Hacking Questions about the state of Wii U

[Alexrose]

I have a launch Wii U. Never updated. I'm looking to have a Mario Party machine that can run all the Mario Party games.

1. I read that external usbs "shouldn't be used because they aren't big enough". In the Wii there used to be problems with external drives spinning down. Do external drives actually need power or can I just buy a 2tb thumbdrive and run my library off that. Does it need special formatting or just FAT32? Can I use one partition for Wii U, Wii and GC games?
2. Can I just use any third party GC Wii U adaptor that works with Dolphin/Switch to connect GC controllers?
3. Is updating to the latest fw and using Aroma the recommended route for a launch console or is there a better option for older models?
4. If Aroma is set up correctly, is it possible to navigate straight to your games with just a GC controller? e.g. on my Wii U I have boot2 bootmii and I simply navigate the hbc to gecko with my GC controller and can run melee off the disc with no need to plug in a wiimote or sensor bars
5. does that just work region free with any isos for gc/wii/wii u?

Thanks

Edit: Answers to my own questions

1. you don't need an external drive, you can just use an sd card with sdusb and have a fat32 partition (gc/wii backups) and an ntfs partition (wii u backups)
2. yes you sure can and it will work in gc mode
3. yes, use aroma
4. technically probably with Minute, I haven't done this, but I think it is theoretically possible to autoboot into nintendont's forwarder
5. yes

 

[Tofu_mommy]

I can only answer a couple of these:
1. It should be fine, the WiiU has a pretty low cap on read speeds anyway. As for partitions, the WiiU and vWii use proprietary file systems that they can format to. You can store Wii games on a WiiU partition using inects, which should work for most of the cases. If you want a single device with partitions for both the WiiU and the vWii, you can just use this: https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-partition-use-partitioned-usb-hdds-with-the-wii-u.656209
2. Probably, but I'd ask around. You can even just pair Switch controllers with Bloopair.
3. It's the correct approach regardless of the model. Just refer to this website: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/#/
4. Don't know if the IOSU dashboard supports GameCube controllers, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
5. It should work just fine. I have plenty of US games on my European WiiU and they work just fine. I'd be only worried about things like Korean Wii games not working.

Also, Just please plug in your WiiU every once in a while, as the flash memory in the systems doesn't like laying around. There are ways to fix it, but it's better to avoid the problem in the first place for as long as possible.

 

[core2lee91]

Personally i'd just forgo the hard disk entirely and use an SSD instead. Not for performance reasons as you're limited to USB2, more than it makes things like disks spinning down, power, Y splitter cables.etc no longer a thing. If you were feeling really brave, you could even have it internal to the system.

Regearing controllers, Bloopair really does make this a non-issue on the Wii U. You can basically connect any controller via the regular menus and it literally just works; it could be a PS4, Joy-con, Switch Pro or a Wii U Pro controller. I'd be surprised if yours doesn't work.

 

[GamerGatorDoesTech]

Also, Just please plug in your WiiU every once in a while, as the flash memory in the systems doesn't like laying around. There are ways to fix it, but it's better to avoid the problem in the first place for as long as possible.

This is only for certain models, and can be verified in WiiUIdent. I can't remember the name of the producer but it's in some sort of glitchy text. And a few Samsungs have gone bad as well. Can be avoided by switching to RedNAND I think

 

[Alexrose]

The benefit of using a USB stick is you can have diskless mods of Mario Kart Wii and SSBB that run their mods off the SD and therefore can't simultaneously get the bandwidth to run the game off the same SD. However if you don't care about Project+ and CTGP (you can run project M instead of plus through a WAD install and still get gamecube controller support and just keep a Mario Kart Wii disc in for ctgp if you want), I recommend using SDUSB too just install it all to one sd card and never have to plug another device into it at all. Works great with nintendont and wii flow lite.

 

[Tofu_mommy]

This is only for certain models, and can be verified in WiiUIdent. I can't remember the name of the producer but it's in some sort of glitchy text. And a few Samsungs have gone bad as well. Can be avoided by switching to RedNAND I think

Flash memory is bound to do it regardless, it could even happen to a fancy SSD in your computer. This is just a side effect of how it works.

 

[GamerGatorDoesTech]

Flash memory is bound to do it regardless, it could even happen to a fancy SSD in your computer. This is just a side effect of how it works.

yeah but that takes much longer