Hacking ** How To Make Any HDD Compatible With USB Loader For Dummies **

[Pyrofyr]

Gentlemen.

I have done it, and it has worked fine.

Using what I said above, just make sure you close down the program you're using to format it before you try formatting it in WBFS Manager, or it'll give you some error of still being in use

Now I just have to mess around with getting all my stuff on there, and getting devkitpro to work for me (It refuses to work properly through Programmer's Notepad D:;]

 

[BIG MOE]

good for you buddy , now enjoy it and good luck with Devkitpro

 

[pnice]

So what are these HDD's connected with ? I was of the understanding that it's the USB chipset of what you're connecting with that issue's arise with, not the logic board of HDD's .?

That's what I'm thinking. I have an older USB DVD drive that I took apart so I could easily hook up any IDE hard drive to it and plug it in. It's worked like a champ for as long as I've had it and windows always see the drive plugged into it as a removable drive. I've tried three different hard drives (Seagate, WD and Maxtor) that I had laying around and none of them will work for me. It gets into the loader and shows the message about "initializing the drive (30 second timeout)" and it will not do anything after that. I doubt that all three HDs I've tried won't work. I think it's the usb adapter that I'm using.

 

[Pyrofyr]

You've followed the guide to the tooth and still have problems? Every time I had problems they were fixed by later realizations that I strayed from the guide.

The only difference being that you don't need FAT32 (Unless you want to do something like I do and make partitions)

Just quick format to NTFS and make that a WBFS.

You probably want to HARD format first to NTFS if you had data previously on the drive.

 

[madnlooney]

when i have my hitatchi drive attached im sure i get spin down as it seems to freeze the loader. when i download covers the download screen pops up but stays at 0%. i can move the pointer but thats it. Also when i load a game it gives me a black screen with all ive tried. i cant find a hard drive too to change the spin down to 0. anyone have one for hitatchi 2.5" drive?

 

[BIG MOE]

when i have my hitatchi drive attached im sure i get spin down as it seems to freeze the loader. when i download covers the download screen pops up but stays at 0%. i can move the pointer but thats it. Also when i load a game it gives me a black screen with all ive tried. i cant find a hard drive too to change the spin down to 0. anyone have one for hitatchi 2.5" drive?

someone had mentioned a generic tool somewhere on the forum , search it out

 

[eteles]

Hello! People with HDD enclosures problem, just buy this OMATA enclosure on ebay for 2.5" sata hard drives.
This one works perfectly for me:

http://cgi.ebay.com/OMATA-Black-SATA-USB-2...3%3A1|294%3A200

It will make any hard drive be recognized as a gerenic USB storage device and will work on the wii with no issues whatsoever.
If the link expires, the enclosure is the OMATA one that has a red fire-like graphic on the top of it, with white side...

Hope it helps!

 

[jovanah]

Hello! People with HDD enclosures problem, just buy this OMATA enclosure on ebay for 2.5" sata hard drives.
This one works perfectly for me:

http://cgi.ebay.com/OMATA-Black-SATA-USB-2...3%3A1|294%3A200

It will make any hard drive be recognized as a gerenic USB storage device and will work on the wii with no issues whatsoever.
If the link expires, the enclosure is the OMATA one that has a red fire-like graphic on the top of it, with white side...

Hope it helps!

Hmm i think i might have to get me one of those and hope it works. I've tried a few different SATA enclosures that didn't work

 

[BIG MOE]

thanks for the info

and if others try it please post back to see how good is it

 

[jovanah]

Hello! People with HDD enclosures problem, just buy this OMATA enclosure on ebay for 2.5" sata hard drives.
This one works perfectly for me:

http://cgi.ebay.com/OMATA-Black-SATA-USB-2...3%3A1|294%3A200

It will make any hard drive be recognized as a gerenic USB storage device and will work on the wii with no issues whatsoever.
If the link expires, the enclosure is the OMATA one that has a red fire-like graphic on the top of it, with white side...

Hope it helps!

just purchased the item, Once it comes in i will test the 2 different sata drive i have and post back here the results *fringer crossed*

On another note i tested a IDE enclousre Enclosure info with a Toshiba 80gb and a fujitsu 20gb 2.5" drive (dont have HD details on hand)

The 80gb drive would detect not most of the games would freeze when i go to load them.
The 20gb drive would only detected if i used the usb cable and usb power cable that came with the enclosure, if i use any other cable it wont detect.

It make me wounder if the compabily is not just relating to the enlousre.

 

[Midnightzak]

Just purchased a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB External HDD and so far it is working just fine with the USB Loader, so limit isn't 1TB. (Didn't read through 8 pages to see if anyone already tried this...)

1GB Fat32 - 500GB WBFS - 896GB NTFS

 

[jovanah]

Hello! People with HDD enclosures problem, just buy this OMATA enclosure on ebay for 2.5" sata hard drives.
This one works perfectly for me:

http://cgi.ebay.com/OMATA-Black-SATA-USB-2...3%3A1|294%3A200

It will make any hard drive be recognized as a gerenic USB storage device and will work on the wii with no issues whatsoever.
If the link expires, the enclosure is the OMATA one that has a red fire-like graphic on the top of it, with white side...

Hope it helps!

Hi Guys
I can second this one, received the item today and tested it with my WD 320gb sata drive that wouldn't work with my other enclosure. The Wii detected this enclosure first go.

 

[techker]

hey guys when i try to format it it says exFAT then you chose the kilobytes?

is that ok?and if i do it when i plug it in the usb louncher says no wfbs found need to format.so if i format,my pc dont reconize it?

 

[BIG MOE]

hey guys when i try to format it it says exFAT then you chose the kilobytes?

is that ok?and if i do it when i plug it in the usb louncher says no wfbs found need to format.so if i format,my pc dont reconize it?

yes exFAT 32kb and then format it with WBFS Manager 3.0.1 and add one ISO backup of your own and the Wii Loader will see it

 

[harsh.realm]

Originally bought a Western Digital Elements 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive to use on USB Loader and I figured, didn't need that big of a drive just for that.

I was fortunate my IDE Hard Drive Enclosure (Bought from COMPUSA a long time ago) was recognized by the Wii, finally making some use of my old Seagate IDE Drives.

 

[techker]

hey guys when i try to format it it says exFAT then you chose the kilobytes?

is that ok?and if i do it when i plug it in the usb louncher says no wfbs found need to format.so if i format,my pc dont reconize it?

yes exFAT 32kb and then format it with WBFS Manager 3.0.1 and add one ISO backup of your own and the Wii Loader will see it

thx!now i need to find out how to to a back up of my wii loader?lol

 

[jonas7611]

i did the command prompt WBFS format, added games, and now for some reason, when i plug it into my wii, boot up usb loader, the USB loader is telling me i need to format

Hi there, jad the same problem , try switching USB ports.
Hope it helps

 

[marisko]

I have a 160 gb WD Caviar ide hdd, but I need a compatible enclosure. Can you guys recommend me a good and cheap one? I live in Mexico, so I can only buy through ebay. If im not mistaken, any hard drive will function with this method right? Can I use any enclosure?

 

[Kratozero]

Si vives en Mexico, te recomiendo el Enclosure de Best Component, lo venden en la Plaza de la Tecnologia en el centro, es plateado y viene en una caja azul con blanco
Saludos

 

[UltraBro]

Hey guys, I have a 1TB External WD MyBook HD. I wanted to keep data for use on my PC, so I created a 20gb partition for the Wii Backups. Formatted it to WBFS, and installed two games on there. I'm attempting to using Loadstructor, and when I try to load a game, it doesn't find my External HD. Any idea?