Hacking QUICK/NEWBIE QUESTIONS here!

[tswntk]

1. Alright fantastic, I'll keep the USB HDD plugged into the bottom port / closest to the edge, glad to know its normal.

2. OK, no problems, I can change them to both use beta52, shouldn't be a problem.

3. I'm guessing I shouldn't try 'updating my wii' when I make a new network connection? What happens is, I use the USB Network Adapter for the Wii (WiFI doesn't reach), so I had to remove the wired connection from the main menu, whilst I was mucking around trying to work out which USB port to plug the HDD in. So every time I made a new connection it would pop up saying to update. I probably should of checked if the Wii needing updating before doing steps 1 to 5 (it was on 4.3)? Or is there actually an update that I should do / have done?

4. So installing App into the homebrew channel is basically 'not really installing, but copy/pasting the program into the apps folder' correct? I think that confused me a little at the start but I think I might also try USB Loader GX, I can have both WiiFlow and GX right?

5. WiiFlow 4 The Masterpiece Pack by Abz - I believe this is more updated/more features compared to the default WiiFlow (which I grabbed from the net). Only thing is, I have no idea how to install it or get it running, are you just suppose to copy/paste the entire structure/files into the main directory? If so, then all I need to do is remove my current WiiFlow directory from the apps folder correct?

6. I would prefer to keep the files in ISO format, that's why I wanted to use NTFS (>4GB limit) but I could just use one main FAT32 partition. It seems to be working with split partition (one as FAT32, one as NTFS) so I might just leave it this way for the time being, because from memory I did try Dolphin ages ago and it used ISO files, I can't remember if it ran WBFS files? But yeah when I use Wii Backup Manager then transfer to external HDD, it converts the ISO to WBFS so something to think about I guess, unless I don't use it and just copy/paste the iso into the wbfs folder, but I'm not sure if that works?

Once again, thanks for the help

2. some HDD just isn't compatible, but yea, 52 have better compatibility.
3. install priiloader and block updates. Priiloader provides some brick protection also. If you are on system menu 4.1 or later, there is no real reason to update and if you update via the official method, you will have to re-softmod your Wii.
4. thats right for both points
6. ISO are always 4.35G while .wbfs will remove garbage data from the isos. Some games can be shrunk down to a few hundred MB (animal crossing?). I have yet to see games not running just because of the .wbfs format. .wbfs and usbloaders work with FAT32 or NTFS but many other homebrews (such as Nintendont for GC loading) are NOT compatible with NTFS. You need to put the games into predefined folder structure and Wii backup manager will do that automatically via transfer.

 

[leftywhat]

2. some HDD just isn't compatible, but yea, 52 have better compatibility.
3. install priiloader and block updates. Priiloader provides some brick protection also. If you are on system menu 4.1 or later, there is no real reason to update and if you update via the official method, you will have to re-softmod your Wii.
4. thats right for both points
6. ISO are always 4.35G while .wbfs will remove garbage data from the isos. Some games can be shrunk down to a few hundred MB (animal crossing?). I have yet to see games not running just because of the .wbfs format. .wbfs and usbloaders work with FAT32 or NTFS but many other homebrews (such as Nintendont for GC loading) are NOT compatible with NTFS. You need to put the games into predefined folder structure and Wii backup manager will do that automatically via transfer.

3. Yep, I had already done that (block updates) but it still does show there is an update for the wii even though I'm on 4.3, I assume it probably just wont DL at all even if I did accept it.
4. Fantastic, much clearer now.
6. OK cool, we'll I might as well convert the game to WBFS to shrink size and I might as well delete my HDD partitions and just make one in FAT32, 32K cluster. For some reason I thought Dolphin Emulator only worked with ISO, so this is great.

Any ideas about point 5?

 

[tswntk]

3. Yep, I had already done that (block updates) but it still does show there is an update for the wii even though I'm on 4.3, I assume it probably just wont DL at all even if I did accept it.
4. Fantastic, much clearer now.
6. OK cool, we'll I might as well convert the game to WBFS to shrink size and I might as well delete my HDD partitions and just make one in FAT32, 32K cluster. For some reason I thought Dolphin Emulator only worked with ISO, so this is great.

Any ideas about point 5?

3. are you loading from disk? some games contains updated ios or whatnot. I think you can block that in priiloader too. You can also load disks with cios via usbloaders and that should take care of it. (I never need to worry about that, someone correct me if I am wrong)
4. oh, I forget about forwarders. If you want to start an app directly from system menu, you need to search for the corresponding forwarder wads and install them with a wad manager. Be careful when installing wads as that writes to system nand and a bad wad can brick your Wii (though that can be fixed with the help of priiloader unless you overwrote the system menu).
5. I never used Wiiflow
6. Dolphin supports wbfs loading.

 

[RR1917]

When trying to play Skyward Sword or The Last Story off of my HDD using USB Loader GX, the game inevitably ends up crashing. It usually crashes at seemly random times. I have tried re-installing them onto my HDD, but it yields the same result. Is there any way to fix this so it won't crash when I play those games?

 

[GreyWolf]

When trying to play Skyward Sword or The Last Story off of my HDD using USB Loader GX, the game inevitably ends up crashing. It usually crashes at seemly random times. I have tried re-installing them onto my HDD, but it yields the same result. Is there any way to fix this so it won't crash when I play those games?

Did you test the disc images and make sure they were good? You can use Wii Backup Manager or Dolphin to do it.

 

[RR1917]

Did you test the disc images and make sure they were good? You can use Wii Backup Manager or Dolphin to do it.

I only have a Mac so I don't have Dolphin or Wii Backup Manager

 

[tswntk]

Dolphin supports Mac OSX and and you can use WIT to check the isos but its a command line tools with many many switches - you may want to search for a GUI program for it. Don't ask me, I never have to use WIT.

Did you turn on Emunand Saves? Skyward sword is not compatible with Emunand and I have problem running the Last Story with Emunand until I switch to a fast SD.
How about the fragmentation level of these two games? Too much fragmentation will cause problems too.

 

[GreyWolf]

Dolphin supports Mac OSX and and you can use WIT to check the isos but its a command line tools with many many switches - you may want to search for a GUI program for it. Don't ask me, I never have to use WIT.

Did you turn on Emunand Saves? Skyward sword is not compatible with Emunand and I have problem running the Last Story with Emunand until I switch to a fast SD.
How about the fragmentation level of these two games? Too much fragmentation will cause problems too.

"wit verify <filename>"

 

[RR1917]

How about the fragmentation level of these two games? Too much fragmentation will cause problems too.

How do I check fragmentation?

 

[GreyWolf]

How do I check fragmentation?

Use your PC.

 

[RR1917]

Use your PC.

I only have a mac

 

[GreyWolf]

I only have a mac

Hmm... I think the only defrag tools for mac OS are commercial. Maybe Boot Camp or just copy the files off the drive then back again?

 

[ColdEagle]

Do I still need to use WiiBackupManager (or alternative suggestions welcome) to transfer any iso / wbfs files to be used with usb loader gx, or can I just drag and drop into the drive?

 

[tswntk]

you don't need Wiibackupmanager. But you need to put the iso/.wbfs files in correct folder structure (assuming you are using FAT32/NTFS partition:
usb:\wbfs\gamename [ID6]\ID6.wbfs

Wiibackupmanager will do that for you.

 

[PityOnU]

What ended up being the "standard" format for backup files? It's been a few years since I've looked into this, but I can remember 3 different types:

- .wbfs - an image of the "game" parition from the game disk
- .iso - a 1:1 copy of the game disc (lots of wasted space)
- .ciso - a copy of the game disc with all the useless (empty space, update partitions) removed

I want to standardize my collection and be able to easily check for clean rips.

 

[GreyWolf]

What ended up being the "standard" format for backup files? It's been a few years since I've looked into this, but I can remember 3 different types:

- .wbfs - an image of the "game" parition from the game disk
- .iso - a 1:1 copy of the game disc (lots of wasted space)
- .ciso - a copy of the game disc with all the useless (empty space, update partitions) removed

I want to standardize my collection and be able to easily check for clean rips.

wbfs files are the way to go unless you want ISOs. I don't think d2x supports ciso anymore.

 

[dimoandfinder916]

Hey im new to gbatemp and i dont know how this site works and stuff i came here becuase gbatemp seems pretty big from what my friends told me. So today i posting here about running my wbfs files from my sd card. I was talking to my friend a little bit ago and he was telling me that i could usb loader to run games from that i was like "it has usb in the title" and he told me to do it anyway so i did and guess what? big surprise i didnt read from my sd card ;( so now im stuck trying to find a way (3 hours) to play my backups from my sd card at. At first i thought this would be easy but nope. i was going through things and links wernt working and all that bull. so my friend told me to come here and ask (he just said gbatemp) so i came here and lucky i foud this tread right here. So is there any loader that will let me play games from sd card not usb flash drive becuase i dont have one and my sd card is 64gb. Please help me! btw i already installed homebrew and stuff im just stuck on games. Btw i was looking at something that like formated my sd to like wbfs and i already formatted it like 3 times today, but ill format it if i have too. but i also use this sd card for my phone and my 3ds let me explain to you my plain when i got the sd card. 1. get the sd card 2. take out micro sd card and put into my phone and install games to my phones sd card. 3. install 3ds files to my sd card like homebrew and stuff with the sd card in its adapter. 4. do wii thing. and yes im making this a multi purpose sd card thats why i dont format it to ~wbfs. My plan on making it multipurpose was to just take it out and put it somewhere else its been working fine untill here where wii the loader wont let me get games from a flash drive witch i dont have the 64gb sd card is all im getting for now, so if i have to format it ill just be formatting it alot to make it suit my phone and 3ds then when i want to play wii i have to format it again but i would really like it be where i just plug it up and it does whats it supposed to for that device. Thank you for reading its not that long once you get out all the details.

 

[GreyWolf]

Hey im new to gbatemp and i dont know how this site works and stuff i came here becuase gbatemp seems pretty big from what my friends told me. So today i posting here about running my wbfs files from my sd card. I was talking to my friend a little bit ago and he was telling me that i could usb loader to run games from that i was like "it has usb in the title" and he told me to do it anyway so i did and guess what? big surprise i didnt read from my sd card ;( so now im stuck trying to find a way (3 hours) to play my backups from my sd card at. At first i thought this would be easy but nope. i was going through things and links wernt working and all that bull. so my friend told me to come here and ask (he just said gbatemp) so i came here and lucky i foud this tread right here. So is there any loader that will let me play games from sd card not usb flash drive becuase i dont have one and my sd card is 64gb. Please help me! btw i already installed homebrew and stuff im just stuck on games. Btw i was looking at something that like formated my sd to like wbfs and i already formatted it like 3 times today, but ill format it if i have too. but i also use this sd card for my phone and my 3ds let me explain to you my plain when i got the sd card. 1. get the sd card 2. take out micro sd card and put into my phone and install games to my phones sd card. 3. install 3ds files to my sd card like homebrew and stuff with the sd card in its adapter. 4. do wii thing. and yes im making this a multi purpose sd card thats why i dont format it to ~wbfs. My plan on making it multipurpose was to just take it out and put it somewhere else its been working fine untill here where wii the loader wont let me get games from a flash drive witch i dont have the 64gb sd card is all im getting for now, so if i have to format it ill just be formatting it alot to make it suit my phone and 3ds then when i want to play wii i have to format it again but i would really like it be where i just plug it up and it does whats it supposed to for that device. Thank you for reading its not that long once you get out all the details.

Ok... first thing. Don't use WBFS partitions. Your games will end up getting corrupted.

USB Loader GX does not support Wii games on SD, only Gamecube games. CFG USB Loader and possibly Wiiflow do.

A flash drive might work but chances are you'll have to copy the games to it from a PC since they are prone to freezing while writing to them on the Wii.

If you want everything just "plug and go" you want an actual HDD formatted as MBR/FAT32. All games and homebrew support that. If you don't have a computer everything is going to be a lot more difficult.

 

[Jaldon]

How can I change (extract?) a Gamecube game.iso to two folders root and sys with files like opening.bnr, apploader.iso, etc. inside them

I'm not sure what the latter format is called so I'm having a REALLY hard time searching. Sorry if this is in the wrong thread.

Also is there a tool I can use to recursively unzip folders and then convert the isos in them to that format?

 

[banjo2]

How can I change (extract?) a Gamecube game.iso to two folders root and sys with files like opening.bnr, apploader.iso, etc. inside them

I'm not sure what the latter format is called so I'm having a REALLY hard time searching. Sorry if this is in the wrong thread.

Also is there a tool I can use to recursively unzip folders and then convert the isos in them to that format?

http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/619/ This tool may be of use to you. There is a setting in the options that you will want to turn off, but I can't remember what it was. Something like title.db. Your computer will probably think it's a virus.