Hardware HDD still works on Wii, but can't connect to PC

[Joker649]

Hi Guys,

I'm really hoping someone can help me with this.

I have a 1TB HDD that I set up years ago with 1 WBFS partition and 1 FAT32 partition.
I have a couple hundred games on the WBFS side and backed up pics on my FAT32 side

Oddly enough the Wii will still read the games and play them. But I can not get it to connect to my PC on either partition using wbfs manager and just windows

I really don't want to format this drive as none of the games are backed up.

I'm not convinced my son didn't hook it to a Wii U at some point, but like I say the games still work on the Wii.

Any ideas? Any utility anyone can think of to try?

Joker

 

[godreborn]

Check disk management.

 

[Alexander1970]

Hello.

Hi Guys,

I'm really hoping someone can help me with this.

I have a 1TB HDD that I set up years ago with 1 WBFS partition and 1 FAT32 partition.
I have a couple hundred games on the WBFS side and backed up pics on my FAT32 side

Oddly enough the Wii will still read the games and play them. But I can not get it to connect to my PC on either partition using wbfs manager and just windows

I really don't want to format this drive as none of the games are backed up.

I'm not convinced my son didn't hook it to a Wii U at some point, but like I say the games still work on the Wii.

Any ideas? Any utility anyone can think of to try?

Joker

The wbfs Format can not be read from Windows,only the WiiBackup Manager has access on this Drive.

- plug in the HDD on your PC please
- Ignore the "Format Warning !!" please
- open the WiiBackup Manager (I presume you have used WBFS Manager before..)
- select the Drive Letter from your HDD.
- WiiBackup Manager lists now your Games

If you do not know the Drive Letter,please open -> Pc Management -> -Disk Management
There should be your Drive listed (it should be listed as RAW)


Good Luck
Thank you.

 

[godreborn]

I'm going to assume the wbfs partition will show up as unallocated memory, but the fat32 partition should be there.

 

[Joker649]

both drives show up when i plug the HDD in, but ask to be formatted so I ignore that obviously.

both partitions show up as unallocated memory

I have tried both wbfs manager and wii backup manager and both won't recognize either drive. I even tried running an win xp on a virtual machine with the same results.

 

[godreborn]

it's probably the wbfs partition causing the problem. it must think it needs to be formatted because it's unallocated memory. select no, then go into disk management and make the fat32 partition the primary partition. that might work.

 

[Joker649]

well either is showing as FAT32 in disk management and I honestly can't remember how I originally set it up lol

is there anyway to use a wii app to pull the games off to another USB?

 

[godreborn]

never heard of such an app. the wii's data port is usually only one port on the back, so I don't know how that would work.

 

[Joker649]

Well lets say my son hooked it to his Wii U at some point and it did some kind of weird lock on it. do you have any insight to how that Wii U format lock thing works?

Maybe he did a format on the FAT32 partition, and that locked the wbfs partition some how?

I never really messed with the Wii U so I have no experience with this lock I've read in various posts (and he sold it so I don't even have one to plug it into anymore)

 

[godreborn]

Well lets say my son hooked it to his Wii U at some point and it did some kind of weird lock on it. do you have any insight to how that Wii U format lock thing works?

Maybe he did a format on the FAT32 partition, and that locked the wbfs partition some how?

I never really messed with the Wii U so I have no experience with this lock I've read in various posts (and he sold it so I don't even have one to plug it into anymore)

Ustealth?

 

[duwen]

Ustealth?

That's exactly what I thought too.

 

[Joker649]

just being lazy here.. but what does that mean? Is there a way to turn it off (or on) on my drive?

 

[duwen]

the ustealth thread is here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/ustealth-wii-u-format-disk-nag-workaround.352786/

 

[Joker649]

it see the drive, but ..."You cannot make changes to unknown boot sector type"

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[jeannotte]

I have a 1TB HDD that I set up years ago with 1 WBFS partition and 1 FAT32 partition.
I have a couple hundred games on the WBFS side and backed up pics on my FAT32 side

Hello,

you can convert WBFS external hard drive to FAT32, using this tool (wbfs2fat) ==>https://gbatemp.net/threads/wbfs2fat-py.291320/

wbfs2fat convert partitions to FAT32 ==> So your PC will read the partition which was converted to fat32.

At the time my external hard drive was in wbfs format, so I used this tool, and it worked great for me.

 

[Joker649]

thanks for the help guys but no go. I'm thinking the one of the partition maybe got locked with a wii U. It still works on my wii just can't connect with a PC, my pictures are gone (they were on the FAT32 side of the drive). Anyone ever stumbles along this thread and knows of a way to pull stuff off an external USB drive to a the SD card let me know. thanks

 

[raxadian]

Have you tried using Linux? Fatdog Puppy Linux maybe will be able to read your hard disk.