SDUSB - The modern way to play Wii U games from SD - at full speed

Why?

​Even though the Wii U has a built in SD slot, it doesn't support using it as a storage expansion to store Wii U games (unlike it's predecessor). USB pen drives are notoriously unreliable and hard drives are bulky and require extra power or a Y cable, using up multiple ports. Today big reliable SD cards have become cheap. Since a SD is needed anyway for homebrew, it would be nice to use that too as storage for games.
There have been solutions in the past like Loadiine, but this had various problems, the biggest of them performance and is not longer supported by current homebrew environments (Aroma).

SDUSB

​SDUSB solves these problems. It uses a second partition on the SD card, which will be formatted to the Wii Us native file system and therefore run at full speed. The partition will show up as a USB device and can therefore be managed using the built in Data Management in the system settings. SaveMii, WUP Installers etc. all work with this, like it is a USB storage device. Also HAI (VC Wii Titles) work with SDUSB.
SDUSB does all that by patching IOSU (the OS that runs on the ARM processor). It is implemented as a stroopwafel plugin.

If you instead want to partition your USB HDD to use it for Wii U games and other stuff look here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-partition-use-partitioned-usb-hdds-with-the-wii-u.656209/

Prerequisites

​You need two things:
  1. a way to launch minute
  2. a reliable SD card
For 1. the recommended way is to setup ISFShax, for that we have a guide here: How to set up ISFShax
If you don't want to commit to installing ISFShax yet you can skip the "Installing ISFShax" step in the ISFShax setup guide and instead run it manually through the chosen exploit on every reboot.
Instead if ISFShax you can also use defuse, in case you have that already.

For 2. It is highly recommended that you use an Endurance branded SD card from a reputable brand. Since your save games will also be saved there, you rather want to spend $5 more then to lose all your save games because your cheapo sd card died. Also be aware of fakes, even on Amazon you can get fake SD cards...
The speed of the SD card isn't too important, as the Wii U is limited to 25MB/s (same as the internal memory) anyway. Every somewhat recent SD card should be able to get that speed. Choose Reliability > Access Time > Throughput.

Setup

Partitioning the SD card​

On Windows you need to use a third party tool like Paragon Partition Manager Community Edition, Minitool Partition Wizard or Easeus, on Linux you can use gparted.
You need to have two primary partitions on the card:
  1. FAT32 - (in gparted set lba flag). This is what the PC will see and all your homebrew goes (you should already have this)
  2. NTFS - This partition will be the "USB", you use to store the Wii U games on (don't assign a drive letter)
Shrink the existing FAT32 partition to make room and then create the primary NTFS partition after it. It's recommended to align the Partitions on 64MiB boundaries and use a multiple of 64MiB for the size. NTFS won't be the file system the Wii U will be using, it is just there to tell SDUSB which partition to use (it will pick the first NTFS one). The Wii U will later format it with it's own file system.

Installing the Plugin​

Get the latest wafel_sd_usb.ipx from here: https://github.com/jan-hofmeier/wafel_sd_usb/releases and place it in your ios_plugins folder. That is either wiiu/ios_plugins on the SD card or /sys/hax/ios_plugins on the slc. For slc you have to rename it to something shorter like sdusb.ipx

Using SDUSB

​If you now boot back up, the Partition shows up as a USB device, which needs to be formatted and can then be used as usual. After formatting the SDUSB, you can also connect an existing USB storage and copy stuff over.
sdusb.jpg

Known Problems

  • GC VC Injectes don't work when installed to the SDUSB (they still work from Internal Memory)
 
Last edited by SDIO,

Sailence

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HI, I read this and I'm trying to do some of the steps but I have a few questions if you dont mind me asking.

You mentioned the Fat32 part can store Wii and GC games, can it also be used for storing all homebrew apps and any other emulator like for nes, snes, gba, n64, ds, and others?

Can I use a Usb compatible with the Wii (Lexus Jumpdrive) and plug it into the Wii U and use that for Wii and GC games, or does it all have to be on the same SD Card?

Thank you.
 
Last edited by Sailence,

JonnyJeep

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For anyone who has struggled with getting the SD formatted correctly — the best tool for the job I found (that doesn’t block features or nag you) is Paragon Partition Manager Community Edition.



Back up the SD card contents onto your PC.

Then format to FAT32. Then resize and format the new partition as NTFS. (For example, my 128GB card was 20GB for FAT32 and the rest for NTFS). Change the NTFS drive letter to “None” and flag the partition as active. Once everything is complete, move all the files back to the FAT32 partition.
 
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Sailence

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For anyone who has struggled with getting the SD formatted correctly — the best tool for the job I found (that doesn’t block features or nag you) is Paragon Partition Manager Community Edition.



Back up the SD card contents onto your PC.

Then format to FAT32. Then resize and format the new partition as NTFS. (For example, my 128GB card was 20GB for FAT32 and the rest for NTFS). Change the NTFS drive letter to “None” and flag the partition as active. Once everything is complete, move all the files back to the FAT32 partition.
Thank you! Minitool was giving errors and was very slow and this worked like a charm!
 
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userbouy

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I'm having this strange issue in which the second partition doesn't show up in the system settings. I put the .ipx plugin sd/wiiu/ios_plugins/ and formated the second partition to NTFS (and removed the driveletter).
 

stephgobrr

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hi, i'm trying to install sdusb and now im trying to boot through minute w/ "Patch (sd) and boot IOS (slc)" and it complains about not being able to parse wafel_core.ipx..
i haven't installed isfshax yet as the guide here says i can just boot the system through minute every time, and the only plugins i have in ios_plugins are wafel_core, wafel_isfshax_patch, wafel_payloader (because of the aroma/tiramisu section on isfshax's gbatemp page), and wafel_sd_usb
Post automatically merged:

hi, i'm trying to install sdusb and now im trying to boot through minute w/ "Patch (sd) and boot IOS (slc)" and it complains about not being able to parse wafel_core.ipx..
i haven't installed isfshax yet as the guide here says i can just boot the system through minute every time, and the only plugins i have in ios_plugins are wafel_core, wafel_isfshax_patch, wafel_payloader (because of the aroma/tiramisu section on isfshax's gbatemp page), and wafel_sd_usb
well, somehow it booted now, but the USB is missing in system settings
 
Last edited by stephgobrr,

creedof69

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Sorry if these questions have already answers but.

Is isfshax like the bootmii of the Wii U ?
So is it installed in the slc when we choose "boot ios.img' ?

Is it possible to not install hax file in the slc, just in the sd card but make the Wii U boot normaly on official OS if booting without sd card ?

When we selected the fastest autobooting, "bypassing any autoboot configuration in the minute.ini" does that mean that SDUSB plugin is ignored ?

Is the "backup" section backup exactly the same as Aroma nand dumper do during the wiiuhack guide ?

I don't want to transform my Wii U to a black cmd line display at each boot and if I remove my sd card, and I fear to install things in slc folders ^^
 

SDIO

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So is it installed in the slc when we choose "boot ios.img' ?
you need to complete the steps in the installer after launching the installer with that.

Is it possible to not install hax file in the slc, just in the sd card but make the Wii U boot normaly on official OS if booting without sd card ?
almost, it will still apply some patches to iosu, to ignore the isfshax superblock (or else it wouldn't boot) and it blocks system updates.

When we selected the fastest autobooting, "bypassing any autoboot configuration in the minute.ini" does that mean that SDUSB plugin is ignored ?
No, the fastboot minute will still load the plugins from slc. It does exactly the same as the first option in minute.

Is the "backup" section backup exactly the same as Aroma nand dumper do during the wiiuhack guide ?
yes

I don't want to transform my Wii U to a black cmd line display at each boot and if I remove my sd card, and I fear to install things in slc folders ^^
If you put the correct files on the SD, then it will load from SD, not matter what you have on the slc.
 
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creedof69

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you need to complete the steps in the installer after launching the installer with that.
I asked that because I thought, if something not normal happen on wii u without sd card (typically the non boot black screen), it means the installation is in nand

If you put the correct files on the SD, then it will load from SD, not matter what you have on the slc.
I meant that I wouldn't want to be unable to use my Wii U if i remove my sd card since I don't want to install anything modified on the slc. (I always imagine the day I would make a factory reset)
And the warning which says that just restoring the slc with a backup will break something make me thing it installed on nand. I don't get what scfm is btw..

Because I must make the difference between "installing to the nand" (the hax folder to boot without sd card), and what I meant by "installing to the nand" during the first step of isfshax installer.

Ideally, I would like to not put hax folder on slc, but be able to boot the wii u normally if no sd is inserted as well, just like no hack is present.
I don't think is possible if the mean of isfshax is to tell the wii u to do something before iosU boot and the sd card even be read
 
Last edited by creedof69,

flo

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Hello. I installed all the modules and plugins also wafel_sd_usb.ipx to sd:/wiiu/ios_plugins , created the partitions, formatted the NTFS by a multiple of 64 but i still can't format the USB storage . Any ideas ? I did not install isfshax .
 
Last edited by flo,

SDIO

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If you don't use ISFShax, then you need to use the fw_img loader to load into minute to apply the stroopwafel and sdusb patch.
Go to the ISFShax guide and fetch at least the fw.img loader, minute and stroopwafel and put them in the right places on the SD. Then load into minute using the Aroma instructions in the ISFShax guide.
 

toxic9

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Is there any possibility to run sdusb patch using payloadloader/tiramisu or aroma; without messing up with install anything else on boot? Thanks
 

SDIO

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You can load minute through the fw img loader manually, like you would do for installing ISFShax, but that will get annoying fast.
 
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toxic9

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You can load minute through the fw img loader manually, like you would do for installing ISFShax, but that will get annoying fast.
Thanks for your reply!

So you mean the steps would be:
1- Launch 'fw.img loader' to run fw.img (this will boot minute menu right? )
2- Select Boot ios.img (This will load WiiU menu and apply sdusb on background)

a) There is no option to automate this proccess without installing ISFShax right?

b) Would it be possible to compile sdusb as tiramisu/aroma plugin in the future?

Thanks for helping.
 

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