Hacking Seagate GoFlex with USB 3.0 problems solved

[hdhacker]

I always had success with the Seagate FreeAgent Go drives on the Wii. Now Seagate has introduced a new line of drives called GoFlex. They have a proprietary connector that allows you to switch interfaces (USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire, eSATA, etc.) by buying additional adapters. I bought the one that ships with the USB 3.0 adapter since it's supposed to be backwards compatible and happened to be on sale.

Out of the box, the drive will be recognized by all loaders. However, if you quit a game, go back to the Wii menu, and re-run the loader, the drive will fail to be initialized. I tried this with USB Loader GX and Configurable Loader. (USB Loader GX will be able to read the games on the drive, but will fail loading them. However, I have not attempted to downgrade any CIOS versions. YMMV)

The solution to the problem of the drive only working once is to turn off the sleep mode. After doing so, I was able to quit games, rerun Configurable Loader, and run another game. You need to install the "Seagate Dashboard," so be sure to back up those files before you reformat the drive.

 

[dexter222]

I never had to turn off anything and my USB goflex with USB 3.0 simply worked from day one

 

[hdhacker]

I should have specified that I'm using the GoFlex without an external power source. Which GoFlex drive do you have?

EDIT: dexter222, are you running your loader from a SD card by chance? See the next post for more info.

 

[hdhacker]

Okay, after further testing, I discovered an issue with the drive and its workaround.

The drive will be able to be mounted/initialized by a USB Loader and the various USB Loader channel forwarders on a fresh power up. If you then exit and attempt to reload, it may fail. Some programs cannot reinitialize/remount this drive and will give up.

The HomeBrew Channel is able to successfully rescan the drive after its initial use. No error is given, but you will notice a slight delay. If you don't want to use the HomeBrew Channel to load Configurable USB Loader, you can use the channel forwarder if you put the .dol files in the apps folder on a SD card. You can keep the rest of the files (e.g., covers) on the hard drive. The forwarder channel will run the SD card first. You will notice a message on the subsequent uses of the loader that it will have to retry to mount the hard drive.

I don't know if the native USB 2.0 adapter will make a difference, but I may look into it.

 

[Y314K]

Okay, after further testing, I discovered an issue with the drive and its workaround.

The drive will be able to be mounted/initialized by a USB Loader and the various USB Loader channel forwarders on a fresh power up. If you then exit and attempt to reload, it may fail. Some programs cannot reinitialize/remount this drive and will give up.

The HomeBrew Channel is able to successfully rescan the drive after its initial use. No error is given, but you will notice a slight delay. If you don't want to use the HomeBrew Channel to load Configurable USB Loader, you can use the channel forwarder if you put the .dol files in the apps folder on a SD card. You can keep the rest of the files (e.g., covers) on the hard drive. The forwarder channel will run the SD card first. You will notice a message on the subsequent uses of the loader that it will have to retry to mount the hard drive.

I don't know if the native USB 2.0 adapter will make a difference, but I may look into it.

Good info... Have a friend with the same problem... Did u ever test any other cables ??? I've been trying to see if other IOS:249 WAD's might work per a post at another forum but no luck yet...

 

[hdhacker]

Nope. I never bothered to buy a USB 2.0 cable. Everything seems to work well with a SD card, so it's not really a big deal. Still, I can't really recommend the drive since I'm sure there are others without this problem.

 

[PizzaPino]

my friend uses the 2.0 cable and it works just fine.

 

[Trigger911]

I am also have problems like this but I can load wiiflow from a forwarder but it does not see any of the games. I am using Fat32 and and a GoFlex 1 TB drive with a USB 2.0 Cable. I have also turned off the power management so it will not spin down .. I have also made sure my 1 partition is Active and Primary.

 

[atlanx]

USB-Compatibility:

GBATEMP-Wiki : USB Devices Compatibility List >

If the Device automatically spins down due to inactivity
Some drives are configured from the factory to automatically spindown after a set number of minutes of inactivity, which could cause issues. Configuration software is usually available to configure such devices to disable this feature.

• For Seagate FreeAgent drives download software here.
• For WesternDigital (WD) drives is the WD-IdleDisable-Tool available.

 

[vinzanity]

Just to confirm your theory wheter switching to USB 2.0 adapter works, it does. I had a friend who purchased a 1tb portable gflex that came with the 3.0 cable and he had all sorts of issues. He looked for someone who was willing to swap adapters with him (who of course thought he was stupid for direct-swapping without additional cash) and when he did, it worked like a charm. You could just buy a 2.0 adapter and keep the 3.0 one for PC use.

 

[MrKill]

Just to confirm your theory wheter switching to USB 2.0 adapter works, it does. I had a friend who purchased a 1tb portable gflex that came with the 3.0 cable and he had all sorts of issues. He looked for someone who was willing to swap adapters with him (who of course thought he was stupid for direct-swapping without additional cash) and when he did, it worked like a charm. You could just buy a 2.0 adapter and keep the 3.0 one for PC use.

Where could we buy a 2.0 adapter? I would like to try

 

[Crazer]

I always had success with the Seagate FreeAgent Go drives on the Wii. Now Seagate has introduced a new line of drives called GoFlex. They have a proprietary connector that allows you to switch interfaces (USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire, eSATA, etc.) by buying additional adapters. I bought the one that ships with the USB 3.0 adapter since it's supposed to be backwards compatible and happened to be on sale.

Out of the box, the drive will be recognized by all loaders. However, if you quit a game, go back to the Wii menu, and re-run the loader, the drive will fail to be initialized. I tried this with USB Loader GX and Configurable Loader. (USB Loader GX will be able to read the games on the drive, but will fail loading them. However, I have not attempted to downgrade any CIOS versions. YMMV)

The solution to the problem of the drive only working once is to turn off the sleep mode. After doing so, I was able to quit games, rerun Configurable Loader, and run another game. You need to install the "Seagate Dashboard," so be sure to back up those files before you reformat the drive.

Hi, I'm having the same problem. I've tried everything and have CiOS upgrades coming out of my wazoo. This loader that forwarder you name it I've tried everything, but I can't, for the life of me, find a USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 adapter for my son's GoFlex Ultra portable. Can you pleas tell me where to get one? And a pic of it would be good, if you can. Thanks.

 

[Ankur S]

I have the same issue with me, I have Seagate 1TB Go Glex drive which never spins down. I use that in my ASUS RT N16 router as NAS. To spin it down after a certain interval all you have to do is download the Seagate Dashboard, connect your drive to PC and set its idle time out as 10 mins (or anyvalue you want, for my drive it was defaulted to Never Spin down). Once done the drive will automatically take care of the spin down whether connected to PC or router.
This works for my drive. You can download Seagate dashboard by putting your drive serial no and part number in the Seagate support site.

No need for any USB 2.0 adaptor or anything.

 

[matt0620]

I also had the same issue with a GoFlex drive. I didn't have trouble using USB loaders usually, but the drive would rarely work with other homebrew apps/HomeBrew Channel, basically anything that used IOS58 for USB. I ended up replacing the adapter with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812226045

Haven't had any issues since.

 

[noabody]

I know someone is going to hate me for resurrecting an old thread but... I've been having the same problem with a FreeAgent GoFlex 500G USB 3.0, RVL-101 Wii on 3.4u, and latest Modmii setup. Nintendont was really glitching while WiiFlow and CfgUSBldr seemed to work okay. I ended up plugging a USB 2.0 hub into port 0 of the Wii and then the drive on the first of its four ports. Seems to run perfectly now. FWIW