Okay, so i tried a bunch of things to fix the initialization issue, and i did them twice to switch the ports around to see if it worked
I Tried putting a disk in the system while booting USB loader
I tried unplugging my (official nintendo) gamecube USB adapters because i read somewhere that things in the USB could interfere with the loader
I switched from loader IOS 249 to IOS 58 to IOS 250 tried launching from all of those while also switching the ports the Y cable was plugged into.
Reformatted that Hard drive and tried all of the options again.
Returned that Hard drive and bought a different one (same brand different model) after and did everything above all over again.
it doesn't work. it either hangs on Initializing USB or it boots up properly but doesn't read the drive at all. if i plug in the drive during the 20 second window everything works fine. But i don't want to have to plug and unplug the drive USB loader GX to load properly
At this point im convinced its just the hard drive giving me issues. somebody please...
PLEASE
TELL ME WHAT MODEL HDD THEY'RE USING SO I CAN RETURN MINE AND BUY THAT ONE TO TRY AGAIN. ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN THIS CONSTANT TRIAL AND ERROR TROUBLE SHOOTING. I WOULD RATHER PURCHASE SOMETHING THAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS CONFIRMED SUCCESS WITH.
this is the hdd I'm using for the virtual Wii: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339
it's never given me problems. I have a second hdd for the virtual wii that I replaced with that in case it fails. I've backed up the hdd basically, so it's on four hdds. I can't recall the hdd I used to begin with since I placed it in an enclosure. I think it was a 1TB seagate though. that's the exact hdd I replace it with.