Hacking Computer as USB Drive.

[RadarDL]

Can you use a computer as a usb drive to hook up to your wii.

Reason why I ask is because I have a computer I use to watch movies from the internet right next to my USB drive for the Wii.
Just wondering if I could just remove the USB drive and connect the Wii to my computer and run the games from there. This would save time uploading them to the USB drive.

Radar

 

[XFlak]

Is it possible... probably

will it ever be done... unlikely

 

[Cyan]

Like I already said (but never tried myself, so maybe completely wrong) : On PSP scene, there's a USB Host switcher, to convert the computer from remote USB to USB host.
Check for USBHostFS.
It was (is ?) used to load PSP iso from the computer instead of the MS card. So it needs that the computer doesn't act as a remote to see the files present on the PSP, but the PSP to see the files present on the computer.


I think it also needs a part on the PSP to connect and talk with the host (PC) program, so it might not work on the fly if you use the converter. or maybe it will ? just try

 

[nikeymikey]

Like I already said (but never tried myself, so maybe completely wrong) : On PSP scene, there's a USB Host switcher, to convert the computer from remote USB to USB host.
Check for USBHostFS.
It was (is ?) used to load PSP iso from the computer instead of the MS card. So it needs that the computer doesn't act as a remote to see the files present on the PSP, but the PSP to see the files present on the computer.


I think it also needs a part on the PSP to connect and talk with the host (PC) program, so it might not work on the fly if you use the converter. or maybe it will ? just try

That was a part of IRShell for PSP, best PSP homebrew ever, it's basically a custom system menu. We could have something similar for the wii one day, hopefully......

 

[XFlak]

there is a custom system menu called Freedom... but I don't think its being worked on anymore because sneek is more promising (and Freedom isn't capable of doing what the OP is looking for anyways)

 

[nikeymikey]

I'm surprised that with sneek now working pretty well for most people, that someone hasnt already started work on a proper CSM for the wii. Maybe they have and are just keeping quiet till they have a POC or better.

Come to think of it there was someone on here a while back, it was ages ago actually, who claimed to be working on a CSM that replaced the real sys menu on the nand. But every date he posted for a beta release passed without so much as a "Sorry its not ready yet". IIRC the last thing he said was that he bricked his wiis while testing and was waiting for nintendo to repair them. Seems to have disappeared from GBATemp now tho, cant remember what his name was either.......The CSM thing sounded quite promising too......Oh well......

EDIT : I found the old post about it, his name was for forsaekn. He even had video proof!!! Shame it never got finished!!

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=115813&hl=

 

[Slyakin]

About using it as a USB...? I'm not really sure. You CAN make a partition... But... :\

 

[smf]

Like I already said (but never tried myself, so maybe completely wrong) : On PSP scene, there's a USB Host switcher, to convert the computer from remote USB to USB host.
Check for USBHostFS.
It was (is ?) used to load PSP iso from the computer instead of the MS card. So it needs that the computer doesn't act as a remote to see the files present on the PSP, but the PSP to see the files present on the computer.


I think it also needs a part on the PSP to connect and talk with the host (PC) program, so it might not work on the fly if you use the converter. or maybe it will ? just try

The PSP is always the device, the PC is always the host. When the PC polls the PSP, it can say that it wants to read files.

The Wii is a host, the PC is a host. That gives you a big problem. You can get bridges that sit between two hosts or you could get a usb network card. However that won't make it look like a mass storage device, so you'll need software changes.

Or you could make a custom usb device, which sits between your PC and the Wii.

Then you'd need to write some complicated code that takes the directory you want to mount and on the fly convert it into a file system that the Wii can read. Or you could create a seperate partition.

Pretty much everything is possible, but some things are too expensive and time consuming to bother with. It's much cheaper and easier to buy a drive.

 

[apoptygma]

Linux can do it. Windows doesn't have the drivers.

http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/

 

[Dr. Clipper]

Linux can do it. Windows doesn't have the drivers.

http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/

You'll notice that the very first paragraph states: "Many Linux systems will not be able to use it, since they only have PC-style USB Host (master) hardware in a PC, workstation, or server."

The described system generally only works on embedded Linux environments. That means PDAs and stuff. Laptops and PCs have USB ports that just won't operate in slave mode.

 

[Cyan]

I didn't know it was an USB physical state. I thought it was driver dependent.
It looks like it's more difficult than I thought.


Some devices has both at the same time, right ?
Like Ipod is a remote for the PC, but a Host for digital picture camera.

 

[PsyBlade]

Well you could buy the neccesary hardware.
It is use in development / testing.
But I dont know where to get single ones let alone cheap.

Yes some usb chips can switch between both modes.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Are there external harddrives which permit access from both usb & sata interfaces at the same time? If yes then that could also be a choice.

 

[PsyBlade]

Even if a device allowed this you would corrupt the filesystem.
Unless the fs can handle concurrent access.
But nether ntfs,fat nor wbfs can.

It might be possible to implement this in hardware (like nas) but I doubt someone did (no market imho)

Iirc there are usb "switches" you could hook up to a normal enclosure.
Thats not "at the same time" but maybe its good enough?

 

[WiiCrazy]

@PsyBlade : Concurrency may not be a problem if say it allowed read only access from usb and read/write access from sata interface.. still my searches yielded no results for such a product.

 

[PsyBlade]

Not exactly in rw+ro the fs would be fine but the ro side could still read garbage.
Only ro+ro woud be safe but not exactly usefull in most circumstances.
And I dont know if you can mount a device ro on Wii or Windows

 

[raulpica]

Are there external harddrives which permit access from both usb & sata interfaces at the same time? If yes then that could also be a choice.

I've got one of these HD external cases where I work, which sport both a eSATA interface and a USB interface. I wonder if they can work at the same time.

As soon as I'll have a SATA HD to try it with, I might buy one.

EDIT: Even better, I've got a lot of scrap SATA HDs with bad blocks that I might sacrifice to the cause. Well, I'll buy the box asap and start experimenting with it soon, then.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Not exactly in rw+ro the fs would be fine but the ro side could still read garbage.
Only ro+ro woud be safe but not exactly usefull in most circumstances.
And I dont know if you can mount a device ro on Wii or Windows

Yes that's true, but it could be rare that wii side needs to read the garbage data... it would be meaningless trying to play a game that is currently being copied to the drive. Anyway, not feasible. Also it's questionable if such a box can differntiate between write accesses and read accesses... it should be a complex one to do that.

 

[smf]

Some devices has both at the same time, right ?
Like Ipod is a remote for the PC, but a Host for digital picture camera.

Some devices can switch, they can't be both at the same time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go

QUOTE(WiiCrazy @ May 6 2010, 07:46 PM) Are there external harddrives which permit access from both usb & sata interfaces at the same time? If yes then that could also be a choice.

There aren't. If you want access to the hard drive from the wii and the pc then running ftpii on the wii is probably the best you can hope for.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Are there external harddrives which permit access from both usb & sata interfaces at the same time? If yes then that could also be a choice.

There aren't. If you want access to the hard drive from the wii and the pc then running ftpii on the wii is probably the best you can hope for.

Well I'm happy with my configuration, we are just brainstorming about the @Op's question. And the actual request is not "accessing the drive connected to the wii" but accessing the drive connected to the pc. Or both...