Hacking Have tried everything - USB Loader GX: "USB Device not initialized. Switching to channel list mode

[mfish]

I know this issue comes up a lot and I've tried many troubleshooting steps and read several other threads concerning this issue without success.

I have a standard Wii running 4.3U firmware.

I am using a usb y cable and have actually tried 2 different ones from different brands. I have the data cable on port 0 and power cable on port 1.

I have tried with 2 different external hard drives. Both are formatted to FAT 32 using guiformat. I am using an MBR partition. Cluster size is 64 kb.

One hard drive is a 1 TB Western Digital wdc wd10jpvx-22jc3t0 running in a basic Insignia NS PCHD235 enclosure. The other is a 3 TB Toshiba HDTb330XK3CA which the model # for this enclosure comes with this 3TB drive inside. Knowing that 2 TB is the FAT 32 limit this 1 has a primary partition that is 1.99 TB where I have loaded the apps and games. The 2nd partition has no data on it and uses the remaining usable space left on the drive (slightly less than 1 TB). I realize 2 partitions is a no-no and realize that my be the reason the 3 TB Toshiba drive may not work.

Homebrew is installed and working. For my IOS installations I followed this guide: https://wii.guide/cios.html and believe I did it right.

I have tried running USB Loader GX on the sd card and running USB Loader GX on the hard drive and still get the same error message.

The best I've been able to achieve so far is I can get Wiiflow to work using game ios 249 with the games on the SD card if that may give any clues. But I really want to get away from Wiiflow and store the games and run them off an external hard drive.

Below are my syscheck results. I'm not sure what else to try. Any suggestions? Thanks!

SysCheck ME v2.5.0 by blackb0x	JoostinOnline	Double_A	R2-D2199 and Nano
...runs on IOS58 (rev 6176).
Region: NTSC-U
System Menu 4.3U (v513)
Drive date: 02.13.2007
Homebrew Channel 1.1.2 running on IOS58
Hollywood v0x11
Console ID: 109942751
Console Type: Wii
Shop Channel Country: United States (49)
Boot2 v4
Found 85 titles.
Found 48 IOS on this console. 15 of them are stubs.
IOS4 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS9 (rev 1034): No Patches
IOS10 (rev 768): Stub
IOS11 (rev 256): Stub
IOS12 (rev 526): No Patches
IOS13 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS14 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS15 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS16 (rev 512): Stub
IOS17 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS20 (rev 256): Stub
IOS21 (rev 1039): No Patches
IOS22 (rev 1294): No Patches
IOS28 (rev 1807): No Patches
IOS30 (rev 2816): Stub
IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS33 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS34 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS35 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS36 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS37 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS38 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS40 (rev 3072): Stub
IOS41 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS43 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS45 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS46 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS48 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS50 (rev 5120): Stub
IOS51 (rev 4864): Stub
IOS52 (rev 5888): Stub
IOS53 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS57 (rev 5919): No Patches
IOS58 (rev 6176): USB 2.0
IOS60 (rev 6400): Stub
IOS61 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS62 (rev 6430): No Patches
IOS70 (rev 6912): Stub
IOS80 (rev 6944): No Patches
IOS222 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS223 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS248[38] (rev 65535	Info: d2x-v11beta1): Trucha Bug	ES Identify	NAND Access
IOS249[56] (rev 65535	Info: d2x-v11beta1): Trucha Bug	NAND Access	USB 2.0
IOS250[57] (rev 65535	Info: d2x-v11beta1): Trucha Bug	NAND Access	USB 2.0
IOS251[58] (rev 65535	Info: d2x-v11beta1): Trucha Bug	NAND Access	USB 2.0
IOS254 (rev 65280): Stub
BC v6
MIOS v10
Report generated on 12/01/2023.

 

[Ouaz]

Did you try to manually mount the HDD in ULGX?

Once ULGX boots to channel mode, go to Settings, in one of the tab (I don't remember which one), the first line is "Game/Install Partition". Click on it, and wait a few seconds.

If the FAT32 partition is OK, it will appear.
Then go back, to the main screen, and enable the display of Wii games in the upper menu (4th icon).

If it works that way, you can set "Mount USB at launch" to off (to shorten ULGX launch), and mount manually the HDD each time.

For some reason, ULGX does not detect some HDD at launch (even if the HDD is "ready" to be mounted).
It's also my case with a simple 500GB, 2 partitions, one FAT32 and one NTFS. It reads both and plays game from them with no problem, only if I mount the HDD manually.

EDIT: of course, keep running ULGX from the SD Card.

 

[mfish]

Did you try to manually mount the HDD in ULGX?

Once ULGX boots to channel mode, go to Settings, in one of the tab (I don't remember which one), the first line is "Game/Install Partition". Click on it, and wait a few seconds.

If the FAT32 partition is OK, it will appear.
Then go back, to the main screen, and enable the display of Wii games in the upper menu (4th icon).

If it works that way, you can set "Mount USB at launch" to off (to shorten ULGX launch), and mount manually the HDD each time.

For some reason, ULGX does not detect some HDD at launch (even if the HDD is "ready" to be mounted).
It's also my case with a simple 500GB, 2 partitions, one FAT32 and one NTFS. It reads both and plays game from them with no problem, only if I mount the HDD manually.

EDIT: of course, keep running ULGX from the SD Card.

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually have already tried this. I go into the hard drive settings and then click on the setting you indicated and it does show that the hard drive is not initialized. If I click on this then basically USB loader GX freezes.


The pointer is still responsive to where I point on the screen but if after trying this I then go and point at the back button and tap a it's unresponsive so I essentially get stuck in the hard drive menu. Then I just end up having to physically hold down the power button on the Wii to turn it off and then turn it back on.

 

[Ouaz]

Ach... If it freezes, maybe it's due to the use of an Y-cable. It is generally advised to use HDDs with an external power supply, especially with the Wii.

Guiformat could have also poorly formatted to FAT32. I used it too, and if the FAT32 partition is detected by ULGX, it isn't by Nintendont.
I'll come with a more developped answer about that later today (typing a long answer from the phone is not ideal ^^).

Finally, I see nothing wrong with the IOS installation, but I let someone else more comptent on this subject, give his opinion.

 

[jeannotte]

I have tried with 2 different external hard drives. Both are formatted to FAT 32 using guiformat. I am using an MBR partition. Cluster size is 64 kb.

Good morning,

did you test with the 32kb cluster base??

Recommended ==> are you using "wii backup manager" to manage your games on the external hard drive??

 

[mfish]

Thanks for the additional suggestions.

I found out my buddy hacked his wii and his setup works. He has his games on a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 9ZQ2P5-500 2 TB drive and his is formatted to NTFS.

His apps are on his SD card.

I tried USB Loader GX on his SD Card with his external hard drive on my wii and everything worked perfectly with no additional messing around with settings.

I then tried his SD card with both of my external drives and got the same error with the same settings that worked with his hard drive.

So the only variable is the hard drive. This particular Seagate drive uses a separate AC power supply so that may be why it works.

I'm going to try my drives formatted to NTFS to see if that does the trick. Hopefully it does.

If not, I'm just going to bite the bullet and buy a known working hard drive. I may just try to find the same Seagate drive he has. Looks like it's out of production. I can get the drive used on Ebay for $45 + around $25 for the AC adapter so $70 total.

Or if I'm already going to have to shell out some dough I may just search the forums for known working 2 TB SSD drives and spend a little more to get the extra SSD speed. Pretty sure my buddy's Seagate is just a plain old 5,400 rpm mechanical drive.


***** SOLVED *******:

Update - Long story short, with leaving all settings on the Wii and SD cards apps the same and using the same USB Y cable, I just used the windows convert tool via command prompt to convert the Toshiba drive to NTFS. I didn't even bother with messing with the 2 partitions that are on there and left it with 2 partitions.

Plugged it in to the Wii, loaded up USB Loader GX and boom it started working and all my games are accessible and I tested a few and they play fine.

Maybe I'm an outlier but it kind of baffles me that so many of the troubleshooting tips here push for FAT32. Maybe older versions of USB Loader GX only worked with FAT32.

Any way you slice it, I'm happy I got it working.