Hardware Can a PC read Wii disks?

[Rabbid4240]

Can a PC read Wii (u) disks? I tried and it said theres a disk inserted but I can't open it. Is there a certain disk drive I need? Do I need a certain driver? idk

 

[godreborn]

afaik, wii discs are read in the opposite direction. no idea about a separate driver.

oh, and wii u discs are proprietary bluray discs.

edit: I remember making burns of wii games, but I can't remember how. I think all wii games were the same size with padding. 4.37GBs?

 

[Rabbid4240]

afaik, wii discs are read in the opposite direction. no idea about a separate driver.

oh, and wii u discs are proprietary bluray discs.

edit: I remember making burns of wii games, but I can't remember how. I think all wii games were the same size with padding. 4.37GBs?

So when you put a disk in the wii, it spins the other way?

 

[godreborn]

no, I think it reads from the outside of the disc inward instead of the other way around like a normal dvd. I just remember reading something like that. I have a wiikey v1 inside my wii, so I did burn a lot of discs, but I can't recall the procedure as it's been ages ago and I've since moved on to soft modding.

 

[Lumstar]

Nintendo used modified DVDs for the Gamecube and Wii. (DVD is not their real name)

Only certain PC drives can read them.

 

[Rabbid4240]

Nintendo used modified DVDs for the Gamecube and Wii. (DVD is not their real name)

Only certain PC drives can read them.

dammit.

 

[Deleted User]

You can still dump your Wii disks and play them on an emulator.

 

[Ryccardo]

Yeah, you need a compatible optical drive (usually by LG - they still make an USB one, which is relatively popular with WiiU Nintendont users)

 

[Rabbid4240]

You can still dump your Wii disks and play them on an emulator.

I know, but it's just waaaaaay easier to just put it in the pc.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

If it was that easy, this thread wouldn't exist.

Also WII U disc are not blu-ray.

 

[Cyan]

just for additional information, the disc is not spinning in reverse, nor from external to internal.
the differences are how the data are located on the drive.
even if you could read it (with the LG drive) it will not be usable right away because of it's raw data layout, unless your emulator has been rewritten to understand it. You'll need to convert/unscramble it to a standard ISO9660 format first to be seen as CD/DVD discs by your reader.

https://gbatemp.net/posts/7568936

 

[The Real Jdbye]

just for additional information, the disc is not spinning in reverse, nor from external to internal.
the differences are how the data are located on the drive.
even if you could read it (with the LG drive) it will not be usable right away because of it's raw data layout, unless your emulator has been rewritten to understand it. You'll need to convert/unscramble it to a standard ISO9660 format first to be seen as CD/DVD discs by your reader.

https://gbatemp.net/posts/7568936

Luckily there are tools for that
https://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-unscrambler-gui.207618/ came up when I searched, but I think I used a different one myself. Early on in the Wii days there were some scene releases that weren't "unscrambled" so tools like this were needed to get burned discs to work with a modchip.

 

[Cyan]

Surprisingly, it's the first time I see this GUI O_O
I always known and used the command line unscrambler.
there were different releases, one of the unscrambler version has a bug and converted file ended with few additional bytes you had to delete manually.



Wii single layered :
If it's 4 699 979 776 bytes, it's unscrambled.
If it's 4 700 012 544 bytes, it's unscrambled with unscrambler 0.4 which adds an extra 32 768 bytes to the file (JESUS release)
If it's 4 736 698 368 bytes, it's in raw real 1:1 format and must be unscrambled (often using extension .wii or .bin). funny how this format is the real 1:1 raw dump for historical/archival purpose, and not all existing playable dumps.

Wii double layered :
Unscrambled : 8 511 160 320 bytes
Scrambled : I don't think anyone ever dumped a DVD9 scrambled iso

GameCube :
- GC ISO 1.35 GB : 1 459 978 240 bytes
- Scrambled : no idea which size is the scrambled raw dump.


Edit:
I lost Wii unscrambler binary and sources v0.3, if anyone still has it, please contact me. (I don't think 0.1 or 0.2 was ever publicly released)

 

[GreyWolf]

If it was that easy, this thread wouldn't exist.

Also WII U disc are not blu-ray.

Yes they are. They just don't read video discs.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Yes they are. They just don't read video discs.

Wii u games are not on blu-ray disc. Don't believe me? Look at the wii u game case, and look at a ps3/ps4 game case, All ps3/ps4 game case and even on the disc label have the blu-ray logo on it. None of the wii u game case or disc have that logo on it. They are not blu-ray disc.

 

[Rabbid4240]

fuck it, imma just use cleanrip.

 

[Deleted User]

fuck it, imma just use cleanrip.

Watch that language! lol

 

[GreyWolf]

Wii u games are not on blu-ray disc. Don't believe me? Look at the wii u game case, and look at a ps3/ps4 game case, All ps3/ps4 game case and even on the disc label have the blu-ray logo on it. None of the wii u game case or disc have that logo on it. They are not blu-ray disc.

Yes, they are. They have a 25GB capacity. They just don't use the same filesystem. They don't have a Blu-Ray logo because they don't have to be licensed through the BRDA.

 

[Rabbid4240]

Wii-U disks are blu-ray. But they are also NOT blu-ray. Wii U disks have a 25GB Capacity, the same as blu-ray, but since nintendo can't use the blu-ray logo, it technically isn't blu-ray.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Wii-U disks are blu-ray. But they are also NOT blu-ray. Wii U disks have a 25GB Capacity, the same as blu-ray, but since nintendo can't use the blu-ray logo, it technically isn't blu-ray.

Blu-ray disc can hold up to about 50GB. They aren't blu-ray. That's why the logo isn't on there.