Hardware Found a way to convert WBFS to FAT?

[PsyBlade]

Everyone always says the is no way to convert WBFS to FAT

is there any reason why something like this wont work

wwt - trunkate wbfs fs
parted - shrink wbfs part to minimum
parted - create new fat part+fs in now free space
while games on wbfs
ÂÂwhile free space on fat
ÂÂÂÂselect last game from wbfs
ÂÂÂÂwwt - extract+rm game
ÂÂwwt - trunkate wbfs fs
ÂÂparted - shrink wbfs part to minimum
ÂÂparted - grow fat part+fs to maximum
parted - rm wbfs part
parted - grow fat part+fs to maximum

I woulnt want do do it by hand but as a script I fail to see a problem

 

[toejam316]

Because playing with partitions isn't something that is encouraged when they have data on them.
How many times do you expect to do it?

 

[PsyBlade]

Because playing with partitions isn't something that is encouraged when they have data on them.
How many times do you expect to do it?

cant say how many resizes (dependent on the fragmentation of the wbfs games and free space)
2*usedSpace/freeSpace maybe
I dont know how the fat resize is implemented in parted but I think it could be quite fast

it might be dangerous and copying via temp space is of course preferable
but not everyone has that possibility
if your only alternative is reripping everything I expect it to take less time, less interaction and no risk

 

[luckwii]

Couldn't you just get a second external drive, format it to FAT32, and manually transfer your files over? I have 2 external drives, one for running use, and one as a redundant backup. It is a good idea to backup your backups a second time. What happens if your first drive fails and you loose all data? If you are running the external drive a lot on the Wii and computer, it is only a matter of time...

 

[PsyBlade]

Couldn't you just get a second external drive, format it to FAT32, and manually transfer your files over? I have 2 external drives, one for running use, and one as a redundant backup. It is a good idea to backup your backups a second time. What happens if your first drive fails and you loose all data? If you are running the external drive a lot on the Wii and computer, it is only a matter of time...
QUOTE(PsyBlade @ Jul 6 2010, 12:28 PM) it might be dangerous and copying via temp space is of course preferable
but not everyone has that possibility
if your only alternative is reripping everything I expect it to take less time, less interaction and no risk

I dont even use wbfs any more.
And I wont have it back.

Its only that
-ppl keep askin for this
-other ppl say not possible
-it interested me as a small intellectual challenge

I think the solution is simple
yet no one implemented it
so I wondered if there is a error in it

btw
while the chance of hdd failure is very real
"only a matter of time" is a bit of a stretch imho
I run 8 drives in a PC with at least 4 years of almost daily usage
none of which failed

 

[oggzee]

PsyBlade, for what is worth i think your proposal would work. But it would probably be rather slow. Problem is with parted: each time it moves the start of a partition it will also move all the data. So if the resize will be done 5 times, a half of data will be copied 5 times more. Also there's a lot of seeking on the drive involved which will further slow down the operation. If the data is copied to a different drive it will mostly be a linear operation and will be many times faster than this shuffling. Besides I would expect the whole procedure to be quite fragile in case it is interrupted in the middle - all will be corrupted. All in all not worth the hassle.

 

[PsyBlade]

PsyBlade, for what is worth i think your proposal would work. But it would probably be rather slow. Problem is with parted: each time it moves the start of a partition it will also move all the data. So if the resize will be done 5 times, a half of data will be copied 5 times more. Also there's a lot of seeking on the drive involved which will further slow down the operation. If the data is copied to a different drive it will mostly be a linear operation and will be many times faster than this shuffling. Besides I would expect the whole procedure to be quite fragile in case it is interrupted in the middle - all will be corrupted. All in all not worth the hassle.

Are you sure that gparted moves the whole data?
That would be a problem of course.
I thought it might just update the fat itself with the new sector numbers.
They are not exactly hard to compute, its only adding the number of additional sectors to all existing entries.

 

[MandL]

this looks like it would work to me, but it would require a few Defrags just to be safe

 

[oggzee]

Are you sure that gparted moves the whole data?
That would be a problem of course.
I thought it might just update the fat itself with the new sector numbers.
They are not exactly hard to compute, its only adding the number of additional sectors to all existing entries.

That's what I experienced. I also expected it would leave the data in position and just update the tables but that didn't happen instead it moved everything. However I can be wrong, maybe there's some new version or option that i haven't tried. So to be sure, you'll just have to do your own testing, if you're interested...

 

[Gabelvampir]

If parted is to slow for you use another similar tool that's faster. I think parted was just an example in his proposed method, at least it doesn't look like an integral part to it.