Hacking Odd Seagate Question

[Blue Zoidberg]

So I've been using a dinosaur Western Digital 160GB drive with my USB loader (the thing is larger than and weighs more than the Wii) and decided to upgrade.
I got a snazzy new Seagate Freeagent Go 250GB for a really good deal.
I followed the guides on here (turned off the sleep mode &c) and formatted the drive to WBFS.
However, when I plugged the Seatage drive into the back of the Wii I got nothing but a quiet beeping sound. No activity lights but the drive is spinning.
I tried a power cycle but got the same results.

I know that Seagate is a reliable Wii compatible drive... what am I doing wrong?

-BZ

 

[zalman]

Do you have one with the double cable or single cable? It's possible to plug the former in the wrong way.

 

[dsfanatic5]

If you're using one of the newer cIOS such as rev14, you need to plug the usb cable into the correct USB slot. I can only describe it as if you lay your Wii flat (horizontal) and use the bottom USB slot. A common confusion about the Freeagent drives is the dual usb cable. The Freeagent should come packaged with a single USB mini to USB cable, which is all you need. Only the uneccessary dock station (sold separately), has a hard-wired dual USB cable, which even then you only need one of the two plugged in (the other plug is for power, but you'll find it works with/without). Here's my cut and paste advice I've used countless times before. I read up on this info before preparing my Freeagent 500gb drive, and I've used it to success on a total of three separate drives now. Hope it helps:

Install Seagate Manager software (comes loaded on the drive) to your PC. If for some reason you delete or can't find the software, you can download it on Seagate's website. Connect your drive, and let windows fully recognize it, assigning it a proper drive letter. Then use Seagate Manager to set the power saving/standby to NEVER (now your drive will never fall asleep or freeze). Download the free program Compuapps Swissknife, and use it to format the drive to FAT32. Download WBFS Manager 3.0 and install to your PC. Open WBFS Manager, plug in your drive, press "refresh drive list," and select your drive letter from the pull-down list. Then press FORMAT, to make your FAT32 partition into WBFS. I strongly suggest adding a game using your PC first if possible, so drag an iso into the right hand box and select add. Plug it into your Wii, pick a loader, and it should work perfectly with no spin down or errors.

 

[Blue Zoidberg]

As dsfanatic5 said, it's a single wire USB cable...

I tried partitioning and reformatting my drive to Fat32 again, downloaded WBFS manager 3.0 (I'd been using an aged 1.0 gui) and so on and so forth.
None of this alleviates the fact that when I plug my Seagate into either USB port I don't get an activity light and all I hear is a beeping sound (Seagate's error sound I'm assuming) from the HDD.

Do I need to maybe update my USB ports to 2.0 or something?

 

[retKHAAAN]

As dsfanatic5 said, it's a single wire USB cable...

I tried partitioning and reformatting my drive to Fat32 again, downloaded WBFS manager 3.0 (I'd been using an aged 1.0 gui) and so on and so forth.
None of this alleviates the fact that when I plug my Seagate into either USB port I don't get an activity light and all I hear is a beeping sound (Seagate's error sound I'm assuming) from the HDD.

Do I need to maybe update my USB ports to 2.0 or something?

Do you plug the drive in before or after you boot your Wii?

 

[Blue Zoidberg]

I've tried it both ways (before and after) and with both USB slots...
it works 100% fine on my laptop but not on the wii

This sounds dumb, but could it be a cable issue? I've heard stories that cheaper cables don't 'hold' enough power to fuel HDDs like this

 

[Teh H4rRy]

Has anyone else had sucess with a free agent drive? I have heard they do not work.

From a guide i used:
"Q: The USB Loader doesn't recognize my hard drive! How do I troubleshoot?
A: There are a few things you can do:

* If your drive has jumpers, make sure they are set to Master. The loader won't recognize drives that are set as slaves.
* Not all hard drives are compatible. Make sure that you test with a couple hard drives. Seagates are particularly bad.
* Try the other USB port on the Wii."

 

[retKHAAAN]

I have a 100% working Seagate FreeAgent Go 320Gb that I've had ZERO compatibility issues with over the past 3 months.

Could you give some more information?

- Firmware
- cIOS you are using
- Loader you're trying to use
- Preloader installed?
- BootMii installed?
- Method of last system menu update, ie...NUS, Waninkoko's updater...
- cIOSCORP installed?
- using the cable packaged with the drive? There have been issues reported concerning bad connections
- Are you currently able to use any other drives? Does your previous drive still work?
- Did you format all of your partitions as Primary and not logical? All partitions must be primary.

 

[aforgetit]

I have a fully working 250Gb Seagate Freeagent as well. Initially, all I did was turn off spindown and used WBFS Intelligent GUI V6 to format it and install games. Then I installed CIOS rev10 and used USBloader 1.5 to play the games. I was tickled pink that everything worked right off the bat. This is on a 3.2U Wii with Wiikey and HBC previously installed.

 

[Blue Zoidberg]

Alright, lets see here...

-3.2 (never upgraded/native)
-I have cIOS rev10 installed, but none other that I know of.
-I do have Starfall installed.
-I'm using the Customizable USB Loader
-Preloader is a no
-BootMii yes (unfortunately)
-My last batch of updates was to add the USB Loader, so Wanikoko's updater
-I have no idea what CIOSCORP does so probably not installed
-I'm using another cable not packaged with the drive. The cable works perfectly with my laptop but not the Wii
-As mentioned above, I can use my dinosaur 160GB WD drive without problems. I have also used USB sticks in the past.
-All partitions are Primary, Formatted to FAT32 then 'converted' to WBFS with WBFS manager 3.0 (kudos to whomever made that)

I'm not having an issue loading from the USB drive, I'm having an issue getting the drive to be recognized by the Wii in the first place :\
Maybe I just got a lemon...

 

[Heykrop]

It's possible that the drive is just not getting enough power. If the USB cable is a standard Type A to A mini then this could be the issue as I have the same problem with several 2.5" USB HDD's and enclosures. The only cure for me was that one of my enclosures had a cable like this.

Store LINK

It has an extra USB connector to supply additional power to the drive.

 

[Vergil902]

are you using the silver cable that comes with the drive? that cable is crap, replace it. that was the reason my 500gb freeagent go wouldn't work.

 

[dsfanatic5]

are you using the silver cable that comes with the drive? that cable is crap, replace it. that was the reason my 500gb freeagent go wouldn't work.

I use that "crap" cable for my 500gb Freeagent Go, and it works just fine for me. With the Wii powered off, and the drive plugged in, I can use the Wiimote to power on the system and the drive automatically lights up/mounts. I have read comment about the included cable before, so I guess it's worth a shot for him. It's really hard for me to recommend using the dual USB cable though, since mine works fine with the single, plus it occupies the other USB slot that could be used for other peripherals.

@Blue Zoidberg

Have you tried using other loaders such as USB Loader GX? I haven't tried Customizable USB Loader, but can verify my Seagate works with latest USB Loader GX, WiiFlow, and CoverFloader. Is your drive returnable? Could be something weird with the one you got, so maybe swap it for another if possible. I've only used the 500gb models, which might be worth the extra money if you can exchange it.

 

[grentuu]

I keep hearing about Seagate drives being particularly bad. It's garbage. I have set up 5 different wii's now all with Seagate desktop 250 / Go 250 drives all work great.

Going back to the problem. My drive has USB and sperate power cable (mains) Allegedly the drive is supposed to work with just USB, it doesn't, it doesn't pull enough power. If I plug in just the usb I can feel the drive spin but no power up. Once I plug the mains in its fine.

If you have no mains power but 2 usb's one is for power. 2 of the wii's I have done were this way.

The way I got round this was to buy a small 4 port POWERED usb hub (cost was under £5 GBP) and plug the power usb into that. This allows it to draw the power it needed. The only issue you can have is that you may need to unplug and replug the power usb cable just before starting your loader.

That works fine for me

 

[xbox1513]

Try booting up the wii first, then plug in the HD and boot up the program. I also ave a free agent pro 250 gb, and this is how i get it to work.