB Pendrives, so nope. I used my 500GB HDD for that and my 64GB Pendrive, but I doubt it will change a thing if we consider that the Wii U stores the console keys and device keys.
The original device was the 256MB and it was cloned to the 2GB? Unless Acronis does some kind of process to modify the keys the Wii U makes to make it fit to the new device (which it's unlikely) then it's pretty weird that that worked. Being realistic, I doubt that using Acronix here will work, but since you did say it with confidence I'm really curious, so I will give the 30-day trial a shot and use that to see how it goes.
By the by, what version of Acronis are you using?

EDIT: Nah.... I tried using Acronis True Image Home 2019 and it wouldn't even recognice any drive that's formatted by the Wii U.

The only backuping solution that comes to my mind here it's using wfs-fuse, mounting the drive on Linux, and start copying files, but I think that the limitation to this is that the program can only read files, not write, so.... we are still stuck here.
I'm just not sure why the extra steps were needed, they don't seem like they would matter.
Oh well, whatever works, I guess.
Files backed up with wfs-fuse can be restored by copying them over FTP with ftpiiu-everywhere. It's a very slow method, but it's the only option, and it works.
 
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CrazySquid

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the version of acronis i was using an older version on windows xp. I dont remember what version it was. i know it was before 2010. The older version used to let you backup any drive. as far as i know it just did a 1:1 sector by sector copy. when i plugged in the 2gb flash drive the wii you still saw it as a 256mb. Acronis cant mess with the sizes because of the encrypted file system.
Perhaps i got lucky with that particular version i was using.
Any program that makes a true image of a drive should work.

Perhaps ill got some experimentation in this age of the covid 19.maybe MiniTool Partition Wizard will work it has a drive clone option i think.
Ah, that's a possibility, didn't try with a version that old, if you manage to get the image backup working again please share it! I will try to use a version of that era to see if at least recognices my HDD, but well, like I said, it does not work for programs like HDD Raw Copy with different devices.

For the record, a version of Acronis is included on Medicat USB. Completely free and legal (it's probably a trial, but because it's on a live USB which doesn't save changes, it never expires)
https://gbatemp.net/threads/medicat-dvd-a-multiboot-linux-dvd.361577/

I'm just not sure why the extra steps were needed, they don't seem like they would matter.
Oh well, whatever works, I guess.
Files backed up with wfs-fuse can be restored by copying them over FTP with ftpiiu-everywhere. It's a very slow method, but it's the only option, and it works.

Yeah... I was aware of FTPiiU, but... it's REALLY slow, and not only that, pretty unstable too. Like, the program + WinSCP will copy at 500KB/s plus lots of retry messages... It's good for managing the SD Card of the Wii U to move small files and that, but copying 400GB+ over FTP at sub MB speeds plus a lot of retry promps? No, thank you lol.
Not trying to be rude there! But really, it's just a pain for me, almost impossible, when I was dumb in the past I "dumped" my Wii U MLC by that method, I guess my MLC weight less than 1GB or around that, and... yes, it was really difficult, FTPiiU was never an option for me, I could consider it if at least the program guarantees no file corruption or messages prompts when copying, so I could just let it work in peace, but sadly that's not the case to me...
Also, doing the math, having a constant 500KB/s speed it would take like 10 days to copy all my stuff :/
 

The Real Jdbye

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Ah, that's a possibility, didn't try with a version that old, if you manage to get the image backup working again please share it! I will try to use a version of that era to see if at least recognices my HDD, but well, like I said, it does not work for programs like HDD Raw Copy with different devices.



Yeah... I was aware of FTPiiU, but... it's REALLY slow, and not only that, pretty unstable too. Like, the program + WinSCP will copy at 500KB/s plus lots of retry messages... It's good for managing the SD Card of the Wii U to move small files and that, but copying 400GB+ over FTP at sub MB speeds plus a lot of retry promps? No, thank you lol.
Not trying to be rude there! But really, it's just a pain for me, almost impossible, when I was dumb in the past I "dumped" my Wii U MLC by that method, I guess my MLC weight less than 1GB or around that, and... yes, it was really difficult, FTPiiU was never an option for me, I could consider it if at least the program guarantees no file corruption or messages prompts when copying, so I could just let it work in peace, but sadly that's not the case to me...
Also, doing the math, having a constant 500KB/s speed it would take like 10 days to copy all my stuff :/
It can help to create a hotspot on the PC, and connect the Wii U directly to it instead of going through the router. Also ensures there are no other devices on the network causing interference.
 

colourspace

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this should work just fine:
Code:
sudo dd if=/dev/sde of=my_backup.img status=progress

afterwards you can compress it with xz or something to save some space. dd works at the block level so it doesn't matter what format it is. restoring it should be a matter of:

Code:
sudo dd if=my_backup.img of=/dev/sde status=progress

be sure you're pointing to the entire drive (/dev/sde) instead of just a partition (/dev/sde1)
 

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