Hacking Run Wii ISOs from SD card in vWii?

[doctorfedora]

herp derp I am an idiot

just gonna stick with actually running the games from the original discs instead of trying to get fancy in the end

 

[NWPlayer123]

It could just be a simple issue of the hard drive not being supplied enough power, try a Y-cable

 

[doctorfedora]

I suppose that's a possibility, though that HDD was hunky dory on the original Wii with just the single USB cable.

Also uh I am not 100% sure I even have a Y-cable around ^^;

 

[Zaide]

Pretty sure you need the games to be wbfs format, not iso. Google Wii Backup Manager, it should convert for you.

 

[NWPlayer123]

Also you don't just make a folder called "WBFS", you format the drive as WBFS, I use https://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/ whenever I need to do something with it.

 

[doctorfedora]

Right, but the main question here is mainly "how do I run the ISOs from the SD card?" rather than trying to run a WBFS-formatted USB disk.

 

[doctorfedora]

Oh, right. For the record, I've been mainly using USB Loader GX, which I am at least under the impression that it supports loading ISOs from an SD card.

 

[Jayro]

I prefer using Wii Game Manager instead of Wii Backup Manager, as it has more features. Also, the Wii U's usb ports have a lower amperage output, so using a Y cable is a must for USB-powered harddrives. Luckily, the harddrive I bought never powers down, so I don't have to worry about that issue like many others here do.

 

[doctorfedora]

the Wii U's usb ports have a lower amperage output, so using a Y cable is a must for USB-powered harddrives.

I did not know that! Fascinating. The downside is that I use the USB ethernet adapter, meaning that the back of my Wii U is already half-occupied. If anything, learning this actually makes me want to run games from an SD card instead even more than when I started!

 

[teogeo]

Also you don't just make a folder called "WBFS", you format the drive as WBFS, I use https://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/ whenever I need to do something with it.

This is not actually true.

I'm using a 16GB USB flash drive formatted into FAT32, created a directory "WBFS" at the root, and placed all my games as .wbfs files into it just by copying them from my mac. To get the wbfs files I used the WiiJManager application that converts ISOs to WBFS. Finally, you also need to name the games with their ID and not just some random name (e.g. SMNE01.wbfs for Super Mario bros Wii).

At least this setup works with USB Loader GX.

 

[doctorfedora]

Aha! Maybe that could be part of the problem — I have just whatever old filename(s) going on and that may be part of the problem.

 

[lwiz]

Also you don't just make a folder called "WBFS", you format the drive as WBFS, I use https://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/ whenever I need to do something with it.

All modern loaders support FAT32 and even NTFS. WBFS is pretty buggy and unreliable and tends to corrupt slowly over time in addition of other issues.

 

[doctorfedora]

Found a 16GB thumbdrive sitting around and put the .wbfs files into /wbfs/ on the thing, and plugged it in to the back of the Wii U. It doesn't hold all of the games I'd had on my USB loader HDD, but I kind of suspect it holds all of the ones I'm liable to care about.

Thanks, everyone!

 

[Jayro]

I personally run my games from an NTFS-formatted harddrive. I use the latest CFG Loader Mod, and have had ZERO ISSUES running games. FAT32 needs files to be split, and I hate doing that. Nobody should ever have to format a harddrive into WBFS format, and it should be avoided. Just use FAT32 or NTFS, and convert the ISOs to .wbfs files.

 

[Zaide]

Also you don't just make a folder called "WBFS", you format the drive as WBFS, I use https://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/ whenever I need to do something with it.

As others have stated, formatting to WBFS has not been required for a long time. I've heard NTFS works, but I use FAT32 and have no issues. Wii Backup Loader takes care of any file splitting for me.

But I am pretty sure ISO files need to be converted to WBFS file format before they will work. I've never heard of anyone loading ISOs directly.

 

[the_randomizer]

Also you don't just make a folder called "WBFS", you format the drive as WBFS, I use https://wbfsmanager.codeplex.com/ whenever I need to do something with it.

That format has been deprecated and most homebrew no longer supports it. FAT32 has always been recommended. The games that are >4 GB are automatically split and work just fine. I don't know what program you used, but WBFS is also unstable as hell. The games are WBFS format, but the HDD is FAT32. heck, WBFS isn't even supported on here anymore. That FS also breaks compatibility in many loaders.

 

[stomp_442]

But the thread title? Run Wii ISOs from SD card in vWii?

Last I knew, a WBFS formatted SD card is the only way to load Wii ISO games from an SD card. I've had a WBFS formatted usb hdd since 2009, no problems here, except I filled it up and ran out of storage space.

 

[tswntk]

No, you can run Wii games on a FAT32 formatted SD card, only thing is usbloadergx does not support loading from SD (FAT32 or WBFS), other loaders does, however.
You can run Wii as .iso too but since they are >4G, you need NTFS partition for them.

WBFS partition should be OK too, as long as you don't remove and add games frequently. But its outdated and not supported by any major OS (Windows, Mac, Linux). Wimm is the only tool you can use to maintain it. I think it has a limit of 500 games too.

 

[sj33]

I recommend trying a Y-cable first though. My HDD worked perfectly fine on my original Wii using a single cable, but my WiiU requires the Y-cable. The port presumably provides less power than the Wii.

 

[laz305]

This is not actually true.

I'm using a 16GB USB flash drive formatted into FAT32, created a directory "WBFS" at the root, and placed all my games as .wbfs files into it just by copying them from my mac. To get the wbfs files I used the WiiJManager application that converts ISOs to WBFS. Finally, you also need to name the games with their ID and not just some random name (e.g. SMNE01.wbfs for Super Mario bros Wii).

At least this setup works with USB Loader GX.

I'm trying to do this. What location setting do I have to change in loader to find the wbfs games in the SD Card?