Hacking Issue with formatting my USB drive on Wii U (Using Y-Cable)

[soniczx123]

I got an issue when wanting to format my External Hard Drive on my Wii U. I'm using an Samsung G2 Portable 640GB External HDD. I formatted the drive to FAT32 on my computer and it is recognized there fine. I then hooked it up to my Wii U with a normal Mini-USB cable. It was recognized by the Wii U but not formatted.

A few days later I get a Y-cable (Mini USB) and I hook it up to the Wii U (tried both ports) before turning on the console. I turn on the console and nothing happens, no detection, nothing. I even try to format it through System Settings, but that didn't work either. The HDD is getting power, as the you can hear the drive spinning and the LED keeps blinking (indicating read or write is occurring).

Could anyone help me? All help is appreciated!

 

[Reecey]

I got an issue when wanting to format my External Hard Drive on my Wii U. I'm using an Samsung G2 Portable 640GB External HDD. I formatted the drive to FAT32 on my computer and it is recognized there fine. I then hooked it up to my Wii U with a normal Mini-USB cable. It was recognized by the Wii U but not formatted.

A few days later I get a Y-cable (Mini USB) and I hook it up to the Wii U (tried both ports) before turning on the console. I turn on the console and nothing happens, no detection, nothing. I even try to format it through System Settings, but that didn't work either. The HDD is getting power, as the you can hear the drive spinning and the LED keeps blinking (indicating read or write is occurring).

Could anyone help me? All help is appreciated!

This might help it does mention in Nintendos guide to External HDD that you should use an external HDD that has a power supply to it, it might be the problem also they do recommend certain drives to use and also they do say that some makes may not work they are suggesting the ones that have been tested and confirmed working to use:-

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/...es/Compatible-USB-storage-devices-676063.html

 

[castdreams]

Does the Y-cable work on your PC? It seems odd to me that the Wii U could detect the drive with your regular USB cable, but not with a Y-cable. Makes me think the cable might not be working correctly.

 

[Netfreak25]

ok, you might not want to hear that but it is probably the hd drive...
...I had an ssd which is in a good condition/nintendo formated (and in use before), but after copying like 6gb onto it (with wup installer) it disappeared and never came back (re-plug/wiiu reboot) until I formated the drive with another filesystem on my mac (i just choosed mac hfs+, try ntfs for example) and then it was recognized again and I could format it again (on the wii u) but afterall I had the same problem. It disappeared. (not quite your case I know)
I changed the usb-case just to be sure, but had exactly the same results with the other case. I've tried like 5-8 times. (and the drive was always blinking, wasn't spinning as it was a ssd )
Then I tried my second ssd (same brand, same model, same size -> bought the same day) and it worked............... ..with both usb cases...
..not really sure what is up with that drive but my next step would have been to wipe it properly with zeros and look for an firmware update, in your case make sure to re-write the partition header

Good luck!

 

[soniczx123]

Does the Y-cable work on your PC? It seems odd to me that the Wii U could detect the drive with your regular USB cable, but not with a Y-cable. Makes me think the cable might not be working correctly.

I tried the cable on my computer and it wasn't detected, just gave power, so you can be on to something. Testing it on Dad's computer before deciding on returning it.

 

[Netfreak25]

I tried the cable on my computer and it wasn't detected, just gave power, so you can be on to something. Testing it on Dad's computer before deciding on returning it.

that would be cheaper