How to play GameCube games off a USB HDD.

Welcome to my guide! This will teach you to "backup" your games that you TOTALLY legally own. Right?
This guide is completely compatible with Windows, Mac (Wine), and Linux (Wine). I do not have access to an Apple machine, but theoretically, it should work. Please note that this guide requires you to format your HDD, however you can still use it for storage after we're done, so just back it up before we begin.


NOTE BY A MODERATOR :

There are different methods to play Gamecube games off a USB HDD, and this outdated guide will only tell you ONE method.
It will not explain to you how to run gamecube games from USB HDD, but instead will tell you to do things blindly and install specific outdated files and use a specific outdated USB Loader version.
It doesn't cover other USB HDD methods or other Gamecube loaders.
Don't follow this guide if you want updated informations, updated loaders or if you want to use a different gamecube loading method.

You can follow it only if you want DIOS MIOS 2.8 (outdated) and CFG Loader v70 r36 (outdated).
Thanks for reading,
Cyan

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You will need:
-An SD Card
-A USB HDD
-Wii Mote
-GameCube Controller
-A Wii with Homebrew Channel installed
-A GameCube iso

Download Links:

COMPUTER:


1.) Download WiiFlow from the Download List above. Put it in the apps folder of your SD Card.

2.) Download the DIOS MIOS v2.8 RAR. Go to 'DM', then move 'DIOSMIOS_2.8' to the root folder of your SD card, or for easier installation put it in a folder on the root titled 'wad'.

3.) Download MMM, and put it in your apps folder.

4.) In the DM folder in the RAR, there will be a file named DMToolbox.exe, run it, select your games iso file, and choose where you want the game's folder to go (Desktop will do.). Hit 'Install', and the folder will appear where you wanted it to, it will be named the game's ID, which will, to you, appear to be a bunch of random characters.

5.) Download and Install EaseUS Partition master, and open it. Find your HDD, and right click it, and select 'format'. Format it as FAT32 with 32KB Clusters. *DON'T IGNORE! Press OK, and then "Apply".

6.) Look at your empty HDD, and make a 'games' folder. Put the folder with the Game ID in there.

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WII:




1.) Plug in your HDD in USB Slot 0. Turn on your Wii. Launch Homebrew Channel. Then launch MMM.

2.) Choose WAD Manager on the menu and install DIOSMIOS_2.8.wad

3.) After you're done, exit MMM. Launch WiiFlow.

4.) Go to Settings, and change game partition to USB1

5.) Press 'B', and select the Gamecube icon

7.) Choose a game and press Start. Every time you add new games, you have to hit the home icon, and hit update cache, and your game list will refresh.

Congratulations! You can now play GC games from your USB HDD!

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CFG USB LOADERv70 r36:

COMPUTER:
Follow steps 3-7 in the COMPUTER guide above.

WII:

1.) Follow step 3 in the guide above.
2.) Install DIOS MIOS using MMM.
3.) Launch CFG USB Loader.
4.) Click the icon with tools on it
5.) Set "DML Version" to DM.
6.) Launch your game!
 

DazzaG40

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Good job, i went ahead and reformatted the drive, and setup the first partition as FAT32 and the second as WBFS (I had read previously in the guide i followed that even though USBLoader supports FAT, it can still cause trouble, anyway thats not the issue).

Im transferring the games back onto the drive now, wish me luck. Thanks :D
 

DazzaG40

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Ok, after formatting that drive properly. The games run perfectly. Thank you so much for the heads up dude. Now USB Loader doesnt recognise the Zelda games but thats irrelevant as i can run them through Neogamma.

Thanks again :D
 

ryujose

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Otherwise not sure what to tell you. It's always some stupid little detail but you can never tell what it is.


Success!!!

IT *WAS* A STUPID LITTLE DETAIL. As it turns out, stupid EaseUS Partition Master wasn't partitioning with a 32k clusterf**king-size. Minitool let me actually do the 32k cluster size partition. It all happened after I read somewhere that EaseUs wasn't allowing to set 32k cluster size on the FAT32 partition. I originally figured it did it automagically. So anyway, thanks for giving me that link to r1204, that was one step in the right direction.

Windwaker, here I come!
 
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lwiz

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Easeus actually allows formatting with 32k clustersize, but that has to be selected from the formatting dialog. The max cluster size available depends though of the size of the usb drive although 4 and 16k clusters afaik work as well.
 

ryujose

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Does anyone know how to play 2 disc games?

I used DiskEx on 2 gamecube iso files: Resident Evil Disc 1 and Disc 2. It gave me two folders with the ID e.g. GBIE08 and GBIE082.

Usb Loader GX thinks they're both Resident Evil Disc 2. Had to remove GBIE082 from HDD to be able to play GBIE08.

Any ideas?
 

lwiz

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Copy the disc image from second discs location into the firsts and rename it disc2.iso. Then you can remove second discs folder completely and play the game. Pressing A on GC controller while disc change is asked for swaps the used images.
 

ryujose

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Copy the disc image from second discs location into the firsts and rename it disc2.iso. Then you can remove second discs folder completely and play the game. Pressing A on GC controller while disc change is asked for swaps the used images.

I tried that, broski.

USB Loader Gx only displays "Resident Evil Disc 1".
 

Maxternal

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I tried that, broski.
USB Loader Gx only displays "Resident Evil Disc 1".
GX will only show you the first one BUT when you start that one and it gets to a point in the game where you need disc 2 OR if you're starting a save games that's already on disc 2 it should swap disks for you.
 

therealthing

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Hi guys,

I finally just made my Wii able to load some ngc games. However, I still have a problem, which I didn't find any answers for yet.

When I load my game, and it asks me which memory card port to use, I select the one my ngc memory card is in which is the port A. And the game won't load my previous game files. It doesn't freeze, it just keeps searching.

I'm running with USB loader 3.0, and used MMM.

Does anyone have an idea?
 

Conmore

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Hi guys,

I finally just made my Wii able to load some ngc games. However, I still have a problem, which I didn't find any answers for yet.

When I load my game, and it asks me which memory card port to use, I select the one my ngc memory card is in which is the port A. And the game won't load my previous game files. It doesn't freeze, it just keeps searching.

I'm running with USB loader 3.0, and used MMM.

Does anyone have an idea?

Just to start, did you follow all instructions, and use all the right programs?
 

Conmore

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Hey guys, thanks for all the help and support! So today I learned DM 2.0 doesn't work with disc loading. So if anyone would be so kind as to test it with the same tutorial with the latest version of DM, and keep everything else the same, that would be awesome. I don't have access to my Wii at the moment, so just message me the results and a download link, I will update the tutorial, and maybe give it a renovation! Once again, thanks guys.
 

therealthing

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Nope...I only have this one, def jam fight for ny, and it's the only one I want to play with on the wii lol... But could be. I tried finding some other ones, but ain't easy.

I was thinking, could there be some sort of PAL/NTSC incompatibility? My machine is from Europe, so PAL, and the game might be USA...
 

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