Hacking endless struggle with the sd card

[gir-posting]

recently i homebrewed my wii - everything was completely successful and i was able to get it how i wanted it. in the initial process i decided to use a super small sd card instead of shelling out for a bigger one - not sure why, i think i may be stupid or something.
(at the very least i stand by using one instead of an hdd because i'm not made of cash and i don't find it necessary - the console has a perfectly good sd slot, and i have usb sticks that can read micro sd cards.)

once i realized how small it was i just tried to copy everything over to a bigger one. that seems to be my mistake, though - after that, usb loader gx stopped being able to recognize any game files. when i put the sd card into a usb converter and put it into port 0, usb loader gx hangs on "reinitializing devices" forever and forces me to have to hard reset. when i put it into the sd card slot, it forces itself into channel view mode because it doesn't recognize the device. using wiiflow lite instead isn't an option either, because for the life of me i can't get it to work. it hangs on a black screen without even loading the icon animation and then quits back to the homebrew menu.

none of the fixes i've been trying have worked. i'm starting to worry that the issue is the card itself, which is confusing because it seems to work perfectly fine. i'd try using a different one, but part of me is concerned that swapping the cards is what started causing all the problems to begin with. should i throw in the towel and start over from scratch, childhood miis be damned? (savegame manager gx is throwing a fit too.) any input on this would be super appreciated. thanks!!

 

[JuanMena]

You saying you using one of those "SD to USB" thingies?
How large is your SD?
32GB should work on the go in either USB adaptor or SD card adaptor.

BUT if SD is larger than 32GB you have to format it to 32k Cluster Size and MBR Boot Partition.
Wii doesn't like GPT Boot Partition

 

[gir-posting]

You saying you using one of those "SD to USB" thingies?

yep. plug an sd card into it and it functions as a usb stick the one i have has two slots, one for a full sized one and one for micro

How large is your SD?
32GB should work on the go in either USB adaptor or SD card adaptor.

BUT if SD is larger than 32GB you have to format it to 32k Cluster Size and MBR Boot Partition.
Wii doesn't like GPT Boot Partition

the new one is only 16gb, but im not sure which partition im using. i'll check that in a bit and report back. here's hoping that's the problem. thanks so much for the input!

 

[JuanMena]

It's also very likely to be a defective adapter.
So if you rule out your SD being on the wrong boot partition (very unlikely) I'd blame the adapter.

Simply use the Wii's front SD Reader to load your backups.
"But USB LOADER GX won't load some games"
Then change to CFG USB Loader... don't overcomplicate things that can be fixed easily.

 

[gir-posting]

nope, partition format was the whole problem!! turns out when i yanked this sd card from something else and then swapped it back out, making it a MBR was the one thing i forgot to do.

i would've never thought to check that if i didn't ask. thank you so much for your help!!

 

[JuanMena]

Okay. Glad you fixed your issue.

Consider repurposing an old Laptop's 2.5HDD, remember to format it to MBR and 32k Cluster Size. RUFUS can do the job just fine.

It's a nice inversion, 320GB will do just fine, if you're interested in including 90% of Wii, GCN, PS1, Arcade and Retro games, consider 500GB.

 

[tmnr1992]

nope, partition format was the whole problem!! turns out when i yanked this sd card from something else and then swapped it back out, making it a MBR was the one thing i forgot to do.

i would've never thought to check that if i didn't ask. thank you so much for your help!!

A couple things to consider:

• USB flash drives tend to die very quickly if used to load Wii and/or GameCube games (I would assume the same applies to an sd card connected through a USB adapter), use a HDD or SSD intstead.
• USB Loader GX is the most up to date backup loader, so it's the best one to use. It can load games from SD, last time I tried it not all games worked, but a test version was released a few days ago, so it may have improved.