Hacking NTFS in USB-Loaders

[Screemer]

I know it has been discussed several times and wbfs got out as the winner most of the times.

the main argument was the support for 'scrubbed' games and their small file size. an other argument was the fact that the dip code for wbfs in the ioses is very small.

now libntfs got released and brought this old discussion back to my mind. at least the first argument could be solved with it's read/write support for compressed files.

maybe it would worth a look at the possibility of supporting ntfs again.

and armthehomeless, i don't want to hear how shitty ntfs is

€dit: edit to cut out the misunderstanding....

 

[WiiPower]

NTFS on usb loaders only because libntfs was released? If you don't even know that: 1. libntfs runs on ppc, while the cIOS runs on the arm and 2. have no idea how complicated ntfs is and how less memory you have available inside the cIOS:

Don't ask such questions.

PS: The selection: "Would be nice, but i doubt it's doable" is missing

 

[Arm the Homeless]

And the selection "[Another filesystem] is a much better choice."
Like ext2.

 

[Wiimm]

[X] ext2 is the better choice

 

[Screemer]

NTFS on usb loaders only because libntfs was released? If you don't even know that: 1. libntfs runs on ppc, while the cIOS runs on the arm and 2. have no idea how complicated ntfs is and how less memory you have available inside the cIOS:

Don't ask such questions.

PS: The selection: "Would be nice, but i doubt it's doable" is missing

i edited my post to make it more clear. i certainly know that but the release of libntfs brought up that question in me again. to gather the arguments again is why i started this thread.

sorry if it's pissing you of.

this thread started out to look like a bad idea. any mod could close it if he likes.

 

[nano351]

I don't see why not use a well supported file system like ntfs or ext2. Both would be fine because you could access your files via pc and also what's why can't the files be compressed another way like scrubbed + compressed and then the loader would decompress. I think it's kinda silly to use a proprietary file system because you have to dedicate a partition to games and you can't expand it or shrink it because there's no partition management programs for wbfs.

 

[Screemer]

the loader won't even have to decompress the the file. ntfs can compress and decompress by default. at least if the used implementation supports it. libntfs does support it but i don't know if it would be doable in the less space you have for a dip-module in a cios.

 

[Blue-K]

[X] ext2 is the better choice

[X] ext4 would also be a good choice (I think all the bugs are now ironed out...

) But if you want support for all OSes, you have to go with EXT2.

Anyways, what's wrong with WBFS? Even if it would be possible to add NTFS-Partitions, you still would:

-Loose damm much space because every game is 4.37 GB. Or:
-Need WiiScrubber that crops down the Files (I don't belive/have much faith in the whole "NTFS-Compress-Thing").

And for what? Only for acessing easely your ISOs? You'll always need an App if you want to save Space, and if you always need an App, then you better stay with WBFS Manager. In my opinion, there's just realy no need for this...and I'm not shure if someone will even have a look at this...

Edit: Looks like it isn't even possible...I think all should let this Idea die, please. Enough of it.

 

[nano351]

[X] ext2 is the better choice

[X] ext4 would also be a good choice (I think all the bugs are now ironed out...

) But if you want support for all OSes, you have to go with EXT2.

Anyways, what's wrong with WBFS? Even if it would be possible to add NTFS-Partitions, you still would:

-Loose damm much space because every game is 4.37 GB. Or:
-Need WiiScrubber that crops down the Files (I don't belive/have much faith in the whole "NTFS-Compress-Thing").

And for what? Only for acessing easely your ISOs? You'll always need an App if you want to save Space, and if you always need an App, then you better stay with WBFS Manager. In my opinion, there's just realy no need for this...and I'm not shure if someone will even have a look at this...

even if the file system doesn't support compression it doesn't mean it can't manually be done. Also using WBFS forces you do have your partition dedicated to WBFS which doesn't have proper partition management software for this to be ok. You can't resize it without losing data so your forced to arbitrarily pick how much of your harddrive you want to waste while you try and obtain more wii games. Also if they add ntfs support i doubt they'll cut support for wbfs. So either add support for ntfs or make a partition editor that will allow for resizing of a wbfs file system.

 

[UranusKiller]

ntfs can't be used in backups, use must have no idea about ntfs, or why wbfs has been solely written for wii!
I think most of you don't know nothing about NTFS or WBFS.
WBFS doesn't compress, only copies the files to the wbfs partition, NTFS driver can manage compressed files (not encrypted).
Wii scrubbing only fills with 0 unused disk sectors, so when you compress the iso then improves the compression.
WBFS only copies the files, not the sectors, is not an iso
When you extract an iso from a wii game you copy all dvd sectors, and the sectors that are emptied are also encrypted.
Files are encrypted, not compressed in original wii games.

Wii scrubber replace unused sectors by 0, then the compress program can compress the emptied space.
So a compress program is not going to compress.
I think this ntfs in backups isn't ever going to happen, and it's not needed, it's pointless.

nano351 yes, of course that would be ideal to have a wbfs tool which could resize, fix, or clean corruption on your'e wbfs partition, but such app isn't available, thanx kwiirk! ;-p

 

[Wiimm]

@UranusKiller: A very good explanation.

Such files with much zero bytes in it called "sparse files". And ext2 stores sparse files in a very efficient way. And this is not compression. The space needed on an ext2 partition is almost the same as on a WBFS partition. And this is also true while using the Ext2IFS driver for windows.

EDIT:
After coping a game from a WBFS partition to an ordinary file system it is also scrubbed.

 

[nano351]

Well all I'm getting from what you are saying is that wbfs doesn't copy an iso it just copies files that would be in the iso. So why can't we make a new file format that would just store all the files and make a simple converter program?

 

[Screemer]

that's exactly what wbfs and the wbfs-manager programms do.

 

[Arm the Homeless]

[X] ext2 is the better choice

[X] ext4 would also be a good choice (I think all the bugs are now ironed out...

)

No, ext2 is a better choice.

We don't need journaling and tons of other features for only loading backups off a USB drive.

 

[nano351]

Why not just add support for multiple file systems. no need to limit purely to one file system.

 

[xzxero]

NTFS support would be pointless, let USB loaders stick to WBFS and add NTFS support to other homebrew like snes9xgx and whatnot.

 

[cyrex]

NTFS Support for homebrews that tend to crash from time to time (and backup launchers do that pretty often, even if you just don't have the right settings for the game you wanna play set you end up in a black screen and have to power off and on the wii manually a couple times) because of the one simple reason. The port of NTFS 3G has some issues with the journaling and you will end up with a fucked up filesystem.

NTFS-3G only supports partial journaling, so unexpected crashes or power loss can leave the file system in an inconsistent state. The only way to (correctly) fix it is to boot into Windows and let NTFS replay the journal; However, in most suitations (read: it is not 100% guaranteed) this is not required and the file system can be remounted without problem. In suitations where there has been heavy disc activity prior to the crash or power loss it is recommended you let Windows replay the journal before remounting with libntfs in order to prevent possible data lose and/or corruption.

Read more carefully the stuff you find on the internet before you start a poll.

 

[w_n_s]

NTFS Support for homebrews that tend to crash from time to time (and backup launchers do that pretty often, even if you just don't have the right settings for the game you wanna play set you end up in a black screen and have to power off and on the wii manually a couple times) because of the one simple reason. The port of NTFS 3G has some issues with the journaling and you will end up with a fucked up filesystem.

NTFS-3G only supports partial journaling, so unexpected crashes or power loss can leave the file system in an inconsistent state. The only way to (correctly) fix it is to boot into Windows and let NTFS replay the journal; However, in most suitations (read: it is not 100% guaranteed) this is not required and the file system can be remounted without problem. In suitations where there has been heavy disc activity prior to the crash or power loss it is recommended you let Windows replay the journal before remounting with libntfs in order to prevent possible data lose and/or corruption.

Read more carefully the stuff you find on the internet before you start a poll.

Yeah, i'm of the opinion, why spoil a bad thing.

The fact that we even have USB loaders is amazing. Fair enough it requires a custom file system.

It would be nice to see it added, but at the cost of wasting time on other useful things, then it'd be low on my list TBH .

 

[UranusKiller]

NTFS Support for homebrews that tend to crash from time to time (and backup launchers do that pretty often, even if you just don't have the right settings for the game you wanna play set you end up in a black screen and have to power off and on the wii manually a couple times) because of the one simple reason. The port of NTFS 3G has some issues with the journaling and you will end up with a fucked up filesystem.

NTFS-3G only supports partial journaling, so unexpected crashes or power loss can leave the file system in an inconsistent state. The only way to (correctly) fix it is to boot into Windows and let NTFS replay the journal; However, in most suitations (read: it is not 100% guaranteed) this is not required and the file system can be remounted without problem. In suitations where there has been heavy disc activity prior to the crash or power loss it is recommended you let Windows replay the journal before remounting with libntfs in order to prevent possible data lose and/or corruption.

Read more carefully the stuff you find on the internet before you start a poll.

Yeah, i'm of the opinion, why spoil a bad thing.

The fact that we even have USB loaders is amazing. Fair enough it requires a custom file system.

It would be nice to see it added, but at the cost of wasting time on other useful things, then it'd be low on my list TBH .

have you questioned yourself why kwiirk hadn't chose NTFS? why he hadn't chose ext FS's, I mean he could of possibly ported these, so why did he choose to write his own 'WBFS' a custom FS? interesting....
Not only this but by the sounds of it, ext FS could be ported to the wii with not too much work as said by svpe. But I don't know. Your'e best off sticking with WBFS, use a manager, yes you/we could benefit with a partition manager that supports the wbfs, which could resize the drive without corrupting it, but it isn't out there, or nobody want's/needs to write one.

 

[kerrigan]

as i see it the option to have NTFS far outweighs the option not to. so what if you need more space to store games so what if it isn't as stable as other FS or if it isn't as "good" as WBFS. if you have support for both you give the user a choice, more space and a FS designed to do its job at the expense of management, control and friendliness OR less space and a FS that can do the job with slight drawbacks but is user friendly and can be managed by a high majority of computers. so by adding support those who bum WBFS can continue to orgasm at the thought of it being specifically tailored for playing backups whilst those who want a less complicated more simplistic way of just putting the game an a HDD and not needing to format half of their drive then repartition their drive and format again to make more space can use NTFS. its a win win.