Hardware Can you make a Wii U Partition?

[McHaggis]

I think the drive will be encrypted. Otherwise you could use a data recovery tool like testdisk to get some of the data from the drive.

 

[PsyBlade]

probably yes
but that doesn't matter at all for the purpose of this thread, creating other partitions to hold different data

 

[KDH]

Well I've finished the teasting, at least as far as I could. The Wii U refuses to use any drive that has HPA enabled. Guess that settles that. It also deletes the GPT backup from the end of the disk.

 

[PsyBlade]

Thats certainly a problem but there is something else that you could try:

Format a small drive on the WiiUand dd it over a larger one

 

[KDH]

I thought of trying that the other day, but I don't have any smaller drives. The one I'm actually using for the Wii U and the one I just tested are the same size, and I unfortunately don't have a USB SD card reader. Never thought I'd need one again after I built one into my computer.

EDIT: Hold on a second, I might have something that could work....

EDIT2: Alright, I formatted an old android phone's internal memory with the Wii U, made sure it still worked after a few reboots of both the Wii U and the phone, and dd'd the image to my testing HDD. It's a new result, but not a good one. The Wii U just ignores it. Doesn't let you use it, doesn't say it needs to be formatted.

I have another Idea to try however, so I'll report back on that in a few minutes.

 

[PsyBlade]

Well I think I'm out of ideas then.

Additionally I consider this to be fully intentional, I see simply no other reason to block drives with a HPA.
That would mean any workaround discovered would probably be blocked too.

Last shred of hope is probably REing WiiUfs to the extend of being able to store custom files.
Might prove too much work and might be impossible till the WiiU is hacked.
And it would mean needing programs like those wbfs managers again - urgh.

 

[KDH]

Actually I was wrong earlier. It doesn't block drives with HPA, it DOES block GPT drives where it can't find the backup table (since it needs to delete it I guess) and ignores drives that go beyond it's own partition table (yes, I was wrong about that too, parted, gdisk, and fdisk just don't differentiate between "unknown" and "none", dmesg had to set me straight there). So there you have it. If you have tools that can mount a partition using only the backup GPT table without restoring it you can have a Wii U "partition" by following these steps:

1. create GPT partition table across the entire disk
2. create a partition at the end of the disk
3. find out how many sectors that partition has
4. find out how many sectors the disk has
5. subtract partition sectors from disk sectors
6. set up HPA using the result from step 5 + ~100 (eg: hdparm -N pSTEP_5_RESULT+100 --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing TARGET_HDD)
7. create a BRAND NEW GPT table across the now accessible area of the disk
8. plug the drive into the Wii U and let it format the disk

Congratulations, you're done. You now have a way to use the same HDD on your computer and your Wii U. Just temporarily remove the HPA every time you plug it into the computer. Personally though, I think it's more trouble than it's worth when you can find good 500GB HDDs for as low as $30 at walmart, but that's how to do it, assuming you have the right tools.

 

[PsyBlade]

what does happen if you remove the HPA and attatch it to the WiiU after these steps?
(after the fail with copieing the drive it probably won't work but lets be sure)

step 7 can probably be replaced by removing the MBR + main part table
eg dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=1M count=10

if the permanent lifting of the HPA does not work the temporary lifting can be coded into whatever wants to read the drive
(eg wii HB or the tool (to be created) that is needed to read it on windows,
on linux it could simply be put into a udev script that automatically executed on plugin)
this is more about proving the concept

 

[KDH]

what does happen if you remove the HPA and attatch it to the WiiU after these steps?
(after the fail with copieing the drive it probably won't work but lets be sure)

step 7 can probably be replaced by removing the MBR + main part table
eg dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=1M count=10

if the permanent lifting of the HPA does not work the temporary lifting can be coded into whatever wants to read the drive
(eg wii HB or the tool (to be created) that is needed to read it on windows,
on linux it could simply be put into a udev script that automatically executed on plugin)
this is more about proving the concept

It ignores it. That's the first thing I tried.

And yeah, any sort of complete erasure of the boot area will work for step 7, that's just the first way I thought to do it.

I really wish I had a brand new never partitioned disk to test with so I could be absolutely certain, but I looked at the HDD with testdisk and it's possible that the Wii U isn't using a custom file system, just a custom partition table. Unfortunately I've partitioned and re-partitioned both disks so often It could just be picking up an old one. I'm not familiar enough with testdisk to to know.

 

[PsyBlade]

you could use dd to completely overwrite it with zeros
thats what a new drive (should) look like

 

[KDH]

Alright i have testdisk analyzing an HDD I zeroed and formatted with the Wii U, but didn't put any Wii U data on. If that turns up negative I'll copy something over and see how that goes.

In the meantime, I have some more information about drive requirements:

The Wii U ignores any drive that doesn't at least have a partition table, even if there are no partitions on it. So zeroing it out won't work for step 7 in my instructions above. Just a little more info, but it's all I've got for now.

 

[crono141]

I have a basic question. When you connect a regular, say, fat32 or ntfs drive to the wiiu, does it automatically promp to format, or do you have to manually go into settings to format. I'm wondering for future vWii purposes.

 

[KDH]

It automatically prompts you to do it, but you can cancel and continue on to the Wii U menu without actually doing it. It will prompt every time though.

 

[KDH]

Well, it finished. Looks like testdisk was just picking up the remnants of and old partition, the Wii U uses a proprietary file system as well. And it looks like it encrypts everything, even the partition table and filesystem. Assuming the Linux kernel isn't mistaking raw data at the very beginning of the disk for a partition table. Is that possible? I'm not an expert on these things by any means, I'm just reading what's given to me in plain text. Thinking about it, I suppose all my tests have really PROVEN are a few states the disk can't be in before the Wii U can or will use it.

 

[crono141]

That's unfortunate. There aren't too many things I plan on downloading, though. It might become more of an issue once (and if) WiiUmode gets hacked, but for now I guess I'll stick to buying discs for most games.

 

[PsyBlade]

From a scientific POV disproving is actually as useful as proving, and you have disproved a lot of my early ideas about this. Thank to all this testing I now plan to write the (linux) software to make using a partitioned WiiU drive almost as easy as using an normal harddrive. With this and it's docs other coders should be able to write software that can do the same on windows, Wii, WiiU-Wii-mode or whatever. I think at least some people should find that useful.

 

[LAA]

Any new progress on this? I'm confused if the steps above can work or not?
I wonder if the Wii U special format can be discovered, then we should just be capable of creating 2 partitions, one for use on our PC's and one for use on our Wii U right? Similar to how WBFS manager can work?

 

[KDH]

Any new progress on this? I'm confused if the steps above can work or not?
I wonder if the Wii U special format can be discovered, then we should just be capable of creating 2 partitions, one for use on our PC's and one for use on our Wii U right? Similar to how WBFS manager can work?

No. The only way you will ever be able to make partitions on a Wii U hard disk without using HPA is if the Wii U can A) be hacked and B) be modified in such a way that it won't ignore HDDs where it's own file system isn't both the only one present and taking up the entire (visible area of the) disk.

I guess Nintendo could also release an update that allows it, negating the need for the Wii U to be hacked, but why should they? It already works exactly as they intended, and the only LEGITIMATE reason people are whining about it in regard to the Wii U and not the PS3/360 is that in the Wii U's case the drive is external, and therefore people expect to be able to use it with multiple devices.

 

[PsyBlade]

why to it without hpa?
instead the plan is to write software that autmatically sets/unsets hpa as needed

 

[Scuba156]

From a scientific POV disproving is actually as useful as proving, and you have disproved a lot of my early ideas about this. Thank to all this testing I now plan to write the (linux) software to make using a partitioned WiiU drive almost as easy as using an normal harddrive. With this and it's docs other coders should be able to write software that can do the same on windows, Wii, WiiU-Wii-mode or whatever. I think at least some people should find that useful.

If you have the technique working, I could easily write a windows based app to do this when I have the time