Hacking External Harddrive File-system structure

[Jacoby6000]

I'm about to receive my Wii in the mail (15$ with a broken disk reader ), and I've got everything set up to mod it when it gets here, except for my external HDD. I can't seem to find up-to-date information about the best way to set that up.

Questions:

1. Does it have to be FAT32 like I read everywhere, or do backup loaders work with NTFS (I heard wiiflow does).
2. How should I structure the file system? I've found no information on this... Should Wii, GC, and Data (wads/emulator ROMs) all have their own partition? Or should it all be one large partition with wii games in /wii, gc games in /gc, and everything else in /data? Does it even matter at all?
3. For GC should I use DIOS MIOS, or Nintendont? I'm leaning toward Nintendont because of the audio streaming, but I see mixed reviews on what should be used here.

After I set this up, I plan on making a start-to-finish picture tutorial on how to do each step of the process, from a factory-fresh (software wise) wii, up to playing backups, emulators, and WADed channels via emulated NAND. I've seen a lot of tutorials, but nothing that's start to finish and in detail (with no videos).

 

[nikeymikey]

Right i will try to answer some of your questions.....

1. FAT32 is universally compatible with just about all wii homebrew, it certainly works with all usb loaders. Where as NTFS was an added feature that came quite a while into the wii hacking scene but i believe it is quite well supported now in the usb loaders etc. I personally use FAT32 and have done ever since it was first added to the usb loaders (at first you could only use a wbfs partition, which needed special tools to be read on your pc and was not very stable).

2. How many partitions you need in your hdd is up to you, but if i remember correctly the wii needs to use the first partition and it must also be marked as the primary partition when you format it. I have 1 big FAT32 partition on a 2TB hard drive with everything on it and it has never failed me yet.

3. For GC i would recommend nintendont, i have tried every GC loader thats come about so far and Nintendont has not let down yet, i have dumped my entire GC library (about 45 discs) and nintendont has played them all. I could never get Dios Mios to work consistantly and i didnt like devolution (that needs every disc to be verified before it will play the iso, its only a one time thing but i got bored with doing it). If you have real gc discs then devo is an option, but if you dont then its Nintendont all the way.