Hacking Is there *any* advantage to WBFS drives?

[smf]

FAT32 has a special field at the start of the partition that holds the amount of free space. The problem is libfat completely ignores it and calculates the free space manually.

Apparently the field is wrong. I don't understand why it takes so long to count the zeros in the FAT though.

QUOTE(daveLoro @ Jan 22 2010, 06:41 AM) FAT32 is garbage. boooooo windows.. boooooooo microsoft. wbfs all the way. i have a 2 terrabyte hdd and its 10% fat32 and 90% wbfs... its just easier jeez. and i can use any friggin loader i want. both GX and cfg Suck big time gui wise. wiiflow is where its at boys.

wiiflow is slow and while it looks kinda stylish I find it less usable. It's open source, so because nobody has added fat32 support makes it sound like nobody cares about it anymore. WBFS is so restrictive, you can't ftp to/from it and moving files around is a pain.

Right now CFG & GX are only two loaders that are even worth bothering about.

 

[wiistarter]

I have just recently moved back to WBFS from NTFS (tried fat32 as well). My reason was that when I first boot the drive I had to leave it for 2-3 mins or USB loader wouldnt be able to load from it. The wii light would flash like it was some sort of read error. Also the games started to have brief pauses (not good for GH or RB games). Since going back to WBFS I can load games straight after the drive boots and no more read errors or game pauses.

 

[Pakatus]

wiiflow is slow and while it looks kinda stylish I find it less usable. It's open source, so because nobody has added fat32 support makes it sound like nobody cares about it anymore. WBFS is so restrictive, you can't ftp to/from it and moving files around is a pain.

Right now CFG & GX are only two loaders that are even worth bothering about.

Check your sources..
Wiiflow is alive and kicking.
Fat32/NTFS is being developed into wiiflow.

ftp? lol...you really ftp a 1 or 2Gb file from your laptop to your drive?

I use WBFS since day one...havent seen any reason to change. Slow time access? Not with WBFS...

 

[Gobnoblin]

isn't wbfs native wii format or somesuch... and it makes sense to keep it that way... it really doesn't matter if you have the tool to use it.... it is like the old ps2 hard drives that had to be loaded with a special tool and could only be recognized by that tool..... I didn't have a problem with that and I kinda like it this way too...

 

[Sabin_Figaro]

i find it easier to rip games using fat32 and converting them to isos for storage purposes, than using bloatware to extract them from those partitions

i like plug and play

 

[razorback78]

isn't wbfs native wii format or somesuch... and it makes sense to keep it that way... it really doesn't matter if you have the tool to use it.... it is like the old ps2 hard drives that had to be loaded with a special tool and could only be recognized by that tool..... I didn't have a problem with that and I kinda like it this way too...

hmmm...my thinking was like yours before oggzee updated me with the fat32 functionality of configurable usb loader. yes, wbfs could be recognized by any other loader available out there, but limits the use of the hdd primarily set to this format. since wbfs format is an unrecognizable format in computer os, disk maintenance is not possible. every hardware needs maintenance from time to time to extend its useful life. poor hdd maintenance leads to hdd failure/crash.

 

[mixinluv2u]

seems like a lot of trouble to format my harddrive to a different format, then re-rip all the games on there though.

the benefit of "being able to use the extra space for something else" doesn't seem like it warrants all that work/time.

 

[Gobnoblin]

isn't wbfs native wii format or somesuch... and it makes sense to keep it that way... it really doesn't matter if you have the tool to use it.... it is like the old ps2 hard drives that had to be loaded with a special tool and could only be recognized by that tool..... I didn't have a problem with that and I kinda like it this way too...

hmmm...my thinking was like yours before oggzee updated me with the fat32 functionality of configurable usb loader. yes, wbfs could be recognized by any other loader available out there, but limits the use of the hdd primarily set to this format. since wbfs format is an unrecognizable format in computer os, disk maintenance is not possible. every hardware needs maintenance from time to time to extend its useful life. poor hdd maintenance leads to hdd failure/crash.

wbfs manager has no maintenance tools? also has no one developed tools for wbfs maintenance ? and if not, with the move away from wbfs, is it too much to hope that someone would see the need to develop said tools? ( if its even possible).... if these tools existed would you stick with the wbfs ? ..... I guess I still play my hdloader ps2 enough that I am just used to using a different tool to deal with the drive lol

 

[happydance]

also still been using wbfs, i really gotten used to it like with the ps2 HDloader

i really wish there's a format at all developers will agree upon and just used that, it's quite confusing to have many format just to play a wii game when the format doesn't do much to increase compatability.

i believe there will be a time that wbfs will have it's own recovery tool, since ps2 also has it own format and not recognisable by many os it can still perform recovery methods.

i just keep it simple apps/hombrews goes to mu USB/SD and games go to my games dedicated HD with their own format and my personal files on my PC.

 

[prowler]

FAT32 is garbage. boooooo windows.. boooooooo microsoft

Windows uses NTFS

Your whole post was trollish.

 

[nIxx]

In my opinion FAT32 and NTFS support is more or less pointless especially because you need anyway to convert the iso to wbfs files or use some other tool to safe space so why not directly use a wbfs partition

.

 

[tj_cool]

In my opinion FAT32 and NTFS support is more or less pointless especially because you need anyway to convert the iso to wbfs files or use some other tool to safe space so why not directly use a wbfs partition

.

They can load directly from ISO files too

but you're right about the saving space thing

 

[Covarr]

I don't think that using a WBFS partition really saves space. Yeah, the games themselves take up less space than an ISO, but all the blank space on the WBFS partition is unusable for anything else, essentially wasted. Whereas if you use a FAT32 partition, being able to use all that additional space seems like less of a waste, even if it means the individual .wbfs files are a few bytes larger. Even on a drive used exclusively with a Wii (not being brought back and forth between Wii and PC like mine), you can put your old ROMs on the drive and use them with SNES9x GX and other emulators. For people with large or complete ROM collections, this is a huge plus, it's much easier than having separate partitions or (gasp) having to use two external hard drives with one Wii.

 

[luisgarcia]

Hi all,

I'd like to ask a question (have tried to search related topic but not found)

I know for NTFS format, we can't rip game or write any update to it. Could we load homebrew on NTFS drive? I've tried yesterday without success, copy the CFG USB loader at apps/usb-loader, try to launch using Homebrew channel, but it failed to recognize the HDD, I could launch CFG USB loader through SD and then play the games at NTFS drive.

If I change the format to FAT32, will everything resolved? I'd like to convert all my ISO to wbfs in order to save space.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Dr. Clipper]

If I change the format to FAT32, will everything resolved?

Yes, HBC should recognise your drive then. It can't read NTFS drives, which is why it didn't work before.

 

[OOPMan]

Personally I think both WBFS, NTFS and FAT32 are wastes of time. I really wish someone would sort out a proper ext2/3/4 driver which could be used in the various loaders. ext4 handles sparse ISO files just fine, has no issues with partition size and is also a lot faster and less prone to fragmentation than any of the M$-centric filesystem currently in use.

Seriously, why has no one done this already. Just because your windows pc runs a crap FS doesn't mean that your Wii has too...

 

[smf]

In my opinion FAT32 and NTFS support is more or less pointless especially because you need anyway to convert the iso to wbfs files or use some other tool to safe space so why not directly use a wbfs partition

.

Once they are converted then you can copy them to another drive without anything special.
WBFS requires you give the manager administrator rights & if you mistakenly select the wrong partition then bad things can happen.

QUOTE(OOPMan @ Jan 28 2010, 08:57 AM) Seriously, why has no one done this already. Just because your windows pc runs a crap FS doesn't mean that your Wii has too...

FAT32 is the lowest common denominator, you can read and write to it from anywhere.
Though you just need an ext4 lib for the wii and something that can give the fragment list to CIOS.
No other homebrew apps would support it though, so like NTFS it would be quite limited.

 

[luisgarcia]

If I change the format to FAT32, will everything resolved?

Yes, HBC should recognise your drive then. It can't read NTFS drives, which is why it didn't work before.

Thanks a lot, I think I'd rather format as one FAT32 as previously I have Fat32, WBFS, NTFS before but my Mac seems could recognize Fat32 partition only.

 

[Am0s]

quick question really for the people in the know I know its a bit off topic but anyway I got this 16gb no name brand usb dongle and can only add games on a wbfs partition up to around 3.2gb and anything after that anygame will end up loading a game black screen or reboot the wii, I tried fat32 but cfgloader just hung iutself, do you guys think its just a shitty usb dongle causing the issues for me, I played with the wii with cios and what not got everything from guides, just need a straight answer really maybe somone else has had this issue

 

[dexter222]

It seems to me there isn't 1 advantage, but many disadvantages.

Why would anyone still want to format their drive to WBFS??

WBFS is a relic soon to be a footnote in Wii storage history.

I'm sure some folks will continue to use it for sentimental reasons, but there are no significant advantages to doing so, only disadvantages.

To the person who used 90% of a 2TB drive for WBFS - what a waste! You DO know you can only have 500 files on it before you can't add anymore, right? You will never even be able to use a full 1TB of that partition, let alone 2.

WBFS was great for getting the ball rolling but was doomed from day one. I imagine that's why no one took updating it very seriously and why the efforts to develop WBFS+ fell flat on its WBFS face. The 500 file limitation alone killed it. Add that multiple partitions are required if you wish to use other types of files and it's pretty obvious WBFS is breathing its last, crackly, rhuemy breaths of life - well maybe not... there are still ppl who use 8-track, after all lol